The aircraft was initially used in the 1950s for reconnaissance missions before being repurposed as a prop for the film.<\/p>\n
Shot in West Cork between September and October 2025, Jimmy highlights the sacrifices made by movie star Jimmy Stewart, who took a break from acting to serve as a bomber commander with the US Army Air Corps.<\/p>\n
Permanent display<\/p>\n
Director of Cork Metal Company, Eddie O\u2019Sullivan, now plans to put it on permanent display.<\/p>\n
![\"What](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/5143200_6_articleinline_4_20-10.jpg\" "\\"What")
What remains of the cockpit of the Percival Pembroke aircraft.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor much of its life the aircraft served the RAF in Berlin. In the time of the Cold War it used to fly out over the iron curtain on reconnaissance missions which were carried out to gather data about enemy activity.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore recently, however, it was used in the movie Jimmy as a prop. A number of modifications had been made to the aircraft for the film.<\/p>\n
\u201cA wartime type windscreen with bullet holes had been added as well as ammunition boxes. One of the turrets was used for machine guns.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never really had an interest in aviation but there is something romantic about an old plane. It wasn\u2019t in me to scrap it.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe motto of our company is \u2018recycling the past and protecting the future\u2019 but in this case we made an exception and protected the past instead.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
Eddie was first made aware of the aircraft through a phone call with Aodh O\u2019Donnell from West Cork Film Studios.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was selling it because while the movie was off site, the plane was still on his property and possibly in his way.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t see these too often in the scrap business so my ears pricked up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was going for a good bit over the scrap value but I saw more than scrap value in it.<\/p>\n
\u201cA man in the UK had offered a lot more money for it but I told Aodh that if this didn\u2019t work out I could be his fallback.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was delighted when the plane became available again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Transporting proved difficult<\/p>\n
However, transporting the aircraft proved difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took a lot to get it here. The width of the wings alone meant it needed separate transport. Three trucks in total were required just to get it here.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe put all the pieces out in a row, not knowing where we were going to start with this jigsaw.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cAll we had to go by was an original picture of the plane which was constructed back in 1957.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI\u2019m told there are only two of these left on the whole planet and one of them is in Miami.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cThe rest of them are gone after being broken up and recycled for scrap.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eddie has amassed a wealth of curiosities over the years.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy house is predominantly decorated with pieces that have come in over the years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve collected various items such as cast iron horse boxes that were used to feed horses in the First World War.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the years we have scrapped stuff that would be worth a lot of money today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can remember breaking down cash registers with sledge hammers and old telephone boxes which all came through us.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI cut up a jet in Shannon years ago but it didn\u2019t have the old mystique of the vintage aircrafts.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cOne day they will be old too and somebody will probably put one of these back together.\u201d<\/p>\n
The artefact was reassembled by James Radford and Tim Crowley from Murjoy Ltd in Whitecross Cork.<\/p>\n
Working around the clock<\/p>\n
They had been working around the clock on the project for a total of 14 days.<\/p>\n
![\"Tim](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/5143203_6_articleinline_4_20-1_2_.jpg\" "\\"Tim")
Tim Crowley and James Radford rebuilt the plane over a 14-day period.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are normally working on fitting pipes in the pharmaceutical industry,\u201d Tim explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis particular project was a new one for us but I just followed Jim\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough we were scratching our heads at the start we just looked at it one jigsaw piece at a time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a nice project to take on. It isn\u2019t every day that you are working on an airplane, especially one with this kind of history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking of history, he expressed his admiration for movie star Jimmy Stewart who was best known for films such as It\u2019s a Wonderful Life.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cJimmy Stewart is one of the great old actors and I\u2019m old enough to remember his films. He was one of the great Americans of his day.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019ll ever have a project like this again.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
Tim\u2019s colleague James Radford admits it was a labour of love to complete the aircraft.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of stuff missing that we ended up having to fabricate ourselves. There were also a lot of repairs that had to be done to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe wings coming down had to be modified to keep them in the position they are in at the moment because there were missing linkages.\u201d<\/p>\n
James initially thought the assignment was a prank after being tasked with the job by Murjoy Ltd\u2019s managing director, Mick Murphy.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhen Mick first asked me to put together an airplane I questioned whether he was talking about a model one. When he told me it was a real airplane I didn\u2019t believe him.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
He is now glad to see his hard work paying off.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy kids are coming up to see it soon. I\u2019ve been showing them photographs so this is something I\u2019m really looking forward to. I\u2019m also really looking forward to seeing the film.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He has smashed up everything from a jet at Shannon Airport to an old telephone box. But, when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[46,35839,79,93,61,60,270,620],"class_list":["post-532518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-cork","tag-cork-entertainment","tag-cork-news","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-west-cork"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}