![\"\"](\"https:\/\/assets.skiesmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/DEREK-HEYES-PHILIPPINE-MARS-December-03-2024-DSC_5394-smaller-1024x683.jpg\")
It\u2019s expected the aircraft will eventually fly over the east coast of Vancouver Island, near its sister aircraft the Hawaii Mars, which was retired to the B.C. Aviation Museum in August. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They can say goodbye,\u201d said Wayne Coulson, CEO of Philippine Mars owner Coulson Aviation, in an interview with CHEK News. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve been partners there for almost 80 years. And then off we go.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Philippine Mars is scheduled to fly south to San Francisco, then to San Diego, where it served as a U.S. Navy transport aircraft before being converted for firefighting in the 1950s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both aircraft were a key part of Vancouver Island culture for decades, serving as symbols of safety and hope due to their firefighting abilities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were considered the world\u2019s largest waterbombers, carrying 7,200 U.S. gallons per drop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Coulson Aviation acquired both aircraft in 2007, marking the beginning of the company\u2019s fixed-wing air tanker operations for aerial firefighting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They are the only two remaining Martin Mars aircraft, produced between 1942 and 1947 and flown as cargo ships in Hawaii and the Pacific Islands during the Second World War. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Martin Mars aircraft then supported the Korean War on medical air transport missions between Hawaii and California, with additional cargo missions before the Navy decommissioned them in 1956. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A consortium of B.C. timber companies bought the four surviving Mars aircraft in 1958 and used them for firefighting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Workers have been gradually putting the Philippine Mars through its paces over the last few weeks, running high-speed taxi runs on Sproat Lake prior to Tuesday\u2019s flight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s unclear when the Philippine Mars will make its final flight to Tucson. Coulson previously said the transfer would take place sometime this year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The low-and-slow flight is part of a gradual ramp-up to moving the Mars to its final resting place at Pima Air and Space Museum in Arizona.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":289,"featured_media":360076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[99319],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-360074","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-firefighting","entry"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skiesmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/360074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skiesmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skiesmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skiesmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/289"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skiesmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skiesmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skiesmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skiesmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skiesmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/assets.skiesmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/DEREK-HEYES-PHILIPPINE-MARS-December-03-2024-MAR_4723-1024x683.jpg\")