FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – Roger Smith is undergoing rehab at the Lutheran Life Villages Pine Valley campus off Coldwater Road, but that hasn’t slowed down his favorite hobby: making model airplanes out of aluminum cans.
Smith spends much of his days seated at a makeshift workbench in his one-room, short-term rehab suite. A toolbox sits nearby on the bed, and a handmade tool graces the top of his work table. It’s everything he needs.
“When I ain’t got nothin’ to do, I do it,” said the 92-year-old Smith.
He picked up the plane-making hobby a little later in life. After retiring in 1996, Roger and his wife headed to Florida in 1998 and rented a house. While enjoying their time in the Sunshine State, his wife spotted an aluminum can airplane hanging in a tree and asked her husband if he could make something similar.
“I said ‘I guess I can if I work at it.’”
And that’s what he did. Smith spent most of that winter making patterns and making the first plane. His passion only grew from there.