An emblematic piece of aviation from British Columbia history left the province on its last flight.
THE Philippine Mars made a final pass on the Alberni valley of the island of Vancouver before a flight to the south.
The historic plane stopped on Sunday evening in San Francisco, before going to its final destination at Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona on Monday.
The Philippine Mars is the sister plane of the famous water bomber of water-fighting water in British Columbia, Hawaii Mars, which was finally withdrawn from BC Aviation Museum in Patricia Bay last summer.
“It’s the end of the road. I hate to remove it from here, but they go in good places, “said pilot Peter Killan, who was in charge of the Philippines Mars retirement flight.
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“(We) sharing it for all of North America by having one in the United States and one here.”
The massive planes of Martin Mars, which boast of the lip of a Boeing 747, were designed as patrol bombers during the Second World War, where they became the largest flying boat to enter the Allied service and have Quickly been reused as a transport aircraft.
After the war, they were reused in the 1950s as fire fighting actions, using an impressive 27,000 liter water load capacity.
Martin only manufactured seven of the planes, of which only two remain today and were in possession of Coulson Aviation of the island of Vancouver for years.
“It’s very special to be the kind of plane guards for the last time, as a family, and now, to say goodbye,” Britton Coulson told Global News.
Bringing the Philippines to the United States turned out to be difficult.
“This is a lot of work to get Mars in broadcasting,” the former mechanic Steve Kendall told Global News.
After several aborted attempts to pilot it to the south, which encountered mechanical problems, the crews had to exchange the engine of Hawaii March to feed its last trip.
Unlike his sister plane, which is painted in the daring colors of red and white for the fire fighting service, the Philippines Mars were repainted with colors of the correct American air force in 2016 in anticipation of a move in An American aviation museum.
Coulson has kept a last piece in Martin Mars’s story: the nose of an eighth plane never built, which remains in their installation of Lake SPROAT.
“We are going to keep that,” said Coulson.
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