The restored 1941 Harvard trainer takes off on its test flight

The 1941 North American Harvard is one of only 1,000 still flying, out of the 20,000 originally built.

It took two years and 3,000 hours of work by Medway Aircraft Preservation Society (MAPS) to make her airworthy.

"Most of the pilots looked back on the Harvard with great affection," said chief engineer Alan Bennett-Turner.

Researched and restored

"It was their baptism into big military aeroplanes.

"The general thinking was that they flew these because there was not a lot of difference between this advanced trainer and the sort of aircraft they were ultimately going to fly."

The volunteers stripped the aircraft and researched and restored everything from the control cables and propeller to the fabric on the wings.

Even the Royal Air Force stencils were researched in official archives.

"It started off as a simple respray job and almost turned into a major rebuild," said MAPS member Lewes Deal.

Test pilot Dan Griffith said he enjoyed flying the Harvard.

"It gives you that feeling of being back in the wartime era," he said.

"It is really the nostalgia behind these sorts of aeroplanes that is the fun side of it."

The restored Harvard will eventually be available for private hire.