Warbird Information Exchange

A couple of years ago, I had a customer from Belgium who wanted a Mustang so bad he could taste it. I set up a couple deals out in CA but they all did not work out. I mentioned our friend Connie had one that would need extensive work if he wanted to see it. Of course he HAD to see it so we flew out to Connie's in a Citation II and landed on his runway. Connie came out with a Bud in hand and drove us over to the hangars. We had the deal almost set up and Connie decided that if we wanted the Mustang, the Spit had to go with it. His asking price for both that day, was WAY over what they were worth. Sadly we left with no new toys that day.

Connie milled the beautiful limestone counter tops in my kitchen, if you want some nice rock work, he is the man to see!

Here is a shot, an official still by David James, showing the same Spitfire MH415 still sporting the AI-C codes.

Seated in the cockpit is Gerald Martin with left to right 'Connie' Edwards, Lloyd Nolan and 'Lefty' Gardner, all of the Confederate Air Force then, looking on.



..and here is one of the shots of 'Connie' Edwards after he belly landed MJ772 one of the ex Irish (also not continental Europe ) Mk IX two seaters at Little Staughton on 9 July 1968



The engine threw a rod resulting in total seizure. Interestingly the Spitfire is carrying a metal propeller with no manufactures stencils. It was most probably borrowed from a Buchon, they did fit.

PeterA

That was it! Thanks for posting. I had picked up the picture book about the making of BoB and was supprised it wasn't in there. Excellent book BTW....

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Civis Aerius Sum

I am a citizen of the Air

Those are great!

Mr Edwards and his aw shucks...oh well bent bird look!

Great!

Thanks!

Yet another from Gerald, and a very interesting one at that.



Here is what Gerald related to me concerning the picture of the Spit that Connie Edwards belly landed:

"If you notice it has the 109 4 blade Rotol prop instead of the regular MK-9 wooden blades. The Spit didn't have what we call Lord Mounts and the engine is bolted more or less, straight to the airframe. Those wooden blades absorbed a lot of the torsional stresses on the engine and by using the wrong prop, it caused bearing failure in the Merlin. That's what happened there.
The standard props were very rare and they ran out of replacments as that wood aged and they couldn't get approval from the Air Ministery, and tried the Messer prop."

Fantastic stuff.

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Cheers

Daren

Great photos. I saw Connie at Lakeland this year,always good for a story. I don't understand how a metal prop, if properly balanced, would cause bearing failure. Early Spits had metal props. There was one on mine when I bought it. I later got new wooden blades as correct, and sold the metal ones to Don Knapp who had a P-51 in Florida. I think the wood blades are better looking with the unique pointed shape and they rev both up and down faster. I think Connie told me he had an engine fire during filming of the movie that caused belly landing. My Spitfire was the other two seater in the filming. You can see in the photo the engine must have been stopped as the top two blades appear undamaged.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Following on from Mr Arnolds post, a couple of shots of MH415 here in Jersey (also not mainland Europe, in fact not Europe at all) during the transit down to Spain, note the slipper tank under the belly of MH415.

One of the Buchons lost it's rudder due to an accident and remained at the airport for a number of weeks, until a replacement could be found and shipped out.

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Ian

Lefty told me that one thing the CAF guys learned from filming the movie "was we weren't near as good of pilots as we thought we were". That feeling might have come from standing next to Galland and Tuck. We were lookin at the dual control ME109 in Connie's hangar one day and Jay Cullum said "great, you could scare two pilots at once with that thing". It kind of makes my hands itch, then better judgement sets in.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

I am new to the forum and I saw the picture of my Messer (red 5) flown by Gerald Martin along with Lefty. First time I have ever seen that picture. If anyone has pictures of Red 5 during the BoB movie please post them.--------Palhal

Perhaps this is a dumb question,but.......

Adolf Galland didn't by chance take a Faux 109 for a spin did he? Was he atleast tempted?

Just curious

Shay
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Semper Fortis

According to the book about the filming of the "Battle of Britain"by Leonard Mosley, Galland did take the two seater Buchon up with another qualified pilot and rung it out.
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

Sweet, Thanks

It had to be a great moment for Mr. Galland to get back in the pilot seat of a 109(kind of a 109 anyways). Too bad he's not still around with the new 262s taking to the skies. It would be interesting to get his opinion of them and perhaps give him another ride.

Shay
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Semper Fortis

Another Buchon shot sent by Gerald, very nice.

And a couple of pics of the ex-Stokes Corsair which, I believe, Gerald flew in the Black Sheep Squadron TV show. That's Gerald's daughter on the wing in the first shot, hence the title of the image.