Aviation museum is the place for Faith

I have read with great alarm the letter by Pierre Cassar, who is the corporate manager communications of Heritage Malta, seeking to justify the retention by the War Museum of what may be called the hulk of the wartime Gloster Gladiator Faith. The views are so wayward that in fairness they must be attributed to inexperienced individuals, not to a prestigious body as Malta Heritage.

None of the assertions in the letter hold ground. I suggest readers visit The Times of Malta website to read the comments on his letter. His statements have been shot down quicker than the first Gladiator to be lost over Malta in 1940.

The aircraft is in a bad state and Mr Cassar's claim that there is nothing basically wrong with the exhibit is just a smoke screen.

Also to state that "such relics should not be brought back to their former glory" is mind boggling. The exhibits in such museums as the Imperial War Museum in London, the aircraft displayed in aircraft museums in the United Kingdom, in the United States, including the Smithsonian in Washington, in the Soviet Union, and all over the world are displayed after restoration. I would presume Mr Cassar, visiting Portsmouth, would prefer to see HMS Victory not to be periodically restored or HMS Warrior just an iron hulk. How wrong can one be - and a senior official of Heritage Malta to boot!

The letter is a crass example of sheer arrogance by some individual or individuals who are abusing their brief when they take it upon themselves to decide the future of Faith. Mr Cassar rightly states that "the Gloster Sea Gladiator belongs to the nation," which is why in the overwhelming view of vox populi it should be placed in the care of the Malta Aviation Museum Foundation to be restored to a state where future generations will be able to admire what it looked like in its heyday.