The Myth of the Plywood Model Airplanes from Arosa 2006

More than 60 years ago, the earliest model airplanes embarked on their adventurous flights without any remote control. Back then, each model was created through painstaking fretsaw work based on blueprints or as a custom design. Today’s ready-made models represent a completely different culture: an adaptation to our modern consumerist, disposable society. From today’s perspective, the model builders of that era were true artists. And so the participants in the Arosa Antique Glider Model Gathering can also be described as artists. Their mastery of the traditional craft, their skill in working with plywood and pine strips,

Canvas or silk. The mounting varnish is a very special substance: it literally holds models together. It all sounds a bit strange in this age of Styrofoam and carbon fiber. All one can say is: It’s a good thing to honor these old values.

That is why we invite anyone who builds Swiss models from the plywood era that are true to scale and material to help preserve our history of vintage model aircraft. See you on June 30–July 1, 2007, at Tschuggen. Even those just interested and spectators can witness something truly special here.

*Alfred Genther*