James 'Stocky' Edwards

[RAF74_Buzzsaw]

Salute All

I'll be going back east to Ottawa Canada for the next week to do some more filming on the documentary I'm producing on Wing Commander James 'Stocky' Edwards.

VINTAGE WINGS, a Canadian aircraft museum which specializes in WWII aircraft has received its restored Kittyhawk, (P-40) painted in Stocky's colours, and he will be going back to dedicate it, and hopefully get a ride. It has been rebuilt with a back seat and a set of dual controls. It was a south Pacific P-40, originally flown by the Australian Airforce, and was restored in New Zealand.

http://www.vintagewings.ca/page?a=320&lang=en-CA

I will be doing some interviews with Stocky in the plane, and also hoping to put a helmet cam on him if he gets up in it. (not sure this will happen)

Also will be doing an interview with him in the Vintage Wings Sabre Jet, he commanded a Wing of these in Europe for NATO after the war.

I'll be posting pics when I get back, and perhaps some video.

By the, some relevance to the current war we are in, here's a photo taken by Stocky in 1942 in the desert, (with a cheap Kodak 'Brownie' camera) of a fellow pilot landing a Kittyhawk and taxing to dispersal.



Cheers Buzzsaw

[RAF74_Drummer]

That's Awsome Buzz...Can't wait to see the pics

[RAF74_Winger]

Great Stuff Buzz!

I notice the kittyhawk in the photo has a chunk missing from the rudder. Looking forward to seeing your pics.

W.

[RAF74_Stew]

Awesome opportunity, Buzz. Must admit when I saw the title of your thread I cringed, thinking he had passed away. Glad to hear that was not the case! We are losing this generation all too rapidly.

Look forward to your report- sure hope you get that ride :)

[RAF74 LoyalNine]

Awesome! I had the opportunity to talk to an old B-17 pilot this weekend at the Pima Air Museum in Mesa... I felt quite honored to even be in his presence and to have his attention for a short time. Thats just a great opportunity you have to document what these guys have to say. There will never be another generation with stories and experiences such as theirs.

[RAF74_Stew]

BTW, that's a Merlin-powered P-40F isn't it? Pretty rare bird even back then. As I recall you can tell by the lack of a top oil cooler scoop?

[RAF74_Winger]

You could be right Stew. See here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_P-40_variants).

W.

[RAF74_Buzzsaw]

Salute

Yes, it is a P-40F, also known as a Kittyhawk II, which was equipped with a Merlin.

Despite the fact it had V-1601 Merlin, the aerodynamics of the P-40 was such that it still couldn't attain the top speed of better designed aircraft such as the P-51, it only reached 364mph. But its high alt performance was much better, and Stocky's Squad was usually assigned high CAP for the Venturas and Bostons which were bombing the Axis fields and positions.

Later these planes were replaced with the Kittyhawk III, which went back to the Allison engine. By that time, the Spit V's were quite numerous, there was no need to use the Kittyhawk for high alt, the Spits had better performance up high, and the Kittyhawk III Squadrons were primarily assigned to ground attack. The Kitty's had better speed down low than the Spit V's, and were more durable in the ground attack role.

As far as I know, this is a Kittyhawk III.



The first type of P-40 Stocky flew was the Kittyhawk 1a, the British name for the P-40E. This is him in his first flight, he shot down a 109 in this the first flight he had in a P-40. The P-40E/Kittyhawk Ia had a slightly shorter fuselage than the later models, and this gave it some instability and made it more difficult to trim.



Life was pretty basic in the desert, here are a bunch of pilots, waiting in the readiness tent for a scramble, playing monopoly to pass the time.



Or they could wait under the wing, anything to get out of the sun.

[RAF74_Buzzsaw]

Salute

Here's Stocky, trying to look older than he was in the cockpit. He was 20 years old when this was snapped.



Here's a shot up P-40, the pilot was chased back to the field by 109's and had to belly land.



You can see from the cockpit, that he took a lot of fire, Oleg's graphics for shotup gauges is actually pretty close to the truth.



The pilot was actually ok, just shaken up with a concussion and some bangs and scratches.

Here's Stocky stepping down off a captured 109F after he took it up for a spin. Pilots were given familarizations so they would know the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy aircraft. As you know, the 109F4 was a much better plane than the Kittyhawk.

[RAF74_Dharmaboy]

Wow these are amazing pics. Hey Buzz do you have any other great shots I can use to spice up the Homesite?

[RAF74 Taipan]

I was like stew. Fear that he had passed. So few of these guys left.

It brings tears to your eyes to think what these guys did and went through.

Great pics and story.

[RAF74_Buzzsaw]

Salute

Back in Vancouver.

Didn't take any stills this trip, too busy.

Here's a link for some video of aircraft:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SZZ1XY7W

Probably will take some time to download. Unedited, just raw footage.

Will link some more later.

Cheers Buzzsaw

[RAF74_Buzzsaw]

Salute

Here are a couple more downloads of short clips.

First is of four of the Vintage Wing aircraft taking off, there was quite a crosswind going on, so you can see they are bouncing around.

http://rapidshare.com/files/284173879/_cHanger4.avi.html

Second is of Stocky in the cockpit, chatting about flying the Kittyhawk. There are three Harvards practicing aerobatics overhead.

http://uploading.com/files/c1e1m1d8/cHanger5.avi/

All short clips, I am limited by the amount these file sharers will allow as an upload, I could load lower quality, but am reducing the resolution quite a bit from the originals anyway.

All of these clips are unedited, I make no apology for the way they look, I'll be editing the material of course for the final version of the documentary. I shot around 4 hours worth of material during my trip, probably won't use much more than 5 minutes in the documentary.

Cheers Buzzsaw

[RAF74 LoyalNine]

DLing now... very cool. Where are you going to be using this documentary? Is it a personal project or something you are doing for work?

Looks like that that would have been awesome fun being that close. What airport is that? Looks like a 40's Stinson (or Taylorxcraft maybe) parked there as well.

[RAF74_Buzzsaw]

Salute Loyal

Documentary is hopefully going to end up on Canadian 'History Television', similar to your History Channel, may end up on that as well in U.S. Market.

Continuing with clips, I used a 'pencil cam' attached to the helmet of the pilot in the cockpit of the KittyHawk. (P-40) This gives you a real perspective of a pilot in this situation.

I would have preferred to put it on Stocky's helmet, or facing him, but he wasn't keen on that.

Anyway, you can see in the following clip, as Stocky takes over the controls in the back seat and flys, the pilot, Dave Hadfield, (brother of Canadian shuttle astronaut Chris Hadfield) gives map directions to Stocky. You can see Dave's not holding onto the stick.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HZJY5EHV

Then Dave takes over for the landing. This is a pretty good view of landing a P-40, Dave makes a nice two wheel touchdown, a lot of RAF74 guys, including myself could use him as an example.

http://rapidshare.com/files/284223155/_cHanger7.avi.html

And Stocky climbs down off the wing, to the congratulations of the pilots at Vintage Wings.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=74FL8GVY

[RAF74_Stew]

Good stuff, Buzz

I frequent the Warbird Information Exchange (WIX) website and found this thread. Appears to be the same event from a different perspective?


http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=32175&sid=d970e39170c46cb299bcfcf7812f6f3e

[RAF74_Buzzsaw]

Salute Stew

Not really a different perspective. Those are pics by Dave Hadfield the pilot who flew Stocky, and who you will see in my videos if you downloaded them.

His pictures show two days, Saturday, when Stocky flew, and Battle of Britain Sunday when the aircraft flew in a commemoration over our capital, including a Lancaster. (I have video of the Lancaster too which I may upload)

His wife is also a pilot, she got to go up in the P-40. I was hoping against hope that I'd get a chance to do so too, but too many people with higher priorities who were ahead of me, and I can't disagree with that.

I did get to go up in a Stearman biplane, but no pics or video from that, the pilot didn't want me to carry a video camera in the cockpit, since I was ahead of him, he didn't want it coming loose and hitting him. Since the ride was for free, I wasn't going to argue. ;)

The photos of Stocky are by the official Vintage Wings photographer who got to ride in the Harvard chase plane on Saturday. I will likely be using some of the air to air still photos in the documentary.

[RAF74_Stew]

Buzz- Thanks for downloading the video files. I can't pull them at work but downloaded all of 'em when I got home tonight. They are awesome!

The landing sequence indeed made me a bit jealous but the pilot definitely had 6dof going! :)

Great interview footage of Stocky as well. So many complain about the tracers in IL2 but here's a guy who didn't even want to use them because they messed up his aim. Have seen and heard this a lot from guys who flew in WWII.

[RAF74 Taipan]

Buzz i have been using a vio head cam (http://www.vio-pov.com/index.php) for skiing.

I find it very good.

Here is a single clip of me skiing bumps on a black run (most difficult) sun peaks January 2009. The actual position is the cam is a few degrees vertical off. But you get the idea.

The mistake i made is that a glued the mount to where i thought id look not where i would normally look.

I can fix that, in the future.

Anyway some pics of the co skiing bumps on a black run BC canada.

[RAF74_Buzzsaw]

Salute Tai

Hey, you're a pretty good skiier for a guy from Oz! ;)

Nice video, as you mention, the position of the camera is key, sometimes if you don't have it pointing in exactly the right direction, you don't get the view you want. I had to experiement with the camera I was using.

I used a Sony HXR-MC1 model, looks very similar to the one you are using. It is an HD model.

I am in the process of putting together a proposal to Vintage Wings, the organization with the aircraft, to do a series of DVD's in collaboration with them, using several of these small cameras mounted on the pilots helmet, in the cockpit, and outside on the body of the plane. I would have the pilots comment on what he was doing as he started up, tookoff, landed, etc. Also would shoot from the ground and from chase planes. It would be an exact description of the experience of flying these aircraft.

Series would be entitled, 'Flying the Spitfire', 'Flying the Mustang', etc. would be marketed through Vintage Wings to Warbirds enthusiasts and general pilots.

Have to finish the current projects first though.

[RAF74_Buzzsaw]

Salute

Vintage Wings has posted its account of Stocky's visit:

http://www.vintagewings.ca/page?a=1159&lang=en-CA

I will likely be using some of the air to air photos in the documentary.