The goal of Wings of Intent is to promote awareness about two periods of aviation history that are often neglected, misrepresented and generally overlooked.

Those periods are The Pioneers Era and the Golden Age of Aviation.

Their time frame is usually given using the two world wars as a reference, but I would like instead to refer to them as the periods when aviation was born and took to the air, and the period when aviation expanded and became the herald and symbol of a new area on communications and understanding of our world, a time where the world became physically united.

This approach can sound romanticized, and indeed there is something romantic about it.

I would like to think that many seeds of understanding, knowledge, invention, adventure and understanding were sowed then.

This blog will be about civilian model airplanes, mostly scratch-built, all in 1/72 scale. Many of them appeared in modeling-related sites on the Internet as building articles signed by Gabriel Stern.

I am an artist (a painter and sculptor) and also like to write. Modeling for me has been a passion since I was a kid. It is only in later times that I understood that all we do carries certain degree of intentionality, whatever we are aware of that or not, and according to that my modeling subjects gradually changed from what they were, to what they are.

Model airplanes can be “read” in different ways, and they convey multiple layers of meaning. I look at them mostly from an artistic point of view, their “sculptural” properties, their shape and complexity, or simplicity. No less important is how and for what they were used.

I may like their design, but their performance is for me irrelevant. If they flew -or even in a few cases if they didn't- or how, doesn’t constitute merit criteria. It is mostly the aesthetics, and again, their function.

The posts here will be as informative as possible regarding the construction of the models and some historic references may also be given. When products are mentioned the information is based on my own experience, and it doesn’t constitute endorsement (or the opposite), just my personal opinion. I am not linked to manufacturers, sellers or distributors in any commercial way, although for some of them I have a great deal of respect, and in a very few cases I am honored with their friendship.

The information necessary to build these models came mostly from the Net. I have also a very small aviation library, but in many cases I was helped by fellow aviation enthusiasts; to all of them my gratitude and acknowledgment.

No less important some years ago for me was Wings of Peace, a website and Yahoo group that focuses on the Golden Age of aviation. There I found inspiration, help and friendship

Let's fly.