http://vimeo.com/99991680
http://vimeo.com/99991680
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In the warbird world there are some special and unusual and historic things and Connie is one of them. One year at Oskosh my young Son sat in Connie's seaplane and was entranced by the stories Connie told.
One day, too long ago, we were at Connie's house, airstrip and hangar in Big Spring, and Jay Cullum and I were looking at that very Me 109, the two seater. Now, in view of the fact that the 109 doesn't have a great reputation for ground handling, Jay, said "You could scare two people at once in that thing."
It is also a measure and a tribute to Connie's abilty as a pilot and his confidence that he had no hestitancy in flying the 109s. I know of some otherwise fine pilots who are reluctant to do it.
I got to fly a very nice Spitfire in Canada and they had a genuine DB Me 109, and I sat in it, would have loved to have taxied it, but not too sure what I would have said if they had asked me to fly it. John Romain and Skip Holm flew that one.
It is easy for modern Ameirican pilots to look down on the 109 as something a bit quaint and maybe outclassed by a P-51 or other Allied fighter at the end of the war, but in the right hands a 109 was a formidable and dangerous opponent, and one which the novice Allied pilot would be at his own peril to underestimate. After Skip flew the 109E and I asked him what he thought, he said he could give a P-51 a hard time with that plane. There were about 30,000 built and it is a heck of a piece of history. Flying next to it you realize how small it is and how most of it seems to be engine. It is not as "pretty" as a Spitfire, not the same curves and almost femine look. The 109 looks angular, and very purposeful and formidable .
That's an interesting video, it's nice to see the planes he has and that they'll up for sale and maybe we'll see them in the air someday.
Thanks