Martin aircraft

Is the mighty Mars still flying, or has it been grounded now?

They probably are – if they are not allowed to work then the chances that someone would be benevolent enough to buy one and keep it flying for airshows are very unlikely. Seem to recall from an old copy of Flypast (or it could have been Aircraft Illustrated, or Air Pictorial, or Aeroplane…) that they were examined but judged structurally unsuited for conversion to passenger carrying – whether that was unsuited by design or by economics I don’t remember.

Flood.™

Is the mighty Mars still flying, or has it been grounded now?

Watered?

Is the mighty Mars still flying, or has it been grounded now?

Couldn’t resist posting a couple of shots of the Week’s Marauder, taken a few years back during a reshuffle of the main hangar.

And I don’t know how much of “Flak Bait” the NASM has aside from the nose.

As I understand it, the rest of the airframe is in store at Silver Hill and I seem to remember reading somewhere that there is a plan to unite the nose in the Mall facility with it and display it out at Dulles.

Could be wrong though 🙂

XA-22 Maryland

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/attack/a3/a3-22.htm

I checked with the USAF Museum site and indeed theUSAAF bought Maryland for testing….the XA-22. The company paid for R&D.
They did not buy a Baltimore, but paid for the RAF Leand Lease aircarft.

No Marylands or Baltimores

No preserved Marylands or Baltimores remain…of course they could be some piece out there used as a potting shed in Suffolk, but no complete airframes.
They were not used operationally by the USAAF (they may have been evaluated, but I doubt it). I hate to say anything with 100% authority because 1 or 2 may have shown up in USAAF markings as a squadron hack or target tow AC. They were developed before the US entered the war, but the time the US did, the A-20, B-25, B-26 were available.

The B-26 is as close the US came to scrapping aircraft to extinction (outside a few limited production AC like the B-32).
I saw the CAF B-26 when it was painted in San Angelo, Texas back in 1985 and a few years later saw Week’s plane at Chino. Great looking ships. I understand there is another almost complete example of the B-26 in storage (probably at Chino) that came from the same place where Week’s plane was found (Alaska, if memory serves correctly).
The USAFM example came out of a school in France. And I don’t know how much of “Flak Bait” the NASM has aside from the nose.

There is also the substantial remains of the tail section of a Marauder which all being well is shortly to go on display again in Essex (UK)

Dave

Just had to respond to this one…

Don’t think the Kermit Week’s aircraft was airworthy by the time CAF sadly lost their example in the 1995 crash. It flew over to Fantasy of Flight from California about 4 or 5 years ago, and is likely to remain the only operational example of WW2s best looking bomber (Oh yes it is!) for many years to come.

So far as I know, the only other complete airframes on public display are at the Musee de l’air in Paris and the USAF Museum in Dayton. Unsure of the progress with the record breaking ‘Flak-Bait’ at the Smithsonian in Washington. The nose has been on show for many years, with the fuselage stored ‘awaiting display’.

Would say that outside of the twins, the rest of Martins useful output from their own design stable would be in the form of flying boats. (?)

John

check this

http://www.warbirdregistry.org/b26registry/b26registry.html

Martin / Swiss Mustangs