Firefighting Aircraft For Sale By Owner!

Need a seaplane to put out forest fires? The world's largest, the Martin JRM-3 Mars Fire Fighting Seaplane, is at your disposal. This aircraft can carry 27 tons of water at a time and in forest fires, it is effective over a 16-acre fire area with each shot. The aircraft's four piston engines, each with 2400 horsepower, were also used in the nuclear bomber Boeing B-29 Super Fortress aircraft and Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation passenger aircraft. The length of the aircraft is 36 meters and the wingspan is 61 meters.

The aircraft can reach a speed of 355 kilometers per hour (192 kt), a range of 8,000 kilometers (4300 nm) and an altitude of 14,600 ft (4,670 m). During the firefighting operation, the aircraft, which can stay in the air for five and a half hours, consumes 3 tons of fuel per hour.

For many years, the aircraft, which successfully extinguished forest fires in the Canadian province of British Columbia, was put up for sale by its last owner, Coulson Flying Tankers. Moreover, the selling price of the aircraft is only 5 million dollars. The only problem is that the plane is 80 years old. This aircraft, which was the largest flying ship to serve in the Allied Forces during the Second World War, made its maiden flight in 1942. At first, the Martin JRM Mars aircraft, which was thought to be a bomber, was later decided to become a Transport Aircraft.

When the tests of the aircraft were completed successfully in 1943, the US Navy decided to buy twenty, but later reduced the order to five. The five giant seaplanes delivered to the Navy were named Mariana Islands Mars, Philippine Islands Mars, Marshall Islands Mars, Caroline Islands Mars and Hawaiian Islands Mars. Although the aircraft, named after the archipelagos in the Pacific Ocean, entered service in January 1944, the aircraft found use after the war.

As a transport aircraft, the aircraft, which has the capacity to carry 133 soldiers or 84 sick/injured on stretchers and 25 nurses or seven Willys MB jeeps, broke an interesting record on March 4, 1949. In the demonstration flight, the Caroline Islands Mars aircraft transported 269 people in one go from the coastal city of San Diego, California, to the coastal city of Alameda, 700 kilometers away. Although the Marshall Islands Mars aircraft was lost in an engine fire in 1950, the remaining four Martin JRM Mars aircraft successfully served as transport aircraft until 1956, when they were officially retired.

The planes said hello to a new life in 1959, when they were about to be sold as scrap. In the Canadian province of British Columbia, forest industrial enterprises came together and bought these four aircraft from the navy and turned them into fire extinguishers that would provide a very successful fight against forest fires, which is the biggest problem of the region.

In 1961, the Mariana Islands Mars and in 1963 the Caroline Islands Mars fell during firefighting efforts. After these crashes, the two remaining aircraft, the Philippine Islands Mars and Hawaiian Islands Mars aircraft, continued to fight the fire.

In 2012, the Philippine Islands Mars aircraft was given to the US Navy for storage at the Naval Aviation Museum in Florida. The Hawaii Mars aircraft, which is currently on sale, made demonstration flights at the Oshkosh Air Show in 2016. The aircraft has not been actively flying since 2016.

The new owner of the plane, which is called "nine out of ten", may be an aviation museum.