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Airman again on film in ‘Iron Man’

If the Air Force comes up with an Air Force Specialty Code for acting, Tech. Sgt. Thoshiya Jones of Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., may be the first to get it.

Jones, who already made into the Transformers movie as an extra — with a speaking part, no less — recently became an extra for the new Iron Man movie, which just wrapped up filming at Edwards April 16-19.

“It’s a real honor, and it’s pretty exciting to see all the behind-the-scenes effort going on,” Jones said. “You realize that it’s not all glamorous. It’s a lot of hard work.”

In the Transformers film, Jones performed his real-life job in the air traffic control tower and even wrote his own lines for a scene as Raptors scrambled below.

Another Edwards airman, Staff Sgt. Joe Gambles, 31st Test and Evaluation Squadron, passed on trying out for the Transformers movie, but not this time around, when he got to be in several scenes.

“We’re near Hollywood and we work with Hollywood all the time,” he said. “I figure that it would be a waste of my time here at Edwards if I didn’t take advantage of this opportunity.”

Iron Man is the story of billionaire arms-maker Tony Stark, who dons a technologically advanced suit of flexible armor to fight evil. The Marvel Comics’ character originally was a product of the 1960s and the Vietnam War, but has since been updated. Today, Iron Man’s origin is linked to the Persian Gulf War.

In the movie, Iron Man/Stark will be played by Robert Downey Jr.