Our Newest Addition To Inventory: P-51 Parts From Connie Edward’s Collection
This spring, we bought a semi-trailer full of P-51 Mustang parts from Jay Wisler (Of course! We have to keep this great relationship going somehow). The purchase included a whole bunch of goodies such as rudders, ailerons, a vertical and horizontal stabilizer, clamshell doors, inspection covers, spinners, trim tabs, cowlings, fairings, hydraulics, coolant lines and tubing, fuel bladders, radiators, some armament related parts, and much more! A lot of this will be used on our P-51 projects, but a lot is also available to you! Actually, a couple P-51 Mustangs are also available to you (contact Evan Fagen for more information). Also included were some A-26 control surfaces like the rudder, ailerons, and elevators as well as a few T-6 Texan parts and other various warbird parts!
Now the coolest thing about this purchase is the story, and the impact the parts will have on P-51 restorations now and in the future. These parts were a part of Connie Edward’s collection down in Texas! Jay Wilser bought these parts of the collection after Connie passed away in 2019. Jay said that he had been trying to talk Connie into selling the collection for 40 years, so it only made sense that Jay would get his hands on them.
As you most likely know, Connie is a legend in aviation as he has flown almost every warbird, received numerous awards, and had maybe the largest collection of WWII aircraft and parts. I never got to meet Connie, but Jay Wisler, who was great friends with him, describes him as unique, but one of the best guys he has ever met. From the research I’ve done, it seems that the majority of people agree. Truly, Connie’s life could have been a movie, and maybe it will be someday.
Connie grew his collection of WWII aircraft and aircraft parts through “IOUs.” After being the chief stunt pilot for the movie, Battle of Britain, the film company couldn’t afford to pay him, and therefore, he proposed paying him with all the ME109s and the two lead Spitfires. Then again, after serving in the Nicaraguan Civil War, the government couldn't pay him either, so instead he had two P-51 Mustangs shipped to his place. In the 1960s and 1970s, when WWII aircraft were regarded as scrap, Connie snagged anything and everything he could, and some of that of which he snagged were P-51s and P-51 parts, which were used in the Guatemala Airforce, and is now some of the inventory we now have.
Oh, if only these planes, and parts could talk! Imagine the stories we would hear! We all know materialistic things rust, and really have no meaning by themselves. It’s the people that made them, the people that used them in war, and the people who now restore aircraft that make the material significant. People are why these pieces of material have made a major impact throughout generations! And like they have amounted to make such historical differences, they’ll continue to though warbird restorations today.
