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A MODEL HOBBY
His love for aviation became ...
The idea took off as a tribute to his son Joe’s success
BY JoAnn Jones
CANFIELD
Ron Santoro of Can- field has a good friend and neighbor, Britt Day.
Day is such a good friend that he has loaned his book, The Rand McNally Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft, to Santoro, and Santoro has just “taken off” with the ideas he’s found in that book.
Santoro uses the aircraft in that book as the models for the planes he builds out of wood. He’s been so successful in building those wooden planes that they’re now on display at the Bond House, the home of the Canfield Historical Society on Main Street.
“I’ve always had a love for aviation,” Santoro said. “I’d been building the plastic model airplanes since I was a kid, and they just weren’t a challenge anymore. So I started building the wooden ones six or seven years ago.”
Currently the display shows 12 models, among them a World War I French Spad Fighter as well as several German and British models from World War II.
“There’s nothing more fascinating than sitting up here wearing a Charlie Brown helmet,” he said as he pointed to the cockpit of a World War II fighter plane.
Santoro said from the time his children were little, the whole family was interested in planes.
“My one son, Joe, went on to Kent State University, where he learned to fly,” Santoro said. “My wife’s first airplane trip was with Joey. He flew us to Atwood Lodge for lunch. It was quite an adventure.”
Santoro’s modeling of the planes is a tribute to Joe, who passed away. His son’s success in the field of aviation has fostered his love for building them.
“Joe was a trustee for the Military Air Preservation Society at the Canton-Akron Airport,” he said. “He helped them acquire and retain a lot of antique aircraft.”
Another son, Brian, is an aircraft mechanic.
Santoro, who worked in the food industry at Loblaw’s, A&P and Sparkle for close to 50 years, retired in 1997 but always liked to stay busy.
“I just kind of loafed around for awhile,” he said, “driving for car dealers and working as a substitute custodian at the career center [Mahoning County Career and Technical Center]. Between that and taking care of the home, I was just keeping busy.”
When the plastic model planes lost his interest, his basement workroom began to fill up with wood.
“I use basswood, which is a little bit harder than balsa wood,” Santoro said. “It comes in sheets that I laminate together to get the thickness I need.”
He said his wife saves discount coupons for the area craft stores — Michael’s, Jo-Ann Fabrics & Crafts and Hobby Lobby — to keep his hobby less expensive.
“I also use things I have around the house,” he added with a chuckle, “like plumbing washers, copper tubing and sewing thread.”
Getting to know the graphics-arts teacher at the career center was beneficial, too, Santoro said.
“He helped me with the insignia on the planes,” he said.
Santoro said he doesn’t work on the planes all the time.
“I never really put a timeline on it,” he said. “When I get bored, I work on them. Usually my bedtime is 10 p.m., but sometimes I keep working till midnight.”
Although Santoro has a fondness for military planes, he never was in a position to fly in one during combat.
“I should have been born at a different time,” he said. “In June 1953 when the [Korean] war started, I had just turned 18, which was draft-eligible. By that time, though, the draft was full. Five years later I was 23, and they still hadn’t called me, so I volunteered.”
“I wanted to go as soon as possible,” Santoro said. “My parents didn’t know I’d volunteered, and when I got a letter, my dad was mad as a hornet. The first time I saw him shed a tear was when he put me on the bus.”
Santoro spent two years of active duty in the Army in Thule, Greenland, two years of active reserve and two years of inactive reserve.
“Greenland was cold beyond the imagination,” said Santoro, who was a missile assembly corpsman and put anti-aircraft together. “I saw the first Boeing 707 that the Air Force bought, though, to bring General [Curtis] LeMay in. Before that there were only propeller planes. That’s how I got there. There was nothing more scary than flying over all this frozen land.”
“I got my six years in just as Vietnam heated up. I am so blessed, and I thank God …” he said as his voice trailed off.
Several former military pilots have been to the Bond House to see Santoro’s airplane display, according to Bond House curator Laura Zeh.
“There was an inordinate number of Navy pilots who came through,” Zeh said. “One stayed for hours and told me stories.”
Santoro’s display will remain in the Bond House through Labor Day. It is open on Saturdays from 1-4 p.m.