The recent inauguration of the main exhibition hangar at the Malta Aviation Museum in Ta’ Qali was a red-letter day that saw the fulfilment of a 17-year-old dream of its director general, Ray Polidano.

The museum was born in Mr Polidano’s home garage when he started rebuilding a Mark IX Spitfire aircraft that had served in Malta and Italy during World War II. Eventually, the Malta Aviation Museum Foundation was set up and was housed in the back section of a Romney hut on the disused fighter airfield at Ta’ Qali.

Since then, the foundation has never looked back and over the past 15 years it acquired from the government the lease of two Romney huts and the adjacent land on which two new hangars were built: the Air Battle of Malta Memorial Hangar – which houses the rebuilt Spitfire and a restored Hurricane, salvaged from the depths of the sea near Filfla, and other World War II memorabilia – and the new main hangar.

Donations of whole aircraft, cockpit sections, aero engines and other parts from foreigners and Maltese put exhibition space at a premium and the need of a hangar large enough to house all these historical relics had long been felt. It was thanks to the substantial assistance within the framework of the European Regional Development Fund that the construction of the new hangar was made possible. It will now house a variety of post-World War II fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and cockpit sections.

The inauguration ceremony was preceded by a flypast and an aerobatic display by the museum’s own restored Tiger Moth. After President George Abela declared the hangar open, a fanfare by a detachment of Armed Forces of Malta trumpeters heralded two low flypasts by the Royal Air Force Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s DC 3, Dakota.