That aircraft again

[Bob Womack]

Yes, they had a two-cockpit dual-control Hispano HA-1112 Buchon (Bf-109) on the film and on one of the days of filming in England Dolpho (Adolph Galland) went to the field and was invited to take the plane for a spin. The film's pilot took the plane up and then Dolpho beat up the field with aerobatics for about thirty minutes and impressed everyone.

The CASA 2.111s (Heinkel 111s) were still in service with the Spanish Air Force and Spain was in an uncomfortable period of relations with England. It was amazing to all that Spain place their entire fleet of bombers at the disposal of the film company in Spanish airspace and allowed them to repaint the planes to Geman colors. One of those planes was Franco's personal plane that ended up in the Commemorative Air Force's fleet until it crashed on landing. My boys and I were able to tour it before that crash.


The clowns

Two bombers were allowed to fly to England and eventually France to allow interaction between the film company's British planes as well. Two interesting sidebars:
1. All of the "German" planes used in the filming except one were powered by Rolls Royce Merlins engines, the engines that powered the British planes. My understanding is that one actual BF-109 was used and it retained its Daimler-Benz engine.
2. There were only three flyable Hurricanes at the time of shooting so spare Hispano HA-1112 Buchon (Bf-109) were repainted to British colors and markings and placed at a distance in Hurricane formations to fill them out.

Bob

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Merlin266]

Did an American receive payment for work he did during filming in the form of a few buchons, P51 and a mk 9. I remember him having a two seat buchon too.

[Bob Womack]

That was Connie Edwards. He received several flying Buchons in payment for his flying in the film, bringing over his own plane, a Spit, and for finding the pilots to fly the planes. He recently sold his planes. I think a friend got one of them. He's being secretive, but he did just buy a Merlin engine and did just build a hangar on his ranch in Texas!

MORE ON CONNIE
Bob

[CINDERS]

Even Merlined engined as they are the airframes alone would demand a premium price the spindly undercarraige is quite evident on the fore ground aircraft the doom of many a novice pilot in the Luftwaffe

[Harlan (Deceased)]

HOLY COW!! You guys know more about the ME-109's and also the Battle of Britain movie than anyone I've ever met. Lefty Gardner was the co-founder of the CAF and he was fairly local so we got to talk with him at some of the CAF shows. Lefty flew spitfires in the movie and Mr. Galland mostly flew the Spanish version of the ME-109. (He was also a CAF member) Lefty said they would sit around in lawn chairs and tell 'War Stories'. Lefty was a bomber pilot in WWII, and Mr. Galland was of course one of the top aces on the German side mostly flying ME-109's. Lefty said it was strange at first sitting around 'hangar flying' with Mr. Galland, but after a little while they became good friends. It seems funny that at one time they were sworn enemies trying to kill each other and now they are friends! Below is a link telling a little about Lefty soon after he too passed:

AOL Image Search result for "http://www.aero-news.net/images/content/general/2008/Lefty-Gardner-White-Lightnin-1208a.jpg"

And yes, the CAF's Spanish HE111 was completely destroyed when on final and crashed into a car wash short of the runway. We know what happened... It was a simple pilot error and very sad. Kinda long story, but he moved the wrong lever and it cut off all fuel when he meant to start the APU to lower the gear. The only hydraulics in the HE111 was operation of lifting and lowering that landing gear.

The two levers on the left were the cause of the fatal crash.



The 'yellow' lever temporarily started the APU and has to be engaged in order to raise the gear, and also lower the gear on final. The 'Red' lever shuts off the fuel supply to the engines. There were several 'close calls' in the past when the pilot or crew chief moved the gas shut-off lever by mistake and the engines started to 'sputter' before they stopped completely while the aircraft was climbing out after take-off, or when on final! You know how things are on final and you seem to have to keep up with 100 things all at once. In the past, when they touched the red lever by mistake and the engines started to 'sputter' but the crew chiefs or pilots quickly put the red lever back in place and 'went around'. They even painted the 'bad' lever RED and the APU lever YELLOW to keep this from happening. Everything happens fast when on final and the aircraft shut the engines off. The pilot only had seconds to correct the situation but he didn't figure out what he had done until the HE111 stalled and crashed.



The CAF worked with the FAA and told them of the lever situation and the FAA found the red lever engaged so as to cut off the fuel.

I always loved the CAF's HE111 and I looked around my hard-drive and found a few photos I had taken from the past. Originally the CAF HE111 still had the 'Battle of Britain' paint, but later it was repainted to resemble the livery style of the Africa theater.

At mandatory three month stay at CAF HQ in Midland. (The Midland location was unbelievably SLOW and saw very few visitors. I used to fly to Midland once a month or so on Saturdays just to see what aircraft were there and the museum and hangar were usually empty of visitors!)


Another time at a random air show:




This shot was when the HE111 was still wearing the old paint from the 'Battle of Brittain' movie:




Bob, that was an OUTSTANDING photo of the Spanish ME-109's. CINDER is 100% CORRECT concerning the landing gear. The CAF bought most of the Spanish ME-109s after the film was done. The funky landing gear while landing on modern runways took almost the whole fleet out! The WWII ME109's mostly operated from grass fields while in service and the gear gave some forgiveness while landing. The CAF 109's had to land on modern concrete fields and it was a disaster! First there was no forgiveness using the strange gear and some collapsed when it hit modern runways. The other MAIN situation that took most of the ME-109's out were 'Ground Loops' as the aircraft 'bit' the runway with one angled gear and the plane was too far in trouble to correct with rudder so many of the CAF 109's were crash landed and/or sent spinning or sometimes cartwheeling tearing off and destroying the wings.

Bob, it's VERY interesting to me but I have a feeling 'this' CAF 109 might be the plane that your friend has. I took this photo several years ago at CAF HQ hangar... It amazed me how small it was next to other fighters on display in the the CAF HQ hangar!


At the time ALL of the CAF 109's were grounded by the CAF because of the landing gear disasters.... The 109 pictured here was said to be the only single surviving Spanish ME-109 remaing from the fleet of ME-109's and it was said this aircraft was permanently grounded by the CAF. It sat in the HQ hangar for about a year, then suddenly it was gone! I tried to investigate as to what happened to it and the one gentleman working in the museum said it was flown out to a guy who had "big plans" to restore it to WWII status. (???)

[CINDERS]

I found a clip once on utube it had I think a resto going on with an ME-109 engine they sent the crank to Rolls Royce to check the engine out. Nope I remember now it was on the history channel Wings of the Luftwaffe.The chap from Rolls Royce who was tasked with the engine said on film he cautioned the people working on the plane not to damage the crankshaft.
Why you ask? he said during the war Germany produced about 20,000 engines for 109's all the while being bombed 24/7 allowing for weather interludes. The spokesman said its tolerances were smack bang in the middle of what they should have been and if you break it we cannot produce another one. I put the ME 109 main gear in the same realm as the ME-262 nose wheel as I wonder how many 262's collapsed being towed by a Kettenkrad over the airfield.
Until they figured on a system that evened the load from the nose wheel onto the main gear even then they had to be careful.
Of all the books I have read on both sides of the conflict some chivalry did exist between fliers the love of flying, seldom have I read where they deliberately targeted the pilot.
Most of the Schrage Musik night fighters went for the wing tanks on the bombers though I am not saying there weren't pilots who deliberately concentrated their fire on the canopy.
Some top British aces thought only to bring the plane down and not think about the pilot.

Just recently on our news an Australian WWII bomber pilot had written to certain towns in Europe apologizing for the civilians he killed whilst bombing the cities.
It had been troubling him very much over the years, all the cities wrote back from Germany thanking him and they understood that at the time he was carrying out his duty.
The plan was called "Point Blank" it is contained in a 3 volume set The air offensive against Germany it was derived at between the powers that be.
With Winston and Bomber Harris pushing to bomb the civilian population to make them lose faith and their support in the continuation of the war.

[Bob Womack]

Another WWII plane with landing gear problems was the F4F/FM-2 Wildcat, but hers were down at the end of the gear in the brakes. The brakes on the Wildcat were so "grabby" that few haven't either ended up on their nose or ground looped at one time or another. We had a local one that was looped in Richmond and cleaned off the gear in the ditch beside the runway. They rebuilt it and used the brake system from a Hellcat.


Halan, I'm fascinated that the CAF'a Spanish HE111 had had its instrument panel pulled down from the ceiling where it was originally mounted and placed conventionally. I wonder if that was something the Spanish did? Of course, it was also modified for tandem control, which was rare.

Bob

[Harlan (Deceased)]

I think Harris was a horrible and cold man CINDERS. If people don't know about it, late in the war when Germany was already on it knees he ordered carpet bombing of cities that hadn't been bombed before because they didn't have any value as aids to the German war effort. He knew that the cities he ordered to be obliterated were only 99% civilians and they were raised to the ground in massive around the clock bombing. He had the RAF bomb these cities through the night and the US bomb them during the day. There's an infamous filmed interview where the reporters asked him why he was attacking civilian cities and he said he was going to try to break civilian moral. He also said he was only going to try wiping out civilians and he said he was going to bomb them because it hadn't been done before! People don't talk about it much, but I think it was evil to wipe out cultural cities with little to do with the German war effort. These cities didn't even have much if any defenses in place because the Germans felt they weren't War cities with little target value.

Bob, you're correct again....
Most European bomber aircraft of the Second World War did not have co-pilots as part of the crew. I don't know if the Spanish modified the HE111, or if it was done after the war. I suspect the latter, but I have no idea. Regardless, the British and even Germany had very little manpower and felt they were better off not sacrificing two pilots if the aircraft was shot down. America had a lot of manpower and most all larger American planes were designed form the beginning to carry a co-pilot.

Oh YES, the Wildcat was really ungainly with the narrow fuselage mounted landing gear. I didn't know about the break problem until I witnessed it in person at a small-town airshow we were invited to in the Texas Hill Country. We usually arrived at shows on Friday afternoon and I liked to see what planes would show up. This Wildcat came in OK and was about to slow down enough it looked like he had landed OK, and then it just did a nose-over at low speed!

Luckily he was traveling slowly when it happened and the pilot wasn't hurt and it only did minimal damage to the aircraft. I saw the same aircraft flying again the next air show season.


Also, while searching my computer I found another photo of the CAF HE111 in an almost forgotten file from many years ago. During air shows the CAF only allows essential crew to be on board. I had just become a crew chief and this was my first time to be able to fly in a show. I kept my camera on a shelf beside my position between the pilots "just in case" and I snapped a picture of the aircraft as we were departing. I got one photo on the Saturday show and one on the Sunday show. Since I was doing my first air show duty I didn't try to take any more pictures or look like I wasn't taking my 'job' seriously. We were all flying in a 'racetrack' pattern and flying low over the runway so the crowds could see the big aircraft in flight. Once we were in the air you really couldn't see much other than a smallish 'dot' in front so I didn't miss any good photos.

The HE111 was still in the old chalky paint from the filming of "The Battle of Britain" and it was right in front of the two B-25's.



Yes, the taxiway was as rough at it looks! This is the San Marcus airfield that was a military base in WWII and hasn't changed much. You can't see the HE111 in this photo from that Sunday but I added it when I found it in the same folder.

[CINDERS]

Ummm Harlan the pics don't work!

[Harlan (Deceased)]

I "attached" the same three photos here. (Do they work in this mode?)

~ Harlan