Jeremy Nickel said his company has moved some enormous, unwieldy and strange things over the decades — big brick mansions, gigantic ship loaders, Molson’s massive brewing tanks and even the Royal Canadian Navy’s submarines — but few have compared to the Hawaii Martin Mars water bomber.
The president of Nickel Brothers Moving said transporting the massive water bomber out of Patricia Bay and across Victoria International Airport to the B.C. Aviation Museum late Wednesday evening “was really something special.
“We did a couple of submarines a few years back and lots of other interesting things, but as far as publicity and in terms of the overall interest in a project this is right up there with one of the top projects we’ve ever done,” said Nickel.
“I’m second generation in this company and I had my grandkids in the truck pulling it down the runway, so fourth generation riding with me was pretty special,” said Nickel.
Tim Nickel, a nephew in the 70-year-old family business and head of Vancouver Island operations and industrial moves, said there was a sense of pride that “we were in the care of something that meant so much to the people of Vancouver Island, so it was a privilege to be part of the project.”
Nickel Brothers loaded the 120-foot-long, 76,000-pound Hawaii Martin Mars onto a specialized trailer and, about 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, started moving it.
The three-hour trip out of the Institute of Ocean Sciences and seaplane base at Patricia Bay, across West Saanich Road and over the airport lands took about three hours — much less than originally anticipated.
Hundreds of people showed up Wednesday night to watch the move, even though a time wasn’t publicly announced. And more were coming into the museum on Norseman Road on Thursday morning to have a closer look. Dog walkers and joggers along the airport trails stopped and passengers on commercial flights had a commanding view of the Martin Mars parked in front of the museum.
The plane travelled a 3.2-kilometre route helped by steel plating laid down to smooth out changes in the landscape.
Tim Nickel said it was a challenge to lift, balance and secure the Martin Mars. “It’s a delicate piece of equipment. Most of the things we move have really solid lifting points; the Mars does not.”
He said with the plane’s historical data, they were able to accurately pinpoint the plane’s centre of gravity to balance it on the trailer girders with wood blocks and fasten it down with chains and cables.
Girders were placed on the beaching gear wheels and fastened there, and the aircraft was stabilized from some of the plane’s original connection points.
The Mars was securely held seven feet above the ground on the 360-degree-turning-trailer as it crawled across the Victoria airport taxiways.
Richard Mosdell, project lead for the museum, said there were tense moments. “For sure some moments of passing fences, poles and a large grassy knoll were done with only an inch or two to spare, but all those nail-biting seconds for onlookers were planned out and just another day at the office for our movers,” said Mosdell.
Nickel said: “[The plane] responded really well as we went … even when we had a little wind, the tail moved up and down only by a half inch.”
With the load secured, the truck was able to travel between five and 10 kilometres per hour during the move, stopping often for checks of the load and for plates to be laid for smoother travel. “The biggest thing was the airport opened up the taxiways for us … as long as we could keep the plane moving, and we did,” said Nickel.
Commercial and private planes landed and took off as the Martin Mars was driven through.
He said the move resonated with the Nickel family.
“Growing up in the business, and it’s been around for nearly 70 years now, you kind of get acclimatized when you’re running a project,” said Nickel, who was the lead on the Martin Mars and involved in the planning for months.
“But you reach a point when we’re doing this project, when you can feel all the emotions — and we did with this [plane],” he said. “We knew how important this was to everyone.”
B.C. Aviation Museum president Steve Nichol said it will take Nickel Brothers a few days starting Monday to offload the plane at the museum site. It will sit on specially prepared concrete pads just outside the museum’s main hangar, where visitors can view the plane from the outside.
Work will be done soon to prepare Hawaii Martin Mars for interior public viewing, possibly in late September. A staircase will have to be built so the public can safely board the aircraft and view the two floors, cockpit and tank system.
Hawaii Martin Mars has for decades been a symbol of fighting wildfires in B.C., capable of dropping 27,000 litres of water in a single load and douse an area of 1.6 hectares.
It landed at Patricia Bay on Aug. 11 after a historic farewell flight that started from its base at Sproat Lake near Port Alberni. Tens of thousands of people watched its journey. The final flight over forestry towns and cities along the east coast of the Island was highlighted with an escort by the Snowbirds.
Nichol said the last flight and work to move the aircraft have attracted international attention from aviation enthusiasts and publications and an outpouring of support locally and around the province.
He said the museum has spent about $500,000 just getting Hawaii Martin Mars to this point.
In March, the province announced $250,000 in funding. Further grants are expected to come from the federal government.
Nichol said the museum will eventually start planning for a new hangar to house the Martin Mars and other firefighting aircraft. Initial plans call for it to be built on land south of the museum’s current hangar. It will have to be large.
The museum leases its property from the Victoria Airport Authority for $1 a year, said Nichol, adding the authority has been generous and has indicated it will provide more land for expansion. Nichol said the museum’s entire operation depends on grants, admission fees, donations and hundreds of volunteers.
>A fundraising page (gofundme.com/f/save-the-hawaii-mars) has been established to help the museum pay for the move.
>>> To comment on this article, write a letter to the editor: [email protected]
