Tag: Martin Mars

Earlier today we told you that the Martin Mars air tanker would do a demonstration drop in Coal Harbor in Vancouver. Well, here’s the video proof. I had no idea it would be flying right next to skyscrapers. Turn up the SOUND so you can hear those big radial engines!

An EXCELLENT video!

This was part of Forestry Day in downtown Vancouver. In addition to the Martin Mars, a Convair air tanker and a Bell 212 helicopter also participated.

Forests Minister Pat Bell was quoted as saying:

(British Columbia has) the largest forest industry anywhere in the world, and the demonstration of our air tanker fleet, I think, just shows what capacity we really have. It was impressive to see the amount of water coming down.

Ok, that’s enough airtankerporn for one day.

UPDATE Feb. 24, 2010

Since you insist, here’s another video of the Martin Mars scooping, dropping, and then mooring on the same day, Feb. 23, in the Fraser River at Steveston, just south of Vancouver. It did another demonstration at Steveston today.

Here are a couple of photos taken by Tony Walsh at the Steveston demo yesterday.

The Martin Mars, very large air tanker, will be making a demonstration drop at the Olympics today. At 1 p.m. it will fly over the city of Vancouver and drop up to 7,200 gallons of water over Coal Harbour near the Olympic rings. That harbor and its sea plane base is what you see in the background occasionally when Brian Williams and other NBC commentators are broadcasting from the Olympics. The best viewing area will be Harbour Green Park, at the foot of Bute Street downtown.

I am not certain what an air tanker has to do with the Olympics, but it should be fun to watch regardless. It is unlikely that NBC will include the demonstration in their Olympic coverage, but I could be wrong, because Brian Williams is an aviation buff. The other day he and another talking head were commenting on a sea plane that was taking off during their broadcast, and Williams said it was a Twin Otter.

Here is some airtankerporn, a file photo of the Martin Mars taken by Steve Bosch of the Vancouver Sun. It is one of the best photos of the aircraft I have seen.

Here is a video of the Martin Mars at Vancouver on January 16 in 2009. It was doing a demonstration during a loggers convention, perhaps a dry wet run for the Olympics demonstration. Turn up the sound if you play it. There’s nothing like the sound of those 4 huge radial engines. At least I think they are radials.

UPDATE: Feb. 24, 2010

We posted a great video of the Martin Mars dodging skyscrapers and dropping a load of water in Vancouver on February 23, 2010.

The 7,200-gallon Martin Mars flying boat air tanker has been pretty busy for the last 10 days, working on several fires in southern California. On Thursday the aircraft made five or six drops on the Bluff fire near Banning.

The map below shows the tracks of the ship as its location was updated every two minutes. The location was also recorded with a larger icon when it filled the tank by “scooping” at Diamond Valley Lake and when it opened and closed the drop doors over the fire.

Courtesy of Coulson Flying TankersThe elapsed time between takeoff and landing at Lake Elsinore was three hours and seven minutes.

I am making some guesses here, but if it was carrying only 5,500 gallons and made 5 drops, it delivered about 9,000 gallons an hour for about 27,000 gallons total over the 3 hour period.

The Bluff fire burned 125 acres before it was stopped by firefighters, four air tankers, and three helicopters. It destroyed one outbuilding but no homes.