The last airworthy Martin Mars water bomber is back on Sproat Lake for more test flights today and is expected to make its final flight out of the province by the weekend.
Philippine Mars, however, isn’t leaving easily.
The massive airplane, which is heading to its retirement home at Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona, suffered a crack in one of its four engines after several high-speed taxis on Sproat Lake last week. It had been back on the water since Nov. 7, but hadn’t been flown since its last firefighting mission in 2012.
The engine crack forced the airplane’s owners, Coulson Aviation, to swap it out for one of the engines on Hawaii Mars, which was still in airworthy condition after being donated to the B.C. Aviation Museum near Sidney as a static display last summer. Coulson had earlier switched Hawaii Mars’ four propellers to Philippine Mars and took batteries, auxiliary power units and other parts and pieces as part an agreement with the museum. More than 8,000 hours of work has been invested in Philippine Mars since a deal was struck to donate the plane to the Pima Museum.
“We did the engine in a day and we’re ready to get back on the water for some more flights,” Britt Coulson, president and chief operating officer of Coulson Aviation, said Monday.
Coulson said Philippine Mars’ original engines had been inhibited and protected, and the “minor crack” was likely caused by the heat of using the engines for the first time in many years during some of the latest test flights.
He said if the weather co-operates, Philippine Mars will have a few more high-speed taxis and low-level flights on the lake this week, “and hopefully we’ll be ready to go by the weekend.”
Coulson said the company will let everyone know on its social media platforms when the plane is ready to leave.
He said Transport Canada has granted Coulson Aviation all the necessary permits to fly Philippine Mars.
Philippine Mars is the last of four Martin Mars aircraft converted to water-bombing tankers that fought fires for more than 50 years in B.C.
It will leave Port Alberni with less fanfare than Hawaii Mars. That plane flew past several Island cities and towns with a Snowbirds escort and thousands watched as it travelled to Patricia Bay near Victoria International Airport.
Coulson said Philippine Mars will do a flyover in Port Alberni and head out of the west coast on the Alberni Inlet before turning southward for its first stop, in San Francisco, where it will clear customs and then fly on to San Diego for a brief layover for some media attention and air video photography before turning toward Arizona.
The Pima Air and Space Museum has not disclosed the Arizona lake on which the airplane will land over concerns about the number of people and boats that may show up.
Once it does land, Coulson said Philippine Mars will be disassembled at its factory production joints and then be trucked to the Pima Air and Space Museum. The Pima is one of the largest aerospace museums in the world, spread over 80 acres with six hangars and more than 400 aircraft from a Wright flyer to a 787 Dreamliner.
Philippine Mars is being delivered in its naval blue livery.
Coulson said seeing the last of the Martin Mars water bombers leave Port Alberni, the company’s home base, is bittersweet.
“There will definitely be some tears shed,” said Coulson. “We know how much these airplanes mean to the valley and the Island, and they’ve meant a lot to us as a company. The Mars planes got us started in fixed-wing firefighting and built us into the largest firefighting company in the world.
“So it’s definitely tough to see them go … they are a part of us. Getting the last two into museums — one in Canada and one in the United States — well, that’s a great place for them.”
Capt. Peter Killin, who was at the controls of Hawaii Mars for the last time, and Todd Davis, Coulson Aviation’s U.S. division chief pilot, are the flight crew assigned to Philippine Mars’ last journey.
Coulson said Davis is a C-130 pilot instructor and familiar with four-engine aircraft as well as U.S. airspace.
Steve Nichol, president of the B.C. Aviation Museum, said the pilots will have their work cut out for them. “It’s a tough time of year to fly these planes,” said Nichol, a pilot for 43 years. “It doesn’t have any heat in the aircraft or de-icing, so it could be very cold for them.”
Hawaii Mars, meanwhile, has been a boon to the aviation museum.
Nichol said the non-profit has doubled its daily attendance and revenue since the arrival and opening of the big aircraft in late September.
Only seven of the Martin Mars aircraft were ever made by the California-based Glenn L. Martin Company, all for the U.S. navy as ocean patrol and long-range transport during the Second World War. The planes were used during the Korean War for medical air-transport lifts between Hawaii and California. They carried cargo between Hawaii and California before being decommissioned in 1956.
The last four, sold as scrap, were bought by a B.C. forestry consortium and converted to water bombers. One Mars crashed while firefighting in Northwest Bay near Nanoose Bay in 1961 with the loss of four crew, and another was critically damaged in a storm at Victoria airport.
The remaining two Martin Mars bombers were acquired by the Coulson Group in 2007 from Timberwest and its subsidiary, Forest Industrial Flying Tankers.
Philippine Mars, painted blue and white, was retired in 2012, and the red and white Hawaii Mars had its last fire season in B.C. in 2015.
The massive water tankers — 120 feet long and 40 feet high with a 200-foot wing span — fought fires in B.C. and other provinces for more than half a century. They could dump about 27,000 litres of water in a single drop.
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