quemerford wrote:
Pima moved a B-36 too! People are short on memory and long on uninformed critique.
If you had read my comments, they were about disassembly of the large, tall fuselage without slicing it up laterally (lengthwise).
The B-36 comparison is silly...real apples and oranges, the B-36 being a long tube, its fuselage is "just" 12' 6", considerably less than the height of the Mars fuselage hull. That means it would be easily accommodated, height-wise in road transport. That diameter found by basic research, is given in two major B-36 books, so hardly a "uninformed critique".And the Spruce Goose analogy is off as well, it's sections had a fairly short overland trip after being barged to Oregon. It's about 40 miles from Portland or 50 to Pacific City directly on the coast.
The distance from Lake Pleasant to Pima is about 160...four times that.
As far as memory goes, some of us recall when the USAFM moved its B-70 and its other large aircraft to the new museum site in the early '70s.
Yes, large aircraft can and have been moved in the past. It comes down to type and distance. There's are few direct comparisons here.
The Sunderland at Duxford is obviously close, but as noted previously, it was sliced up to fit on a ferry to get to the UK. I've seen...and been in it...dozens of times, I can't say I noticed any remedial scars, but it would be nice if Pima didn't have to do similar surgery on the Mars.