Continue Discussion 14 replies
September 2

davidbunin

How does one even disassemble this thing enough for trucking? I doubt the wings were designed for easy removal, but even if they were, one wing is a huge thing to move over 100+ miles of road. The fuselage alone is probably too big of a piece. This will be interesting to watch.

2 replies
September 2

vspeed96480

YouTube them moving the spruce goose.

1 reply
September 2

Kenneth_Hetge

C’mon guys, get creative!! Get 4 or 5 D9 dozers and several big excavators and dig a trench a couple of thousand feet long, 10’ deep and 50’ wide!! Line it with visqueen plastic sheeting and start pumping!! The plane could even be floated to its final resting place. When finished, pump the water back into the ground, pull the plastic and fill the ditch. It won’t be cheap but neither will disassembly, trucking and reassembly. I know how to operate the equipment so let me know when you want to start :+1:. Put some excitement into the last operation of this legacy airplane!!

September 2 ▶ davidbunin

GregC

The renovation of the TWA terminal building at JFK needed a Lockheed Constellation for its restaurant/bar and trucked one from Auburn, ME to JFK in parts: tri-tail on one trailer, fuselage on another, wings together on another with engines removed to be mounted at JFK. It took a few weeks with police escort, raising utility wires, and a route where any overpasses were inches high enough. I would expect similar ops for the Mars bomber.

1 reply
September 2

RationalKeith

Hey Russ, you lost roll control of your listing of fate of the seven Mars that were operational.

Of the four brought to BC by Dan McIvor:

USN lost one Mars in a fire well before McIvor bought the remaining four, I forget fate of the other two before McIvor purchased four. I recall one sank but not why. The prototype may have been counted in the seven even though its configuration was quite different. (As you know, the unused nose Coulson has is labelled 8, I forget what I saw in the museum Coulson had at Sproat Lake.)

September 2 ▶ vspeed96480

RationalKeith

By water into the Columbia River, then by land in sparsely settled area?

September 2 ▶ GregC

RationalKeith

Besides question of work to remove wings, note the fuselage is quite high - built as double-deck troop transport. Fuselage is conventional aircraft construction of the era, so desirable to not take it apart.

September 2

Ron_Wanttaja

It’s already been mentioned that the Hughes H-1 (Spruce Goose) was trucked to its final destination.

What may not be understood is HOW MUCH SMALLER the Mars is… It’s a bit more than half the length of the Spruce Goose! The Mars fuselage is about a hundred feet shorter. Wingspan is about a hundred feet less, too…

1 reply
September 2 ▶ Ron_Wanttaja

RationalKeith

The Goose was brought from factory(s) to its flight point in pieces.
Apparently wings bolt on.

As best I can learn, to get to the museum in OR it went in pieces by sea barge then up the Columbia River, then up the Willamette River - probably under bridges in Portland OR, then last 7.5nm by land using truck-trailer.

(A thought: with wings and tail off perhaps the Mars would be lower laid on its side, just a guess.)

3 replies
September 2 ▶ RationalKeith

RationalKeith


Like the Mars, the Goose has a fairly tall fuselage.

September 2 ▶ RationalKeith

RationalKeith

1 reply
September 2 ▶ RationalKeith

Ron_Wanttaja

I did find a photo of a Mars under construction; the wings are apparently separate.

I don’t seem to have photo-posting privileges yet, but here’s a link to the image:


Mars prototype in the foreground, Mariners behind.

September 2 ▶ RationalKeith

RationalKeith

Out of California on a barge:

September 3 ▶ davidbunin

Don_R

The same way they assembled it but in reverse: