As it reopens for the season, the team behind Sandown's Wight Aviation Museum are continuing with their bid to raise funds to buy an historic aircraft - the last Three-seater Spartan II to have been built at Somerton, in Cowes, in the 1930s.

The privately-owned plane is currently in New Zealand, but there is a long-standing hope to bring it back to the Island, where it would become a centrepiece display, to encourage young people into aviation.

Given the registration number of G-ABYN ('Gabby') and serial number 102, it is the last of its type and engine.

In the meantime, the museum at Sandown Airport is now open between Saturday and Tuesday, from 10am to 3pm, until the end of October.

Isle of Wight County Press: High Sheriff, Dawn Haig-Thomas, second left, on reopening day at Wight Aviation Museum.High Sheriff, Dawn Haig-Thomas, second left, on reopening day at Wight Aviation Museum. (Image: Wight Aviation Museum)Isle of Wight County Press: High Sheriff, Dawn Haig-Thomas, second left, on reopening day at Wight Aviation Museum.High Sheriff, Dawn Haig-Thomas, second left, on reopening day at Wight Aviation Museum. (Image: Wight Aviation Museum)

To mark the occasion, High Sheriff, Mrs Dawn K Haig-Thomas, was given a tour of the venue and even got a chance to take control of a Beagle Bulldog aircraft, using the very latest in VR technology, for a "virtual flight" around the Island.

By contrast, the historic Spartan model is an much-dreamed-of future addition because designs, culminating in the Three Seater Spartan II, attracted some trail-blazing owners.

Among those to be linked to the model was Isle of Wight-born Joan Broadsmith, daughter of Harry Broadsmith, himself the managing director of East Cowes-based marine and aviation manufacturer, Saunders Roe.

For her part, Joan learned to fly at Sandown airport.

Joan's instructor, Hungarian pilot, Count Adam Karolyi, with whom she became romantically involved, was killed in a crash in Sandown, while teaching.  In the 1930s, Joan was the first woman at the Isle of Wight branch of the government's Civil Air Guard to gain her flying licence.

Ventnor's Nancy Crinage was the first Island woman to enrol in the Isle of Wight Civil Air Guard and also completed the first solo flight. Later, the Spartan pilot married Paul Leyton, who became chief rocket development engineer at Saunders Roe.

Famous friends, authors and pilots, Pauline Gower and Dorothy Spicer co-owned a three-seater Spartan, called Helen of Troy. Together, the pair started the flying business, Airtrips after gaining a licence to carry passengers. Their trailblazing efforts featured in a 1931 British Pathé film, called A Really New Occupation for Eve.

Dorothy Spicer worked at the Spartan factory in Cowes and went on to gain engineering qualifications that were ground-breaking, both for women, because there was a strict men-only rule at the time, and the aviation industry.

Meanwhile, Helen of Troy was involved in a collision at an air show, leaving Pauline badly injured. Fortunately, she recovered and continued her career as a pilot, using her connections to encourage women to follow in her footsteps.

She also set up the women's branch of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA).

Isle of Wight County Press: Pilots Dorothy Spicer and Pauline Gower, with a 1930s SpartanPilots Dorothy Spicer and Pauline Gower, with a 1930s Spartan (Image: Michael Fahie)

Other Spartan owners included Joan Hughes, who started flying aged just 15 years old and co-owned her plane with Neville Browning, aged just 17. Later, she flew as a stunt pilot, in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, The Blue Max and Thunderbird 6.

Lady Dorothy Clayton East-Clayton used her Three Seater Spartan II, along with Lt Cdr Dickie Raundall, on a mission to find the lost valleys of Zerzura. She and her husband, Sir Robert, inspired characters in Isle of Wight director Anthony Minghella's film of the Michael Ondaatje novel, The English Patient.