Certainly the hobby of building model airplanes has stuck with Will Woods.
“It started a couple of times, the first time I’d have been about 11,” he said.
Woods said he found he had a little cash and like all kids wanted to spend it, so he bought an airplane, or at least he thought it was a toy airplane.
“It had a really cool picture on the front. They always do that to grab you,” he said.
But, when he got it home and opened the box it was not a toy but rather a model in pieces, that he had to put together. He wasn’t thrilled by the prospect initially, but he got some glue and went to work.
Little did he know at age 11, but he was taking the first step on a more than 60-year journey of modelling.
“In my early teens I started doing it a lot,” said Woods.
It was in his teens Woods began reading about aircraft, specifically those of the Second World War, in particular finding fascination with pilot Sir Douglas Robert Steuart Bader thanks to the book ‘Reach For the Sky’. He was a Royal Air Force flying ace during the war, who was credited with 22 aerial victories, four shared victories, six probable’s, one shared probable and 11 enemy aircraft damaged.
Woods was becoming hooked on aircraft, and then fate gave him a final push into the hobby. He got a job at The Variety Shop in Yorkton owned by John Kominko. The store lasted only a couple of years, but in its time it sold model kits, and Kominko was a skilled builder himself.
“It was the first job I ever had other than delivering The Leader-Post,” he said.
With models on the shelves to buy with his wages and a mentor to help, Woods was set.
“I really got hooked into it,” he said.
Woods said thinking back his early models were typically Mosquitos and Spitfires “Second World War stuff.”
“Most of it was hanging from the ceiling in my room. I’d lay there and look up and dream I was in one of the planes.”
But those models are long gone to multiple lifetime moves, marriage, family and career.
Interestingly, Woods never did take up flying.
“I think at one time I wanted to, but then again life kind of got in the way,” he said, adding the expense was also daunting.
Woods did however hold onto his love of modelling.
“In my 20s I sort of delved back into it,” he said, recalling one plane he built that he later donated to the local ANAVETs.
The family and work took over and Woods stepped back from modelling for years. But when he retired a few years ago he was eager to step back to the modelling table.
Over the years he had ‘accumulated a few models stored away awaiting construction in what Woods terms his ‘stash’. There were maybe 30 he said, a pile that has been added to more actively since retirement.
“Now it’s up to about 40,” he said.
Of course there is no local source for models today, but there is something called the Internet and through that Woods has found stores in several Canadian cities quite willing to ship him models and paint and glue, and when he buys enough it’s free shipping -- the incentive to add to the stash.
The online access to models is just one way the hobby has changed.
Woods pointed to bound copies on modelling magazines, noting he now gets those in eformat online.
And, in his younger days it was all painting with a brush, which made dealing with certain colours –white and yellow in particular – quite difficult. Today Woods is learning to use an air brush which is a big step forward in making a finished model look more like the box top art.
Woods’ interest has also refined somewhat.
Of course there remains a connection to the models of his youth.
“If I see a kit I remember doing as a kid I’ve got to have it,” he said.
But, beyond that he is more targeted today.
The planes of the Great War are many, so he is trying to focus on ones that have a tie to Yorkton, in particular those which would have flown at the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) facility at the airport.
In 1939, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand and Australia signed an agreement creating the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP). The plan was located at airfields in Canada several in Saskatchewan including Yorkton. The plan's mandate was to train Allied aircrews for the Second World War, including pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, wireless operators, air gunners, and flight engineers. More than 130,000 crewmen and women were trained between 1939 and 1945.
So a priority are Harvards – he has three waiting to construct – Tiger Moths and Cornells.
And then there is an interest in airplanes that have flown into the local airport, which broadens the hobby for Woods to everything from a C130 Hawk out of Moose Jaw to Hercules search and rescue out of Winnipeg to Snowbird CT0-114 Tutors to vintage Lancaster bombers.
Considering with preparation, building and painting a model may take weeks to complete, Woods, now 65, has a hobby that will keep him busy for years to come, but that is the way it has always been, he reflects.
“It’s always been there (the interest). I don’t know if it ever left really,” he said.
