The Philippine Martin Mars water bomber is limping back to its home base for a major engine refit, its trip to an aviation museum in Arizona on hold until later this month.
The hulking aircraft took off from Sproat Lake near Port Alberni three weeks ago, headed to San Francisco and then San Diego, with an inland leg to an undisclosed desert lake, before reaching its new home at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona.
But it had to make an emergency landing in Patricia Bay on Dec. 15, and was moored there over Christmas and into the new year amid a series of storms, as Coulson Aviation determined its next move.
On Monday, Philippine Mars was towed from Patricia Bay to Cowichan Bay, off Hecate Park. The company said Tuesday it plans to swap in an engine from its sister plane, Hawaii Mars, now resting as a static display outside the B.C. Aviation Museum near Sidney.
Chief executive Wayne Coulson said Philippine Mars will be flown out of Cowichan Bay and back to its home base on Sproat Lake, where Coulson crews will likely take the remaining two working engines from Hawaii Mars and put them on Philippine Mars.
The 120-foot-long airplane with a 200-foot wingspan had suffered a crack in one of its four engines after several high-speed taxis on Sproat Lake in early December. The aircraft, which was stored on land after its last firefighting mission in 2012, had been on the water on Sproat Lake since Nov. 7.
An engine swap with Hawaii Mars seemed to fix things, but on its final flight on Dec. 15, Coulson said the engine “dropped a valve and took out a piston,” which caused the engine to billow out smoke and prompted a turnaround over Port Townsend, Washington and the landing in Patricia Bay.
The Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Victoria got a call from the Philippine Mars flight crew and a message was broadcast for vessels on Patricia Bay to clear the area for a water landing, the 91原创 Coast Guard said.
A search and rescue crew in Ganges and a fast rescue craft from Sir John Franklin assisted with mooring the aircraft and transporting its crew to shore, the coast guard said.
The coast guard did not assist in the tow to Cowichan Bay. The aircraft arrived to curious onlookers on Monday, with a small crowd gathering on shore to have a look at Philippine Mars in its U.S. navy livery.
Philippine Mars is the last of four Martin Mars aircraft converted to water-bombing tankers that fought fires for more than 50 years in B.C.
Coulson said his crews will start work on replacing the engine this week to get it ready to fly back to Sproat Lake.
“We got 50 hours on those engines … we talked about it and everybody was confident that the Philippine motors were going to be fine,” said Coulson. “But probably for the leg that we were doing [to the U.S.,] in hindsight, we should have just swapped all of them out and called it a day.
“I guess we learned our lesson.”
Coulson and the B.C. Aviation Museum had an agreement to swap in working parts from Hawaii Mars to get Philippine Mars airworthy.
Late last year, Coulson shifted Hawaii Mars’ four propellers to Philippine Mars and took batteries, auxiliary power units and other parts and pieces.
More than 8,000 hours of work has been invested in Philippine Mars since a deal was struck to donate the plane to the Pima Museum.
Capt. Peter Killin, who was at the controls of Hawaii Mars for the last time, and Todd Davis, Coulson Aviation’s U.S. division chief pilot, are the flight crew assigned to Philippine Mars’ last journey.
Davis is a C-130 pilot instructor and familiar with four-engine aircraft as well as U.S. airspace.
Coulson said he expects Philippine Mars to be back on track and heading to the U.S. by the end of January.
The plane is scheduled for a stop in San Francisco, where it will refuel and clear customs and then fly on to San Diego for a brief layover before turning toward Arizona.
In Arizona, Philippine Mars will be disassembled at its factory production joints and trucked to the museum. The Pima is one of the largest aerospace museums in the world, spread over 80 acres with six hangars and more than 400 aircraft, from a Wright flyer to a 787 Dreamliner.
