Another Martin Mars water bomber will be heading to a museum.
Coulson Aviation’s Philippine Mars will find its forever home at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona later this year.
This is the second Martin Mars water bomber that will be headed to a museum. Back in March, Port Alberni-based Coulson Aviation announced the donation of the iconic red Hawaii Mars to the BC Aviation Museum in Sidney, British Columbia.
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“This has been an exciting month for both Martin Mars waterbombers,” said Wayne Coulson, CEO of Coulson Group. “As a fitting tribute to their years of service and years of hard work by many people in B.C. and the U.S., we are pleased to see both Mars aircraft landing to rest at world-class institutions in 2024.”
Pima Air and Space Museum is one of the largest aerospace museums in the world, operated by the non-profit Arizona Aerospace Foundation. It has more than 400 aircraft on display.
“We are pleased to have the Philippine Mars join our museum where we will preserve this World War II-era aircraft for decades to come,” said Scott Marchand, CEO of Pima Air and Space Museum.
Produced between 1942 and 1947, the Martin Mars fleet flew cargo between Hawaii and the Pacific Islands to support the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war, they supported the Korean War with medical air transport lifts between Hawaii and California, later transitioning to cargo lift work between Hawaii and California before being decommissioned in 1956.
The surviving fleet of four aircraft was sold in 1958 to a consortium of timber companies in British Columbia and converted into the world’s largest waterbombers. Coulson purchased two of the aircraft, the Hawaii Mars and the Philippine Mars, in 2007, which marked the beginning of the company’s fixed-wing air tanker operations for aerial wildfire support.
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Hawaii Mars and Philippine Mars are the only Martin Mars aircraft remaining today.