The Hawaii Mars will make its final flight in early August, with the exact date and route it takes from Port Alberni to Saanich, yet to be determined. (submitted photo/Coulson Aviation)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

ICONIC PLANE

Island community fly-bys being planned ahead of final flight for Hawaii Mars

Jun 15, 2024 | 9:23 AM

PORT ALBERNI — Last minute preparations are being made to the famous Hawaii Mars water bomber ahead of it’s final flight.

The aircraft which was a fixture of wildfire fighting and management across North America for decades will be retired this summer through a flight from Port Alberni’s Sprout Lake to the BC Aviation Museum in Saanich.

Wayne Coulson, CEO of the Coulson Group who own the aircraft, said they’re expecting sometime in early August.

“They’re trying to coordinate it with the Snowbirds. We sent a date of Aug. 10 but it could slide one or two days if that’s really what the BC Aviation Museum want to do. We’re trying to facilitate those folks, whatever works best for them to receive the airplane.”

Coulson expects to spend a lot of time between now and August preparing the aircraft and giving as many people as possible the opportunity to formally say goodbye.

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Flight seats are available for tours of the area for around $5,000 per seat, with up to six people at a time able to go for the half day experience.

They’re also looking for more low-cost options to allow people to tour the vessel when it’s sitting on the lake.

Trials are expected to run regularly around the Port Alberni area to ensure the plane is flight-ready, with other Island communities on a tentative schedule for fly-bys.

“We’ve been working with Transport Canada, they’ve been pretty flexible if we wanted to take it up to Campbell River and do a bit of a fly around the Island with it, I know the crew would love that so people could see it overhead and say goodbye to it.”

Any such demonstrations would come with plenty of notice.

“We would post the flight plan and the time it would be so people could schedule if they wanted to watch it fly overhead at 500 feet, but we’ll probably take it up to Campbell River, Courtenay, Nanaimo, Port Alberni, Duncan.”

The Hawaii Mars was capable of dropping over 25,000 litres of water on each pass over a fire, flying effortlessly at low altitude with a wingspan of over 200 feet.

–with files from David Wiwchar, 93.3 The Peak

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