Warbird Information Exchange

Hawaii Mars Does 6 Water Bomber Hits on Forest Fire.
I captured 4 of those Water Bomber Hits on Video ,Please Take a look,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUIrrbIDXxo

You gotta love the sound of 4 R3350s overhead. The Mars is a very cool firefighting weapon. Its got some of if not the most high tech avionics of any air tanker flying. Forward Looking Infrared cameras are pretty cool. I found this shot on FB, a pic of the panel of the Hawaii Mars. Peter Killin posted the pic.


Will

Thanks for sharing the great videos of the Hawaii Mars doing its recent fire drops! Would love to get up to BC to see this amazing aircraft in action.

Nice vid!

I wonder how effective it was with that particular fire?

Is dropping plain water standard for them?

EDIT: Never mind with my question. Did some quick research, and I guess the "gel" that they use is different than the traditional "red" slurry that is more often seen at least here in the US. Their gel is used directly on the fire rather than trying to create a "fire line". The product they use is called Thermo Gel and seems to be in interesting product. Will have to do some more reading on it.

Thermo gel info.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uDSLh53Ppw
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmJqPQ36rfY

Apparently it can be either red or blue. Seems like interesting stuff. It can be mixed in flight between drops.

Apparently the Mars is on its 3rd fire in 4 weeks today. Somewhere near Hastings BC.

Will

The Mars got a workout today setting a new record. From the facebook page...
"Martin MARS - Coulson Flying Tankers

The Mars is back from the Harrison Lake fire after dropping 17 loads setting a new record for the Mars with the BCFS, a massive 433,700 litres in just 5.3 hrs! Removing the 1.3 hrs ferry back and forth to Harrison Lake that's 108,425 litres per hr in 4 hrs!

Our crew sure is tired and finally getting a well deserved rest.

The maintenance morning shift starts at 5:00am tomorrow, preparing the Mars for what we expect to be another busy day. No snags to report on the aircraft--she's running like a Swiss watch.

We dropped 14 loads of foam and 3 loads of gel.

We're fuelled, gelled up, foamed up and ready for tomorrow. litres per hr in 4 hrs!


Our crew sure is tired and finally getting a well deserved rest.

The maintenance morning shift starts at 5:00am tomorrow, preparing the Mars for what we expect to be another busy day. No snags to report on the aircraft--she's running like a Swiss watch.

We dropped 14 loads of foam and 3 loads of gel.

We're fuelled, gelled up, foamed up and ready for tomorrow."

That works out to 28642 gallons dropped in 4 hrs. I'm impressed. A DC 10 might be able to do more, but it would really depend on how long it takes to land, load and take off again, along with the ferry time
Old, antiquated and obsolete? Maybe not so much.

Will

The next day I drove 20km back to the Sktuz Falls Fire , On this day helicopter's were doing water drops on the fire, I got about 10 plus video of these water drops, When I went in search of the location where the water was getting picked up, I found the location , then started set up tripod on my first of 40 plus videos .I looked straight up and said ,This is good place to video the action as close as anyone has ever got these shots, Well I had to move back 20 or 30 feet after get knocked over fro the rotor wash, These videos are coming very soon, Check Back, Here is some action from Day 1 Helicopter dropping water.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlaPtN8WCOE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pimNin42Ppw

Here is one everyone should see, This video is from right under the helicopter, The rotor wash was like a hurricane .I hope you all enjoy this one, I do have better videos coming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdtJNSqGHok

I heard there was a Mars already painted in navy colors and being readied for a flight to Pensacola for inclusion in the USN museum, any truth to that?

_________________
Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)

That is Philippine Mars. When it was in the Coulson paint job, it was the one with the white tail. Its slightly different from Hawaii Mars as it doesn't have the $3M avionics upgrade, and rather than dumping from the bottom of the hull, it drops its water out the sides. It's still sitting at Sproat lake, in nice Navy blue with stars on it. That said, it still has all its water bombing tanks aboard. They just need to be resealed and it could join Hawaii Mars on the job in theory. There are a few people calling for Philippine to be readied for use, even though it hasn't flow since 2010 I think. The two working together would be a pretty epic sight.

Will

Here's some video that was posted to an earlier thread (July, 2014) I'm sure you'll be interested in ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taOC3QAIUVs

With one of them in vintage US Navy markings? Oh yeah!

Hey, the deal with Pensacola isn't a done deal, the gov't in Canada wants it to stay in Canada. If there is a contract for both, no point in painting it back to red and white if they are still looking to do a deal long term. Why not? Just paint over the stars and leave it all blue.

Will

Like I wrote, I'd heard it as a rumor. To be honest, I didn't think there was nearly that much truth to it and I was surprised to see that video of the paint job!Probably a bad paint job for fire bombing, you would want something very high-vis for that.

_________________
Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)