Warbird Information Exchange

Thanks for the more info peter, the aircraft did go to America after the film and the outline of the stripe could be seen as the paint flaked away 40 years later! Anymore photos

Matt,

Rather than me posting endless Buchon III Gruppe possibilities, why don't we narrow this down and you tell us where you saw this Buchon in 2008.

'Lazy E' ranch?

PeterA

Old thread, I know, but it kind of fit with something I had been trying to figure out.

All the documentries and stories I've heard about the making of the movie indicate that the CAF had purchased a Spit in Britain, and four of the Hispano's PRIOR to the filming...and that the CAF pilots allowed their Buchon's to be used, provided that they got to fly them. But in the same breath, it says that 'all' of the Buchons were flown by the Spanish Air Force pilots.

Best I can tell, Lloyd Nolan, Lefty Gardner, Gerald Martin, and Connie Edwards were the four CAF colonels--at least that is what it looks to be in the documentry on the Battle of Britain DVD, backed up by a list of the cast where they are included as 'pilots'.

Can anyone tell me what airframes were CAF owned? I'm having a hard time separating them from the ones that Connie Edwards has in storage. To the best of my knowledge the four aiframes were:

NX8575, which was destroyed in a fatal accident in 1987.

N9938, which is now at Duxford (flying) as G-BWUE (I THINK this is the one that was flown 'into' the ground during a high speed pass at Harlingen during Airsho '76...can anyone confirm?)

N9939, which is now Harold Kindsvater's plane.

N109ME, which was the CAF's last bird and reported sold/shipped to England. Is this the one that is going to be restored in it's Battle of Britain movie markings?

Thoughts? Anyone know who owned which ones?

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I always thought the Kindsvater aircraft was the one that hit the ground...?

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Cheers

Daz

Randy Sohn said that in an interview...I think the one about Harold's plane in Air Comix. But the other things I saw lead me to believe that the one that was flown into the ground never 'flew' again as a CAF plane, though it was restored (with a three blade prop) in the same paint scheme and was at least displayed static....and that is what matches the history that I can find of the red-tailed one over in Duxford now.

But again...just not sure. And the CAF's records are a shambles, so they haven't been able to help.

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Just this weekend, another WIXer and I were discussing the 109 "flying into the ground" on that low pass, and he was saying it was Whittington who did it. All of that was waaaaaay before my time there, so I don't know for sure one way or the other. I do know that the prop from that episode is hanging on the wall in the main hangar at CAF HQ in Midland.

Gary

I had read that on another thread here a while back too...and I can't say one way or another, since that accident is 'off the record'. It's not in the NTSB data base.

But Whittington did have his own Buchon at that time (1976) that was still down for an engine change after Reno...so both brothers were current in that type.

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Buchon flown in to the ground.

Are we talking Reno 1981?

If so, pilot was, I believe, 'Bubba' Beale.

PeterA

N9939 was the HA-1112 that was flown into the ground. As Gary said the original four blade prop is hanging in Midland. I've seen pictures of the airplane being repaired in Harlingen, with a newly installed three blade prop. Sometime after the accident it was taken to Arizona along with N109ME but I don't think anything much was done with it. It was used as a static display to raise money for N109ME. From there I believe it went to the DFW area for storage before winding up in a Hanger in Midland(before the CAF moved there) and went to Kindsvater from there. As far as I've ever been able to tell, it never flew with the CAF after the accident. I have no idea where this picture came from, it was given to me years ago. I think it was out of a magazine.



N109ME flew quite a bit and was used in the movie Hindenburg. It had an accident of some sort and was pushed off to the side. Around 1984, I saw it and N9939 on a trailer at the airshow in Midland. Both of the planes went to Phoenix and N109ME was restored. In my opinion, it was the ultimate in Southern Engineering of a -109. Electric flaps, landing gear handle out of a Bonanza or something like that, modified hydraulic system, stuff like that. I heard it flew a few times before going on display in Midland, but I never saw it and haven't seen any pictures.

There were several years between the plane being restored and the CAF moving to Midland and at some point N109ME was taken back to Harlingen. It was trucked to several different airshows but never flew much. The reason I was always told was "limited range and difficulty in locating spare parts". It went to Oklahoma City, had more work done, flew once or twice, went back to Midland and was sold to England. This is the airplane that was at Transpo 72. I think Peter Arnold has posted pictures of it in the past. It had a red and white spinner, with a red number 13 on the side.




N8575 crashed, killing Dick Baird in 1987. Walter Wooten told me the remains were pushed in a hole and buried.
I didn't take this picture, it was emailed to me a while back.


N9938 I have never seen a picture of in the air. Maybe it flew with the CAF, maybe it didn't. I'm not sure. For whatever reason, it ended up in Detroit with a CAF unit that was going to restore it. That never happened and I came up on it at Duxford in 1994. It had a mockup of a Daimler engine on it but the entire plane was in pretty rough shape. Now it's flying again in England.

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Brad

Fabulous! Thanks, Brad.

So you say N109ME was used in Hindenburg? I haven't seen that movie in years, but this has me thinking. I have a book in my collection on the CAF...can't remember the title...Yesterday's Wings, or something like that. And in the 'bad guys' chapter there is a photo of a Buchon painted all white with what looks like pre-war Spanish markings (black circle with a white 'x'). Always wondered what was up with that photo...is this possibly what it was from?

The only photo I have seen of N9938 is in an issue of Warbirds International from 1987. Carl Payne did an interview featuring NX8587, but it had a photo from about 1969 of N9938 sitting on the ground with a couple of Colonels standing around it.

And which one is this? http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2473/362 ... a44d35.jpg
I think it said it was from Reece AFB in about 1970.

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That airframe is N700E, which is now at Planes of Fame with a 'funky' cowling to make it look closer to an ME-109. I am still trying to figure out the provinance of this airframe--whether it was one of the six 'taxiable' Buchons that went to Earl Reinert's Victory Air Museum after Battle of Britain, or if it was one of Connie Edwards machines. I can't figure out where the Whittington's got it from. But I've seen pictures of it from 1976 in a pseudo RAF/Miss Florida (Jimmy Leeward's P-51) racing scheme, in the bright blue pseudo D-ISLU paint job in 1977, and then the 'eastern front' paint job from Oshkosh 1978.

The eastern front scheme is what it had when Whittington sold it to Bubba Beal.

Bubba took it to Reno in '81, not really to race, but more to have a dogfight routine with Jerry Billings in a Spitfire...and on the Saturday of race week he groundlooped it on landing...donated it to Planes of Fame on the spot.

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Did someone have a colour picture of that?

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LOL...I have that exact photo. Only that is a cropped pic. It was taken out of the fuselage of Martin Caidin's JU-52 (because it has the stbd engine in the pic). Don Whittington gave me a signed copy of that several years ago.

Kind of an interesting take...the real D-ISLU was red. But the brothers painted theirs royal blue. The only color photo I have ever seen of it was in an EAA magazine covering (I think) Sun 'n Fun or Oshkosh, and there was a 3/4 rear-view of it.

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And it was "restored", or I guess more appropriately, "put back together" specifically by Steve Hinton for the filming of "Pearl Harbor". IIRC, the airplane was shipped to England to be used for filming. On landing, one of the brakes had problems, and Steve ended up ground-looping the aircraft. That was the end of it's filming days. I don't believe the aircraft made it into any of the final shots of "Pearl Harbor". To this day, the plane sits disassembled in the hangar at Chino, waiting to be fixed again. That plane just doesn't have great luck.

Not exactly - it was flying prior to Pearl Harbor, as I've seen photos of this aircraft in flight (in a spotty camouflage and white rudder). I'll see if I can find one.

The aircraft is most definitely in the film, chasing The Fighter Collection's Spitfire V around Dover....

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Cheers

Daz