The Philippine Mars is one of two surviving Martin JRM-1 seaplanes built for the U.S. Navy in World War II. Until last year they were working fire bombers, based in British Columbia. Both retired this year: the Hawaii Mars is now at the British Columbia Aviation Museum in Canada; the Philippine Mars, most recently, is at the Pima Air & Space Museum (PASM) in Tucson, Arizona. Since I live in Tucson and was a volunteer docent at PASM for many years, I’ve been following the delivery of the Philippine Mars to its new home in Arizona.
In a previous post, I described how the Philippine Mars was flown from its former base in British Columbia to Lake Pleasant, north of Phoenix, beached, taken apart, then towed overland to PASM in Tucson. That was two weeks ago. I speculated then that it might be a while before the aircraft is reassembled and put on display at the museum.
I may have been wrong. Working with Southwest Industrial Rigging, the PASM restoration team already has the Philippine Mars put back together (minus the engines, which will probably be next). Courtesy of local business Boneyard Safari, which has been granted access to the reassembly site in a closed-to-the-public back lot of the museum, I have photos and a video to share:
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Next, I suspect, will be the engines, currently sitting in the shade of the main restoration hangar’s “carport”:
Philippine Mars engines waiting to be reinstalled #philippinemars #pimaairandspacemuseum #wemovethesouthwest #boneyardsafari pic.twitter.com/huWh8zUTvf
— Boneyard Safari (@Boneyardsafari) May 30, 2025
Again, thanks to Boneyard Safari for the photos and video, originally posted to Facebook and Twitter. I’ll keep you posted on the Philippine Mars’ progress.
Up until yesterday, Boneyard Safari’s photos and videos simply referred to the JRM-1 by its name, the Philippine Mars. Now, though, it’s adding “The Lady” to its name, as in “Philippine Mars (The Lady).” I asked, via a comment, what was up with that. Boneyard Safari promptly replied that the crew working to put it back together all call it “The Lady.”
Well of course I defer to the crew, who know the Philippine Mars intimately, right down to the nuts and bolts holding her together. What I found interesting were other readers’ responses to my query: several wanted me to know planes (and ships, and locomotives, etc) are often referred to as “she.” Really? Do say!
Actually, I never thought of the aircraft I flew as women. Or men. Even so, I always felt a connection between myself and the airplanes I flew. I knew when they were happy; I sensed when something was wrong; I nursed and babied them. Sometimes even talked to them, by way of encouragement. My relationship to those wonderful machines was always deep, personal, and over time instinctive … but I never thought of them in terms of gender.
If I had stuck around long enough to fly the F-35, I’d probably think of it as a woman, if only because they call her “Fat Amy.”