Mars Makes It To Arizona

News Discussion
1

Thanks to some forecast weather, the Philippine Mars headed straight to Arizona today from San Francisco rather than flying to San Diego for some public appearances and media flights. The aircraft landed on Lake Pleasant, near Phoenix, about 3 p.m.. It will be hauled up on shore and partly disassembled before being trucked to the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson. A timeline for that process has not been set.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/mars-makes-it-to-arizona
2

Beaching gear was waiting for the airplane, perhaps only a few days until it is on land.

I presume disassembly could be slow IF the space on land is not a priority need. (Many small boats on the lake, rows of covered marina slots.)

4

A very minor quibble from the green-eyeshade-wearing peanut gallery, Russ: I doubt that anyone concerned was thankful about the approaching weather causing the cancellation of the fund-raising stop in SAN. I’d have started the article with “Due to …” instead.

5

Darn, wish I had known about it. Would have loved to see and video the beast landing on the water. If the news was sandwiched in between the media freak out about the Scottsdale airpark Lear crash then I missed it.