ScanDiego.com

Flying to San Diego this coming week!

C-FLYK

Coulson Aviation announced that the Philippine Mars aircraft is scheduled to depart from Sproat Lake in Port Alberni, BC, Sunday, December 15, at 10:00 AM PST, weather permitting.

The aircraft’s route includes a stop in San Francisco, Calif., for customs clearance and to comply with the requirement to stop before sunset. The Martin JRM Mars aircraft, once based in nearby Alameda, Calif., will anchor for two days in the Alameda Lagoon, where it was originally operated by the U.S. Navy.

From there, it will fly along the coast to San Diego, participating in scheduled events and video documentation. Its planned water landing will occur near the Coronado Bridge, with a touchdown close to the USS Midway Museum, where it will anchor in San Diego Bay overnight.

The aircraft’s journey will conclude in Arizona, where it will be disassembled at its factory production joints and transported to the Pima Air and Space Museum. The final flight of the Philippine Mars is being led by Captains Peter Killin and Todd Davis.

https://www.coulsonaviationusa.com/news ... on-journey

https://aerialfiremag.com/2024/12/14/ph ... n-journey/

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Coulson Aviation’s Philippine Mars will soon find its forever home at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona this year. The Philippine Mars is one of only five Martin JRM Mars flying boats produced.
https://www.coulsonaviationusa.com/news ... ace-museum
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Philippine Mars didn’t leave Vancouver Island as planned Sunday

This past Wednesday, the Philippine Mars left Sproat Lake for what was also supposed to be the last time, but the company says a decrease in oil pressure on the number two engine caused it to turn back.

After some diagnostics, the company learned it wasn’t as big of a problem as initially feared.

“The pressure regulator failed, so we installed an overall pressure regulator, did all the function checks, leak checks and then a quick test flight to make sure it was back in service and everything was stable,” said Brian McDonald, Coulson Aviation’s Canadian maintenance director.

With a break in the rain, they decided the Philippine Mars should fly today, and she took off from the water twice before disappearing into the fog. Visibility was limited but one of the plane’s fans who was tracking it on a GPS system saw it soon divert from its flight plan.

“What I saw was that it had gone down as far as Port Townsend, and then it turned around, and my latest notice was that it was circling around Victoria and looking at potentially landing,” said Rob Frolic, an Alberni Valley resident who’s a long-time fan of the Martin Mars.

The landing came roughly an hour into its flight.

The company says it landed due to an unknown issue on the number four engine. How long the plane will stay on Pat Bay, or where it will go next, is unknown as mechanics still need to assess what exactly is wrong.
https://cheknews.ca/philippine-mars-did ... y-1229292/
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C-FLYK COULSON FLYING TANKERS MARTIN JRM MARS

Manufacturer Serial Number (MSN): 9264
Aircraft Type: Martin JRM Mars
Age: 78.6 Years
Production Site Baltimore Martin (MTN)
https://www.planespotters.net/airframe/ ... avy/e5z2gv

C-FLYK
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/CFLYK
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/c-flyk
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=C01F87

Mode-S: C01F87

Philippine Mars engine trouble the result of blown cylinder
The Philippine Mars water bomber was flying between Victoria and Seattle, en route to its new home at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona, when one of the engines “started to run rough”

A blown cylinder was determined to have caused a problem with one of the Philippine Mars aircraft’s engines that forced its flight to an American museum to be aborted on Sunday.

The huge plane was flying between Victoria and Seattle, en route to its new home at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona, when it had to turn around and land in Patricia Bay for repairs.

The cylinder issue is common with the Second World War-vintage Martin Mars planes, said Wayne Coulson, chief executive of Port Alberni-based plane owner Coulson Aviation.

“It’s nothing major that we’re seeing in the motor right now.”

He said a test flight could be done Wednesday, to determine when the large aircraft can take off again for Arizona.

Once it reaches the area, it will be disassembled and trucked to the museum.

The Philippine Mars is one of four Martin Mars that were converted from patrol and transport planes for the United States Navy to water bombers used to fight fires in B.C. for over 50 years.

Another of the planes, the Hawaii Mars, was flown to the capital region from Sproat Lake near Port Alberni in August to become a permanent exhibit at the B.C. Aviation Museum.

Just seven Martin Mars aircraft were made by the California-based Glenn L. Martin Company and used by the U.S. navy for ocean patrol and long-range transport during the Second World War.

They were also used for medical transports during the Korean War.

The planes were all named after Pacific islands.
https://www.timescolonist.com/local-new ... le-9964902

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Historic plane's final trip to U.S. interrupted by emergency landing near Victoria
Harper says the plane landed at around 1:20 p.m. on Sunday then spent about 40 minutes "doing circles" in the water before being moored.
He says that only three of the four engines on the plane were running when it landed on the water. 
https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7412002

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_JRM_Mars

https://pimaair.org/martin-mars/

https://www.flyingmag.com/wwii-era-phil ... na-museum/

https://fireaviation.com/tag/martin-mars/

MARTIN Mars (C-FLYK)

C-FLYK spotted in flight near Victoria, British Columbia at 14:23 PST

C-FLYK tracking stopped near Port Alberni, BC at 15:05 PST from Victoria, British Columbia
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight ... 110/2223Z/

Philippine Mars sighting: Water bomber towed to Cowichan Bay for engine swap.
https://youtu.be/AUq1pGSU4QU

Flying south from Canada today.
https://fr24.com/CFLYK/3911c15f
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/CFLYK

Martin Philippine Mars Final Flight From Sproat Lake 2/9/2025
https://youtu.be/M75PMvzH45E

Martin JRM Philippine Mars arrival to San Francisco
https://youtu.be/_ORAyAz36Ms

Martin Philippine Mars lands in the San Francisco Bay for the Last time
https://youtu.be/AUBgz0O80Ms

The plane took off from the San Francisco Harbor.

The Philippine Mars
https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/re- ... al-flight/

C-FLYK spotted in flight near Oakland, CA at 11:57 PST
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight ... 210/1957Z/

Martin JRM Philippine Mars last landing, Lake Pleasant, Arizona.
https://youtu.be/UaZEwDC-SUY

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Mars Makes It To Arizona
Forecast bad weather prompted the final flight to be moved up to Monday.

Thanks to some forecast weather, the Philippine Mars headed straight to Arizona today from San Francisco rather than flying to San Diego for some public appearances and media flights. The aircraft landed on Lake Pleasant, near Phoenix, about 3 p.m.. It will be hauled up on shore and partly disassembled before being trucked to the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson. A timeline for that process has not been set.

The historic flying boat left Vancouver Island on Sunday for the trip to San Francisco. It and sister ship Hawaii Mars spent the last 65 years in British Columbia, 50 of them fighting forest fires. Hawaii Mars was donated to a museum in B.C. The planes were built by Martin for the Navy in the late 1940s. They were mostly used for shuttling cargo and personnel from San Francisco to Hawaii until they were retired in the 1950s. A consortium of forest companies bought them in 1960 and converted them for fighting fires. They were able to pick up 7,200 gallons from lakes or the ocean to drop on fires.
https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/mar ... o-arizona/

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7455823
https://vintageaviationnews.com/warbird ... -west.html