A warm welcome awaits visitors to MAPSL.
On arrival, as you enter the visitors' entrance door, a volunteer will welcome you and provide a briefing for your visit.
Here you will find a gift shop offering a selection of gifts, souvenirs, and even collectable still-in-box Airfix models that would be hard to find elsewhere (if at all)! Interpretation boards provide visitors with information on the MAPSL and their restoration projects.
There is no charge for admission, but donations are very welcome.
Entrance to MAPSL
Short Scion in the workshop
View of the Workshop
Many restoration projects have been completed at the workshop over the years, from the Spitfire and Hurricane on view at 'The Spitfire and Hurricane Memorial Museum', Manston, through several other warbirds for the ‘RAF Museum’ to the Mark XVI Spitfire now on display at ‘The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery’, Stoke-on-Trent, plus other treasured historic items in need of restoration from private collectors.
The latest project currently taking place in the hangar workshop is the restoration of a Short S16 Scion II aircraft, which was designed in 1933 by the Shorts Brothers as a small twin-engine 4-6 passenger transport.
Originally built at Rochester as a floatplane and destined for service in Sierra Leone, West Africa with Elders Colonial Airways, the Scion was stored in a hangar at the airport where it suffered bomb damage during the War in 1940. It was converted to a landplane and used as a communication aircraft, returning to civilian life, flying occasionally until 1953.
After being decommissioned, the aircraft was left to rot behind a hangar in Southend. After forty years, some restoration work was undertaken locally, before it was moved to Redhill.
MAPSL purchased the Scion from Redhill and secured a substantial grant from The Rochester Bridge Trust to enable the restoration to commence. The aircraft is still being restored in their Rochester workshop.
Other projects on the go in the workshop include a Rochester built, Pobjoy Niagara III engine (for the Scion) and two trolley accumulators for Merlin engines, for two separate clients.
MAPSL is a not-for-profit company, which is comprised of volunteers from the Medway branch of the Royal Aeronautical Society, founded in 1938 under the Shorts Brothers.
MAPSL volunteers are a dedicated and passionate group of highly skilled engineers and mechanics who work on the restoration of aircraft that would have been scrapped.
The company does rely on donations, grants and appreciates any assistance given.
Visit MAPSL website for details on when to visit and/or getting involved in aircraft restoration projects.
The latest restoration project has arrived at MAPSL.
The skeletal shell of the Second World War aircraft, which was transported from the UK to Russia in 1942, has been delivered to Medway Aircraft Preservation Society's (MAPS) workshop.
Hawker Hurricane IIB BH238 was originally manufactured by Gloster Aircraft Company at Brockworth in Gloucestershire in early 1942, as part of a batch numbered BH215 to BH264.
For more information on this project, click here.
Address
Medway Aircraft Preservation Society (MAPSL) Medway Aircraft Preservation Society, Rochester Airport, Maidstone Road, Rochester ME5 9FD
Contact
Links
Sunday, Monday & Wednesday - 9.30am-12.30pm; Monday evenings 7-9pm
