The British Navy was already testing drones in Malta in the late 1950s

CANBERRA AT MALTA FOR GUIDED MISSILE TRIALS. JUNE 1961, ROYAL NAVAL AIR STATION HAL FAR, MALTA. (A 34464) The first Canberra U Mk 10 jet plane, which will be used as a pilotless drone aircraft in the Seaslug guided missile trials from HMS GIRDLE NESS later in 1961. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205164501

In 1955 the British Admiralty made a request to the Maltese government, then led by Prime Minister Dom Mintoff to extend the runway at Ħal Far to test what they called back then “pilotless aircraft” and “(drones)” in brackets. Mintoff had consented to this request as long as the Navy built a road to Għar Ħasan. There is also a photo online of one of these drones in the Navy’s archive which I am reproducing above according to their open license. Below are some of the documents about the preparations of these tests from the UK National Archives.


3 Comments

  1. Pilotless drones have been used by the Navy way back to the late 1930s at least in Malta.

  2. Interesting piece this. Stealth technology and cloaking was developed in the UK by private industry upon request by the MOD in the 60s. The American F-117 was the end result of years of development in the fields of materials and mathematics. The military is always years ahead in what we perceive as latest tech. Having said this the issue of UAPs is something else. These cannot be advanced human technology. They have been reported back in WW2.

Leave a Reply