Martin Mars comeing to Vancouver Harbour JAN 15-16 2008

[Henry Tenby]

this was in today's Vancouver Sun Newspaper:

The giant Martin Mars water-bomber has targeted Vancouver harbour for its next airborne drop in a display of the Second World War veteran's modern fire-fighting capacity.

The four-engine Hawaii Mars, one of two remaining Mars flying boats, is scheduled to touch down in the harbour at 2 p.m. Tuesday, anchoring off Canada Place for the annual Truck Loggers Association convention next week at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre.

And on Wednesday at 3 p.m., onlookers in downtown Vancouver can expect to have a front-row view as the bomber circles the harbour and drops 27,000 kilograms of water off Canada Place, owner Wayne Coulson said Wednesday.

"We are going to scoop and drop in the harbour so people can come down and have a look at it," Coulson said in an interview.

The massive flying boats have been a part of B.C.'s fire-fighting arsenal for 47 years, but spend most of their time at the home base of Port Alberni or in action fighting fires in remote locations.

Coulson, president of the Port Alberni-based Coulson Group, bought the aircraft from forest company TimberWest Forest last spring, and has been developing them as fire-fighting tool that can be used world-wide in battling wildfires. Most recently, the Hawaii Mars was in California where it played a role in suppressing October's wild grass fires that at one point forced 500,000 people to flee their homes.

Wherever the aircraft go, they attract attention, Coulson said.

The Vancouver Island fire fighters have received approval from the Port of Vancouver for the drop.

The Mars has used the harbour before, scooping water to extinguish blazes on the North Shore mountains seven years ago.

"Everybody is anxious to see this happens successfully," said Doug Moore, marine operations coordinator for the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. "They will be doing a fly-by and dropping in the harbour. It will be planned out to make sure there are no issues with that."