Two World War II planes will tomorrow fly over Malta, probably for the last time, as they take off to return home to Britain.
Englishman Clive Denney strongly believes this will be Malta's final goodbye to the 60-year-old Hurricane and Spitfire. Certainly, he will not be the one to bring them over again.
"It is too big an exercise to repeat and once you've done it once, the impact will never be the same," he told The Times.
Together with his wife Linda and son Glenn, Mr Denney has been toiling for the past two years to organise the return of the two planes. The family set up Merlins Over Malta - The Defenders Return To Malta to bring over the planes.
Although there is both a Hurricane and a Spitfire at the aviation museum in Ta' Qali, these do not fly and, according to the vintage-plane enthusiast, unfortunately they never will.
"This is the first time a Hurricane has flown over Malta since 1943," he said.
Mr Denney stands proudly next to the 64-year-old Hurricane. Together with the Spitfire, it has taken war veterans - who were in Malta over the past week for the Battle of Malta reunion - back in time to when they served in Malta during the war.
More than 300 veterans and their carers came all the way from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Jersey, New Zealand and the United States and saw the two authentic planes flying above the Grand Harbour last Thursday.
For Mr Denney, the flypast over Grand Harbour was "magical".
"Now that I have done this, I can grow old with the knowledge that I have been the last person to fly a Hurricane over Malta. It was a great privilege."
A successful flypast was what he has been hoping for all along, while funds trickled in. He thinks the cost of bringing the two planes to Malta - a staggering £100,000 - has "just about" been covered.
There have been disappointments along the two-year road which brought the two fighters to Malta. Some financial supporters backed off at the last minute and "a lot of things" that the Merlins Over Malta were promised never materialised.
"But the most important thing is that we managed to bring them over successfully."
His biggest fear was that they would not be able to arrive in time for Thursday's flypast and from the very start things did not look sunny. The "strenuous flight" started off with a diversion even before the planes had crossed the English Channel.
"We had to go back to England because of bad weather and there were a few other diversions along the way," Mr Denney said of the journey that started from Duxford, Cambridgeshire.
Mr Denney's love for planes was sparked off when as a child he started building models of the beloved planes he now flies. Although he has flown new planes as well, he prefers the older ones.
"Mostly I fly planes that are older than I am. The new planes have no character, while these do... they have soul. The newer planes are just pieces of machinery. These talk to me, they ask me to treat them gently."
"She's just like a beautiful lady," Mr Denney smiled as he fondly patted the green and brown-painted Hurricane, which he describes as "the work horse of battle".
His 23-year flying experience has not always been plain sailing and four years ago he had a close shave with death while flying a World War II American training aircraft when he crashed on take off at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford.
Mr Denney lost consciousness but was dragged out of the plane to safety by the back seat passenger, aviation photographer Philip Makanna.
Why does he still fly after that accident?
"It is like falling off a horse; you still get back on," he says by way of explanation, shrugging his shoulders.
The Hurricane and the Spitfire were painted for the occasion to represent the planes that used to fly over Malta during the war. The Hurricane had been stationed in Canada while the Spitfire was flown over Europe by Polish pilots. Both planes are owned by the UK's Historic Aircraft Collection.
There are 12 flying Hurricanes and 52 flying Spitfires in the world.