‘Phillipine Mars’ goes to Pima Air and Space Museum

After last month’s happy news that Martin Mars C-FLYL ‘Hawaii Mars’ is going to be saved as an exhibit in the British Columbia Aviation Museum, there is excellent news on sister ship C-FLYK ‘Phillipine Mars’ (ex BuNo 76820, c/n 9264) too. On 25 April, the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson (AZ) announced it has bought C-FLYK!

Owner Coulson Aviation retired C-FLYK in 2012 and C-FLYL flew its last firefighting mission in 2015. Since then both giant waterbombers were offered for sale. Scramble reported earlier on this sale. They were both based at Sproat Lake in central Vancouver Island (Canada) and are still stored there.

There were plans to sell ‘Phillipine Mars’ to the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola (FL) and for this reason it was repainted in its original US Navy colours. But the sale has, for various reasons, not seen a follow-up. Fortunately PASM has now decided to add the plane to its already impressive museum collection.

However there is an interesting challenge: C-FLYK still remains at the Coulson air base and is considered to be non-airworthy. So it needs to be trucked to Tucson..

Photo: Gary Vincent on AirHistory.net