shot off,” he continued. “There
were times when I wished I
could get out and push it to
make it go faster.”
Cooney said his worst expe-
rience was on a torpedo run
on a Japanese convoy in the
China Sea.
“All our planes from all our
carriers were vectored out
to try and find it and, unfor-
tunately, if you want to call
it that, we found them first,”
he said.
It was a small convoy of sev-
en Japanese ships, including a
couple of Japanese destroyer
escorts.
Fighters were up high, he
said.
“They came in diving with
rockets ahead of us,” Cooney
said. “We were out on the
fringe and we were coming in
from both sides and we hit a
couple of the Japanese ships.”
Just in case the worst hap-
pened, Cooney had written a
“last letter” about what to do
with his life insurance and put
it in his locker.
After the war, Cooney re-
turned to Philadelphia and
met a “beautiful girl from West
Catholic” and married her in
July 1946.
“It was always a joke in our
house whereby I said ‘I spent
three years in World War II
and 67 in World War III.”
A2
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2014
Nick Cooney, right, stands with his crew in 1945.
Jack Fichter/CAPE MAY STAR AND WAVE
Jake Sanippo, of Gloucester Township, makes biplanes from recycled soda cans. He was selling them
last week during the 18th annual AirFest at Naval Air Station Wildwood.
Gunner
Continued from Page A1
Tinsmith makes biplanes
out of recycled soda cans
By JACK FICHTER
Cape May Star and Wave
ERMA — While a B-17 and
B-24 roared across the sky
outside the Naval Air Station
Wildwood Aviation Museum,
Jake Sanflippo’s “air force”
hung from strings of fishing
line. His biplanes bore the
names “Coke,” “Sprite” and
“Dr. Pepper.
The Gloucester Township
resident was selling his soda
and beer can airplanes inside
the big hangar during during
the 18th annual AirFest last
week at the museum.
Sanflippo said he started
making airplanes from soda
cans as a hobby. He said he
did not have a design with
which to work.
“I sort of made it myself,”
he said. “The trick is in the
propeller.”
Each blade of the propeller
is cut and pitched to a certain
angle so it spins well in the
wind, he said. The propeller,
which takes an hour to make,
has a bearing inside, Sanflippo
said.
He said different size cans
— such as 12 ounce, 22 ounce
and 24 ounce — make differ-
ent size airplanes.
With the public actively
involved in recycling, San-
flippo said it is getting harder
to find cans. He said he does
not drink beer, which would
provide cans for larger planes.
“We do all right on the so-
das,” Sanflippo said.
Friends help him locate
cans, which has hazards —
such as bees attracted by the
remaining soda in the can,
he said.
Landing gear for the planes
are made of coat hanger struts
and bottle cap tires. It takes
two cans to make the wings of
the biplanes, another can for
the propeller, one for the body
of the plane and one for the
tail, Sanflippo said. The pro-
peller shaft runs all the way
through the body of the plane.
It takes him about two and
half hours to build a plane, not
counting the time needed to
collect the cans and sanitize
them.
Sanflippo estimates he has
built 3,000 to 4,000 can air-
planes. He said Coke has
four sizes of cans, as does
Budweiser. Arizona Iced Tea
cans produce larger airplanes,
Sanflippo said. Coors cans are
blue on the inside, he noted.
A regular size plane is
$20, while a larger aircraft
is priced at $22. The alumi-
num cans do not rust, so the
airplanes can be hung outside
and spin in the wind, Sanflippo
said.
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