Medway Aircraft Preservation Society Rochester Airport and Rochester Cathderal October 2024 and August 2025

The Medway Aircraft Preservation Society, Ltd (MAPSL) has an impressive record of restoring aircraft, mostly from the World War Two. Completed projects include; Spitfires, Hurricanes, a Defiant, Battle. The current project due to be completed in six to nine months time is the Short S.16 Scion II Floatplane (G-AEZF). Designed by Short Brothers in 1933, the Scion was built the six seat passenger aircraft under licence by Pobjoy Airmotors and Aircraft Limited in Rochester, Kent between 1933 and 1937. Only 22 were built, the prototype flew a schedule service between Rochester and Southend. G-AEZF was constructed as a floatplane for service by Elders Colonial Airways in Sierra Leone between Bathurst (Gambia) and Freetown. Later it was impressed to the war effort and converted to a land plane. After the war it continued to fly until 1953 with Air Couriers before it was abandoned behind a hangar at Southend. Re-discovered in the 1990s various attempts were made to restore it at Southend and Redhill. In 2013 MAPSL took over the restoration to museum standard at Rochester Airport. In April 2025 MAPSL announced that the Scion was ready to be displayed to the public. The unveiling was to be at Englands second oldest cathedral in Rochester. Constructed in the Nave throughout August, it was a spectactular opportunity to thank the Rochester Bridge Trust who awarded MAPSL with a £40,000 grant to fund the restoration. The Scion was actually built in the Short Brothers factory that was once located on Rochester Esplanade, a short walk from the Cathedral.

Left to right: Short S.16 Scion II Floatplane (G-AEZF). The new float (left) has been constructed using a float (right) borrowed from the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum in Belfast.

Left to right: Short S.16 Scion II Floatplane (G-AEZF), volunteer restorers are working on the rear fuselage.

Rochester Cathedral, August 2025.

Left to right: Oddly, the propeller blades were continuously quietly slowly rotating. Each engine has a stylised 'Pobjoy' under the shaft. Pobjoy Airmotors and Aircraft Ltd. was a British manufacturer of small aircraft engines. The company was purchased by Short Brothers shortly before the start of World War Two, engine production continuing until the end of the war. Pobjoy actually built the Scion (under license from Short Brothers) in Rochester between 1933 and 1937.