The Coulson Group of Companies

Message from the CEO

There has been a lot of media in BC as well as California on the Martin Mars at different ends of the spectrum.

With the devastating fire season in BC, it was difficult to not have the Mars available to the Province supporting the BCFS firefighters and take criticism for trying to find work for the aircraft that makes the program economically viable.

On the other hand, we continue to try and break into the US market under contract to the USFS with the Mars and work within a complex wildfire infrastructure that knows very little about what the Mars does extremely well. We are educating the marketplace that the Mars has more in common with helicopters as we both drop water than the existing air tanker fleet that drops retardant. The difference is that the retardant is dropped ahead of the fire and this slows the fire down. The Mars is a direct attack aircraft with gel or foam mixed into the load that goes directly on top of the fire to smother and cool the fire.

The US media has been very friendly with the Mars program and we had KTLA, California’s largest TV station, broadcast live from the base for a day.

We continue to invite other potential users in to visit the Mars base and had LA County Air Ops from Los Angeles in last week..

The Hawaii Mars Training to Fight Fire, will air this month on October 23 on Discovery Channel in the US only on X Machines, Heavy Metal Task Force. We will advise you when the show will air in Canada.

The Philippine Mars will be watered the middle of October as it has been chartered by FOX Studios and will be featured in a movie being filmed in Vancouver called the "A TEAM" . This is a remake of the A Team series and will star Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel, Sharlto Copley, Liam Neeson, and Quinton Jackson.

Wayne

Sept, 2009 Volume 09-148

Message from the CEO

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