A highly-skilled team of aircraft conservationists has been tasked with restoring a Hawker Hurricane, the iconic fighter plane which played a key role in the Battle of Britain.

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.

Little is known about its service in the Soviet Union but it returned to Britain in 2000 in a fragile condition and was put on display at Sandown Airport on the Isle of Wight.

It has now been placed in capable hands of the MAPS experts at Rochester Airport who will be spending at least a year painstakingly restoring it to its former glory.

Their mission is to ensure it takes its rightful place in the history of the Royal Air Force and it will be on show in a prominent place yet to be disclosed.

The team of volunteers, largely made up of retired engineers and mechanics, has completed work on similar vintage craft, but this project is somewhat "confusing" because of the condition of the Hurricane.

Phil Cole, MAPS managing director, said: "We restored the Manston Hurricane which is now in the Spitfire and Hurricane Memorial Museum at Manston and also a Hurricane for the RAF Museum at Hendon.

"I think the chaps will be glad to get their hands on a warbird once again, especially one that fought for our freedom, even if it was in Russia."

Aviation historian and stalwart MAPS member Robin Brooks added: "During the Second World War and especially during the Battle of Britain, the Hurricane was often in the skies over Kent.

"At Biggin Hill it was No. 32 Squadron that flew the Hurricane during the battle together with No. 79 Squadron. No. 501 Auxiliary Squadron flew them from Gravesend and so on.

"People think the Spitfire won the battle but in reality it was the Hurricane yet it never got the glory that the Spitfire did."

Their first job is to meticulously clean and strip the delicate remains of the fuselage and pilot's seat of the monoplane which was manufactured by the Gloster Aircraft Company in Gloucestershire in the 1930s and 1940s.

Its construction of metal, wood and canvas allowed it to take more punishment than the Spitfire and, although slower in speed, many pilots preferred to fly this type of single-seater in combat.

After the Battle of Britain in 1940, a change of policy at the Air Ministry dictated that the Spitfire was to be the main attacking aircraft for the Luftwaffe escort Messerschmitt 109s whilst the Hurricane was to attack the enemy bomber formations.

It saw exemplary service in the conflict with the Nazi Germany air force and accounted for more of the air victories in the Battle of Britain.

It was later dismantled and packed up ready for its mammoth journey via Arctic convoy, arriving at Murmansk in February 1942 to aid the Soviet war effort.

Meanwhile, after years of discussion, the group came up with a lasting memorial to the world-famous Short Brothers aviation manufacturers, once based on Rochester's Esplanade.

They rescued a dilapidated float plane – one of only two known to have survived in the world – which was falling into disrepair in a hangar.

They have spent more than three years restoring the craft, including the delicate job of building new wings, and they plan to install the plane at the airport where their new workshop is currently being built.

For Mr Brooks, the tribute to the famous Short's factory is "a long time coming".

He said: "We just couldn't see her rotting away in the hangar at Redhill.

"When we got her, she was in a sorry state and had been exposed to the elements. She was half a plane, just a fuselage."

Thanks to a grant from the Rochester Bridge Trust, the Pobjoy-Short S16 Scion 11 floatplane is set to become a flagship for the airport, as well as a memorial to the factory which employed so many people across Medway over the years.

The newly-revamped workshop is open to the public on Monday, Wednesday and Sundays from 9.30am to noon. There is also a gift shop to buy books, models and memorabilia.