Medway Aircraft Preservation Society
Rochester Airport and Rochester Cathedral
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 (in October 2024) 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 is a six seat passenger aircraft built 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 for public display. Its unveiling took place at Rochester Cathedral, England’s second oldest cathedral. Installed in the nave throughout August, the aircraft formed the centrepiece of an exhibition celebrating Medway’s aviation heritage. The setting also provided a fitting opportunity to thank the Rochester Bridge Trust, whose £40,000 grant helped fund the restoration.

The choice of venue was especially appropriate, as the Scion was originally built in the Short Brothers factory on Rochester Esplanade, only a short walk from the cathedral.
Medway Aircraft Preservation Society
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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.
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Left to right: Short S.16 Scion II Floatplane (G-AEZF), in 2024 the volunteer technicians of the Medway Aircraft Preservation Society still had around nine months of work remaining before the Scion could be displayed in Rochester Cathedral.

Rochester Cathedral, August 2025.
Medway Aircraft Preservation Society
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Medway Aircraft Preservation Society
Medway Aircraft Preservation Society Medway Aircraft Preservation Society Medway Aircraft Preservation Society
Medway Aircraft Preservation Society Medway Aircraft Preservation Society Medway Aircraft Preservation Society
Left to right: Oddly, the propeller blades were continuously and 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.