“Writer Dave Hirshman and photographer Chris Rose told the story for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association last year, of how a successful 81-year-old West Texas oilman, Wilson “Connie” Edwards, ended up with more antique European fighter planes in his secluded hangar than the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has in Washington, D.C.
Edwards told AOPA that he never meant to be a collector, yet he acquired a Spitfire fighter plane that really fought Nazis in the Battle of Britain, plus a half dozen Spanish Buchons and a similar number of small American-made craft from the era.
In fact, Edwards credited his riches largely to luck; his family’s land sat atop a wealth of oil and gas, and a late-1970s investment in the business of family friend Sam Walton really paid off when Walmart became the world’s largest retailer. A solo pilot since 16, Edwards had the gracious ability to act on his passions.
But his prized holdings, the European aircraft, came to him as unorthodox payment for his role in 1969 film Battle of Britain, starring Michael Cain. Edwards was a stunt pilot and choreographed the dogfights. In lieu of working for credit, the spunky Texan demanded a handful of the movie’s airplanes, and he got them.
“They owed me a bunch of money at the end of the movie,” Edwards told AOPA. “They were going to give me an IOU and you don’t take an IOU from any movies. I just told them that I’d take the airplanes so I ended up with 16 Messerschmitts, and I traded two of them for this Spitfire.”
A guy who did electrical work at Connie Edwards place years ago told me that Edwards had quite an Air Force. Some of the planes were still in crates.
I knew another fella who had been out to Joe Mabee’s place because he knew Mabee’s German A and P mechanic. Mabee also has his own air wing and airfield.
Alas, us piles of rocks are not quite in that economic class.