Roy Exum
It is said in the late afternoons Connell Edwards will stop outside a big building on his sprawling Texas ranch about 30 miles from Odessa and just hang around drinking long-necked beers, him and his dog Hunter. The building is full of “Connie’s stuff,” things he’s traded for and bought during an ever more spectacular life. And it is an unbelievable trove, I’m telling you.
It’s actually an airplane hangar, more than 100,000 square feet, and it’s full of World War II fighter planes – Messerschmitts, Buchons, Spitfires and Hurricanes, P-38s, P-51s, seaplanes and engines for all of them, some never used.
There’s a 1954 Corvette, a 1958 Cadillac El Dorado Brougham and antique motorcycles. All kinds of stuff. Not many people know about it because “Connie” doesn’t cotton to gawkers but now he’s 80 years old and without an heir. So, in one of the best stories I have read all year, he’s ready to sell out.
Dave Hirschman, obviously talented as both a pilot and writer, wrote of the “Tall Tail (That’s True)” in the August issue of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s magazine, and now the story is spreading like a prairie fire on the Internet. “Kids” like myself are drooling over Hirschman’s story because when you combine “a barn find” that is the best collection of warbirds in the world with an American legend like brazen and reclusive Connie Edwards … oh, my goodness.
Hirschman’s story doesn’t exactly say what Mr. Edwards will take but there are some hints. “People can pay my price or go to hell. I don’t care which,” the sun-baked rancher said at one point and at another told the writer, “I know the value of what I got and I don’t haggle. Pay my price or don’t waste my time.” He added, “If they can afford to buy them, they probably have enough money to restore them. If not, they’re better off not even trying.” (Not long ago a restored P-51 Mustang brought a price of $1.5 million.)
Then there is one more thing. Connie soloed when he 16 years and then spent his 20s flying for shadowy firms in the Carribbean and Central America, which he doesn’t discuss. Soon he was flying for movie producers and his aerial heroics in airplanes have thrilled millions. In 1968 a movie starring Michael Caine and Sir Lawrence Olivier, “The Battle of Britain” was shot of the skies of England and the Texas rancher not only choreographed but flew in hundreds of the dogfights for the film. “I got my honorary RAF wings when I belly-landed a Messerschmitt one day during the shooting,” he said in a matter-of-fact way.
When the movie was finished the producers wanted to give him an IOU for his work … you know, “until the money comes in” … and Edwards was too crafty. “I took the planes instead.” Add the fact that his ranch is sitting atop a sea of Texas oil and gas and Connie hardly mentions the money he makes selling stone to the rich folks in Dallas, Houston and points far beyond. “Dumb luck,” he admits, “and been in the right place at the right time.”
In 1972 a man who would become a family friend flew to Edwards’ ranch to shoot quail. Guy by the name of Walton … Sam. Connie was one of the very first investors in Sam’s Walmart venture. “Dumb luck.”
Last year his life finally crumbled when his lone son, Tex, was killed in a car crash at age 42. Tex was the best pilot Connie ever saw and would have inherited all of the elder Edwards’ belongings but “now that he’s gone, there’s no sense in keeping it.”
The author wrote that Edwards “can be charming, engaging, and funny when telling stories of the times he spent flying with English, Spanish and German pilots in Europe filming the Battle of Britain. He also is one of the few pilots on the planet who can authoritatively compare the flight characteristics of some of history’s most renowned aircraft.”
The AOPA expert wrote, “With many hundreds of hours in both the P–51 and Bf 109/Buchon, for example, (Edwards) says the German-designed aircraft is far and away the more nimble fighter. ‘It’s not even a close contest,’ he says. ‘In the hands of a similarly trained and experienced pilot, the 109 wins hands-down.’ Edwards recounts a truism by Luftwaffe fighter ace Adolf Galland: ‘Most pilots expect their airplanes to perform. The Me 109 expects its pilot to perform.’”
Wouldn’t you just love to sit with Connie and his dog one afternoon in the warm Texas sun? Just talking about stuff?
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Make sure you get the kids up early Wednesday. The second “Blood Moon” will be in the sky and the eclipse, according to NASA, will begin at 6:25 a.m. and end at 7:24 a.m. The “blood moon” will be about 5 percent bigger than the first one that appeared April 15. There will be two more in the tetrad, the next on April 4 in 2015 and the last on September 28 of next year. Go to the NASA website and read about it!
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