Martin Mars for sale

Probably the most famous flying boat of the past decades, Martin Mars C-FLYL, is for sale. The  giant, named ‘Hawaii Mars’, was used as a firefighting aircraft by Coulson Aviation. Together with sister ship C-FLYK ‘Phillipine Mars’ it is based at Sprout Lake in central Vancouver Island (Canada). C-FLYL is offered for sale through Platinum Fighter Sales for only $ 5 Million.

The flying boat made its last flight in July 2016 when it visited AirVenture 2016 at Oshkosh (USA). At that occasion the plane was flown by well-known collector Kermit Weeks, who at that time seemed to have plans to buy it for his own Fantasy of Flight museum.

At Oshkosh the Mars made demonstration water drops and later suffered a mishap. Pilots were scooping water out of the lake when an engine warning light came on and they were forced to abandon take off. The plane struck shallow rocks, which punched a few repairable holes in the plane’s belly, according to news reports. It is said to be in nearly airworthy condition but will be delivered with a current 100 hours inspection, but ‘where is, as is’ (so no guarantees)

Five Martin JRM-3 Mars flying boats were built in the final stages of WW II, and these were mostly used for hauling cargo and personnel between California and Hawaii until retiring from the US Navy in 1956. The Mars currently for sale was one of these, BuNo 76823. Four of the remaining aircraft were demilitarized and then sold to a Canadian company, Forest Industries Flying Tankers These were converted to waterbombers with a capacity of up to 7,200 gallons (27,254.965 liters) Two of those crashed and the last two, the Hawaii Mars and Philippine Mars (C-FLYK, former BuNo 76820), were acquired by Coulson Aviation.

Photos Coulson Flying Tankers / András Mihalik