On Thursday, August 1st, Coulson Aviation made history with the first flight of a Martin Mars in over 8 years!

The Martin JRM Mars is a massive flying boat that was developed during World War 2 originally as a patrol aircraft and later a cargo transport for the U.S. Navy.

With a 200 foot wingspan - almost as wide as a 747-400's - seven of these very recognizable flying boats were built.

Following the end of their service with the Navy in the 1950s, the remaining four were purchased by a group of forestry companies in British Columbia. Those companies formed "Forest Industries Flying Tankers" and converted the planes into water bombers.

As a result, the Mars became the largest piston powered water bomber in the world, and could scoop up 7,200 gallons of water at a time.

In 2007, the last two airframes, "Philippine Mars" and "Hawaii Mars" were acquired by the Coulson Group, and the latter continued to fight fires throughout B.C. until 2015.

Those two airframes have since been parked at Coulson’s base on Sproat Lake, Vancouver Island, with Hawaii Mars last flying in 2016.

In March 2024 however, it was announced that Hawaii Mars would be donated to the British Columbia Aviation Museum at Victoria Airport, and would make its final flight later this year.

Before that flight actually takes place though, there were expected to be a few high speed taxi runs, which you could actually book rides on, provided you had the funds. There were even plans for a few test flights later on.

Although details on the flights were sparse, well, a couple of us made the trip out to Sproat Lake and rented a boat to at least see the Mars moving under its own power... and boy did we get a lot more than we expected!

A huge thank you to Mike and Brenden for driving the boat, and I hope you enjoy this footage of the Martin Mars!

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FLIGHT INFORMATION
Airline: Coulson Aviation
Aircraft: Martin JRM-3 Mars
Livery: Coulson Flying Tankers
Engines: 4x Wright R-3350-24WA
Registration: C-FLYL
Route: Sproat Lake - Sproat Lake
Date filmed: August 2024

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Outro song - "Take Flight" by Nyhtian:    • Nyhtian - Take Flight [Royalty Free M...  

© Alex Praglowski Aviation 2024

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