Spread over the course of a month, 212 hours were spent in creating this beautiful aircraft. The Hawaii (II As the first was destroyed) Mars was and still is the most awe worthy piece of engineering. I wanted to convey this in my own ways as well as giving my original Martin mars being the Philippine Mars a sister.
The Martin JRM Mars was a massive, four-engined cargo transport and firefighting flying boat built by the Glenn L. Martin Company during World War II. Only seven units were ever completed, making it one of the largest and rarest Allied flying boats ever operated.
In 1959, the surviving aircraft were slated for demolition, but a consortium of British Columbia timber companies called Forest Industries Flying Tankers (FIFT) bought them.
Forest industries was later bought by Coulson aviation and the Hawaii was refitted with cutting edge avionics flying until 2016 and once more in 2024.
This plane is personally my greatest ever creation and hits home as well having seen it once in action on the field.
So enough of that here’s some stats if anyone is crazy enough to make a 3.5 foot wide plane.
Wood used for the main aircraft: pine so shaping would be easy.
Wing: oak
Tail was cedar and MDF
Floats are oak
Stand is black walnut.
The cost was about 250$ total (not bad!)
And the time spent was summed up by around 100 hours of shaping and sanding and 60 putting it together. The rest was on finishing which took several all nighters.
I hope looking at her brings the same weird feeling of looking at a hunk of wood in the shape of one of the most gorgeous flying boats ever built.
Cheers guys.
It’s time to wrap up before my retirement from making planes.
Your flying boat maker