A Visitor from Canada!

Meet Frankie!

I liked his look.   You can't see it from this photo, but he had a number of tattoo's that caught my eye.  He came to the air show with his lovely wife of 24 years to watch the planes.

I didn't have a lot of time to get information from him.  So, I gave him a card and asked if he would be kind enough to email me.

Here is a BIT of what he sent.  I cut about half of it out.   NOT because it was boring.  But, it was LONG!   Frankie is passionate about building models of ships, planes, cars, etc.


JP: 

First off, I have been with my wife for 24 years and we have 1 son.

I have been a Steelworker for approximately 25 years.

I live in Selkirk, Manitoba Canada and have all my life.

Well, here is a little about me:

 

As I was saying at the Air Show, my passion is Airplanes, Ships and Military.  As a young man I was in the Navy League and Air Cadets.  I wanted to be a pilot, but unfortunately, due to the loss of my mother when I was 17, my life changed course.  My father was from Hungary, Budapest and in the French Foreign Legion and was part of a Tank Squadron.  My uncles served as Navy Personnel on the ships.

 

My other passion is my hobby building big scale plastic plane and ship models.

One of my most notorious ship building was the Titanic.  When the Titanic Expo was in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature had their own Manitoba Connection to the Titanic and my model of the Titanic was displayed for all to see.  The museum also created key chains and magnets for sale, using the picture of my Titanic Model.  You can likely check into this by doing a web search on Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature in Winnipeg Manitoba.

I have been a fan of the Titanic and it's background.  The one thing that sticks out the most for me, is when the men, women and children were hitting the rivets into the ship by hand.  They were hot steel and only handled by their hands and cloths.  The man power that went into the building was amazing. I think about the massive propellers, bringing them in on horse and buggy, pulling into the ship yard.  

 

If you check on-line The Selkirk Record, Thursday, February 17, 2011 edition, you will see me on the front cover of the paper with another of my models, a CF-18 and on the second page my Titanic.

 

I have also recently built the German Railway Gun - The Leopold.  The model itself is 4 feet long, 6 inches wide and from the arch of the gun to the bottom of the platform is about 18 inches.  This was the first time I built anything outside a plane or ship.  The reason for building this model was, really ....it was very cheap (LOL) and the size of the model, I found it would be interesting to undertake.  This particular gun, especially the weight and size, the crew takes 25 men to run this big gun.  The weight of the barrel itself, is 187, 880 pounds !   The shells weigh roughly 600 pounds each. It fires a distant of 80 miles.  The whole railway gun weight is 218 tons !  which is a heck of lot of weight !  It took me 6 months to complete.

 

I have also built Battle Ships:

The Japanese Yamato, which was 72,500 tons

The Legendary Arizona

The Bismarck

The Tirpitz

The USS New Jersey

 

The reason I pick certain models to build, is usually due to the stories I hear about them.  I find myself wanting to be part of the stories, so I build the models and it brings me closer to the feeling of what they are and the stories behind them.

I only build, roughly one model per year.  I only build in the winter.  The summer I am busy enjoying the nice Manitoba Weather and making trips to Air Shows every year.

 

Thank you very much for expressing interest me and my life.

If you need more information or anything like that, please e-mail.