Skip to main content
Contact us Submit an event listing
Visit Medway Web Logo Visit Medway
  • Plan Your Visit
    • Travelling to Medway
    • Itinerary Ideas
    • Attraction Listings
    • What's On Event Listings
    • Car Free Days around Medway
    • Places to Stay
    • Accommodation
    • Hotels
    • Bed & Breakfast
    • Self-catering and Holiday Park
    • Support Services for Visitors & Coach Groups
    • Parking in Medway
    • Weather and Tide Times
    • Medway's Breathtaking Wedding Venues
  • Things To Do
    • Our Destinations
    • Find Attractions
    • Dickensian Medway
    • Castles and Forts
    • Military and Maritime
    • Natural Landscape & Open Spaces
    • River Medway
    • Houses of History
    • Get Active
    • Rochester Castle
    • Rochester Cathedral
    • Eastgate House & Gardens
    • Guildhall Museum
    • The Historic Dockyard Chatham
    • Upnor Castle
    • Royal Engineers Museum
    • Medway Aircraft Preservation Society
    • Wings Over the River Medway
    • Fort Amherst
    • Huguenot Museum
    • The Lena Kennedy Shack
    • Shopping & Markets
    • Food & Drink
    • Blogs & Features
    • Events, shows & exhibitions
    • River trips
    • Walking tours
    • Costumed Guided Tours
    • The Rochester Trail
  • What's On
    • What's On in 2025
    • Call the Midwife Official Tour 2025
    • Rochester Sweeps Festival 2025

    Armed Forces Day at the Historic Dockyard Chatham coming this June

    DSCF5390

    Click here for a full list of festivals & events in Medway.

    • Medway's Major Events
    • Submit an event listing
    • What's on at the Theatres
  • Cultural & Creative
    • Medway Arts Tours - Costumed Character Tours
    • Stephen Moriarty Artist - Costumed Tours of Rochester
    • The Central Theatre
    • The Riverside Gallery at Sun Pier House
    • Halpern Pop Gallery
    • Nucleus Arts Chatham
    • Intra Arts Chatham
  • Itinerary Ideas
    • Medway's Breathtaking Wedding Venues
    • Medway's Military Marvels
    • Magnificent Craft Ales & Micropubs
    • Car Free Days around Medway

    Check out our blogs and features for itinerary ideas and inspiration

    • Dickensian Medway
    • History & Heritage
    • Castles & Forts
    • Military & Maritime
    • Natural Landscape & Open Spaces
    • Houses of History
    • River Medway
  • Getting Married In Medway

Search our site

Visit Medway Web Logo Visit Medway
Plan Your Visit Things To Do What's On Cultural & Creative Itinerary Ideas Getting Married In Medway
Terms & Conditions Cookies Accessibility Privacy Contact Us Site Map
  1. Home
  2. See and do
  3. Find Attractions
  4. Medway Aircraft Preservation Society (MAPSL)
MAPS6

Medway Aircraft Preservation Society (MAPSL)

Web Links Location Local station Rochester Times
Heritage and Gardens

Welcome to MAPSL

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.

Hawker Hurricane Restoration Project

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.

MAPS Hurrican
Open Map

Address

Medway Aircraft Preservation Society (MAPSL) Medway Aircraft Preservation Society, Rochester Airport, Maidstone Road, Rochester ME5 9FD

Contact

07545 849756

Links

  • Website

Opening Times

Sunday, Monday & Wednesday - 9.30am-12.30pm; Monday evenings 7-9pm

Maps1
Maps3
MAPS6
Maps5
MAPS Hurrican
Maps7 (1)
Medcouncil Cmykstrapline
Visit Medway
Official website of Visit Medway, Medway Council
Our other sites

Visit Medway B2B Hub Enjoy Medway What's On Medway Tickets Live Medway Council Adobe Acrobat Reader Google Maps
Our Destinations

Rochester Chatham Gillingham
Terms & Conditions Cookies Accessibility Privacy Contact Us Site Map
Official website of Visit Medway, Medway Council