Magazines biting the dust

Has anyone received their February 2006 issue of RC Report yet? Since it is already February 7th, it seems a little late. Also, the RC Report web site (

Later,

Treker >

Received the MARCH issue yesterday; Feb issue was out last month on time.

Cheers -- \_________Lyman Slack________/ \_______Flying Gators R/C___/ \_____AMA 6430 LM____ / \___Gainesville FL_____/ Visit my Web Site at

"Jay Bickford" > Has anyone received their February 2006 issue of RC Report yet? >Since it is already February 7th, it seems a little late.

Don't have an idea of over-the-counter versus subscriptions. I am surprised though that Carsten's Flying Models continues on and RCM sank and MAN is listing. I thought FM would be the first to belly up.

One thing I am happy about is the resurgence of small model aviation. For a time, all things were .40 and larger. With the advent of electrics and better batteries, 1/4-A and 1/2-A sized aircraft have made a return.

How's Model Aviation faring these days?

On Wed, 8 Feb 2006 18:36:26 +0000 (UTC), High Plains Thumper wrote:

The last time I looked, FM, still had a range of different model types. "All models are created equal" is a fair assessment.

It is funny you should mention MA while discussing other magazines going belly-up. This is what was predicted when the AMA went into the printing line of work. They are subsidized by another source of income independently of magazine costs. How many remember when the AMA had their news in a commercial magazine, and to get the listing of contests mailed to you from the AMA, you had to pay a few bucks more. This was a good idea because a lot of the modelers were not competitors so the Competition Newsletter provided a service to those who wanted it but without costing those members who didn't want it. When the AMA was doing this, the other publishers cried "foul" because the AMA inputs helped that magazine's distribution to other's misfortune? I remember when Don Dewey said that he would include the AMA news in RCM for nothing. Bill Northrop suggested a two-year cycle from magazine to magazine. This was a good idea I thought. Everyone would get their magazine read by the AMA membership and the good magazines' subscriptions would be continued. There were fair ways it could've been done without the AMA going in business against the other model magazines. The magazines that had been touting the AMA was now losing advertisers. Oh, well...that was a long time ago in a kingdom far, far away. I always wondered what MA would cost at the newsstand if not subsidized. There is almost no way to back out magazine costs from the published budget...maybe no budget with integrated line items. Like a lot of things, it is too late to change it.

Ken

Ed, You're kidding right? I can understand that small print is a problem for the seniors but for anything longer than what will fit on a single page I absolutely HATE reading material on a computer. I'll print out anything over a couple pages before I melt my eyes looking at a monitor! Much less eye strain reading from a nice printed page. Even worse, have you ever noticed that you can read a book and have no memory of turning pages??? It's so easy and automatic you don't have to stop and think to do it and then remember where you were on the page before. I've tried things like Zinio Reader for magazines and never have gotten comfortable with the interface. Certainly I love the search options for reference materials that electronic media allows but if I just want to sit down and enjoy a good long read I've got to have a real printed page. Someone desperately needs to create an ebook standard interface that would look and act more like a real book before I'll be happy to read from it. I have to read hundreds of pages of technical material every month and that means I burn hundreds of pages off our laser printer at work 'cause I just can't do it on the laptop without serious eye strain and continual re-reading due to the page turning thing. The Human interface part of this technology has a long way to go. Ohhh and don't forget how good the feel of a nice leather bound tome feels in the hands and the smell! Let's get that included as well... OK, I've written the specs for it so somebody go make a fortune from it!!!

Jack

"Ed Cregger" wrote in message news:4xHFf.24471$ snipped-for-privacy@bignews5.bellsouth.net...

Believe me, Jack, I know exactly where you are coming from. However, my problem has to do with diabetes affected vision. My prescription virtually changes from day-to-day, therefore, reading glasses are a near impossibility for me.

I used to consume two or three books a week with many magazines and work sheets/tech manuals thrown in to boot. But not any longer. I miss reading a great deal.

Ed Cregger

We have often heard about never seeing a bad review in any of the modeling magazines.

This one just appeared in a popular magazine that may survive.

Summary: I do not recommend this kit. It was not enjoyable to assemble, the completed model had an ecessivly flexy wing, and the landing gear was unsatisfactory. If you somehow wind up owning this kit I recommend no more than a .25 - .28

For those of you in Rio Linda - he didn't like it.

Red S.

Where can this honesty be found? Sounds like a magazine I'd like to throw a few bucks at.

R/C Report. March 2006 page 63 end of report on Sportsman Aviation Ryan STA

Red S.

unsatisfactory.

Agree on the demise of RCM but they did tell what they didn't like and offered some valid tips when building. As for MAN, their reviews read like ads. I don't trust anything they say. Where can I find R/C Report?

R/C Report

Red S.

Once more, I'd like to throw in my support for this honest magazine. I don't think I've every read another magazine of any type that has such a friendly, casual, comfortable, humorous feel.

Save yourself some time and trouble and go ahead and sign up for two years right off the get-go.

Not affiliated in any way (other than being a big pizza eater), desmobob

Ken Cashion wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

That's a while back, I remember something about that but it must be 20 years ago or more.

Actually, it doesn't seem that long ago, I remember the issues, although I can't place a date on it. Perhaps the greatest losses I've seen is the passing away of model designers that I enjoyed reading their articles; greats such as Jack Headley, Ken Willard, Bill Winter, Randy Randolph, Hal DeBolt, etc.

Perhaps result would have been lower AMA membership fees. The older I get, the more apt I am to share my opinion without worrying about what others think. I'm a young whipper-snapper moving toward "Old Geezer" status.

True, let the politics take care of itself and build what we want, no matter how others feel. I feel the freedom. :-)

On Mon, 06 Feb 2006 00:41:23 -0600, Frank Schwartz wrote:

Frank, I just got this month's issue of a magazine. What started out as a beautiful magazine a few years ago, is now so trashed up, it has actually become a danged irritant. And I get one each month! It did inspire me though...it inspired me so much, I called Banks and subscripted to R/C Report. I know they clutter a magazine up with stuff on the front but if you look at this month's cover, and imagine what it looked like before the front, self-adverts were put over it, you will remember some of the old-time RCM covers when Max Mills and Gloria were doing a bunch of them. A particularly beautiful cover came out one time and it was Gloria in a filmy, blowing (see-through) gown with her back to the camera and facing a sunset off a New Mexico mesa. She was holding a gorgeous scale sailplane aloft as if she was going to launch it for a late afternoon slope flight. That picture was magnificent. I got Max's phone number from mutual friend, Dave Thornburg, and called them and got Gloria on the phone. After raving over the picture, I told her that she and Max should make original prints of those covers available to the public! They could sell them through RCM! I thought this an amazingly good idea. But they were busy with other photo work and couldn't take that on. How very, very unfortunate this is now. I still think they could sell those prints. A short while after talking to her, I received an 11x14 photographic print of that sunset cover in the mail with a nice note from Max and Gloria. It was matted, mounted, and in my office at NASA for years. In our repressed society today, I would not be permitted to have it there...though it showed nothing that can't be seen on the street or at a high school football game now. I remember how nice my "Cumulus" article looked in Sailplane & Electric Modeler and all the trouble I had gone to making the pretty two-sheet plans...and the editor laid one on the other and some advert over the top one..."so people can't scan them." Considering what I got paid, I didn't even have the pleasure of modeling friends seeing my artwork. I complained about it and he started showing the plans for other's articles...then he did the same overlay to me on another article. Maybe he needed the room elsewhere to tout an advertiser's ARF. I vowed to send him no more articles. But now the magazine is a mess and I wouldn't want my name in it, much less some of my artwork. I will see how it goes with R/C Report for a year, but I am afraid that the short-attention-span kids are infiltrating all graphic markets. Maybe instead of Avian Flu, we need a G.A. Flu. All the automated cut-and-paste has only screwed up the magazines...and cutting the labor cost did not cut the magazine prices. I am playing a game...I am going to pit my first R/C Report, page-to-page against Quiet Flight. The information in them does not matter if it is uncomfortable, challenging, and frustrating to dig it out. I will most likely cancel my subscription to QE. I have another two years on it. I will extend R/C Report. I wish I could have a little meeting with the editor and his graphic arts guy. I would have the same questions for them as I had when I would have to sit through an imaginative graphics presentation by an engineering fresh-out at NASA. "Sir, you have squares around those items and rectangles around those other ones. What are the differences in the items that necessitated a change in format on the same line items?" This was usually answered with a "Huh?" I would repeat it until he understood the question and then he would step back and study his presentation and say something lame like, "I am not sure now...maybe none." "Sir, you list four functions as having equal importance, yet two are in red and two are in blue...what are the differences in those that caused you to present them in different colors?" "I guess I thought they would look better that way." I would usually suggest that "green on white is real pretty, too, and next time could he put some green in some for me." "Sir, what do the circles indicate and the dots and the dashes? You are using them mixed together on the same headings. The significance, please." "I just wanted them to look different." "Why?" After a couple of meetings like that and they stopped trying to wow us with smoke and mirrors and they dealt with the technical aspects...it was an engineering presentation, not a grade school show-n-tel. Yeah...I know...I am ranting...I get this way once a month and it has nothing to do with the moon.

Ken

As for meeting up personally with Gordon Banks...that's fine..I don't know how he takes to "constructive criticism"..some years ago he gave me a real tongue lashing via the magazine.... Gordon, when he wants to, can be quite vitriolic...but then, he is usually a "good old boy". He will be at the Perry GA show the first weekend in March if you want to see him and speak to him... Frank Schwartz

And there are guys who don't want women at the field!

Ken

"Ken Cashion" wrote

Don't you just love these characters?

Some of them think they are still in the He Man Woman Haters Club.

Ed Cregger

I can see their point, though. I just disagree with it. They say they go to the field to get AWAY from women. I am sorry that their experience with women is so negative. Some say they don't want to have to watch what they say, and it they itch, they want to scratch, and if the food was gassy... I don't want to hear it, see it, or smell it. Women only rarely bring out the worst side of men; men do that themselves. Women can create a situation where men will do stupid things but they were perfectly capable of doing stupid things when the women were not on the field. Some women are jerks. Some guys are jerks. Women, not laws, inhibit and tame men. Of course, this is all just my opinion and I could be wrong.

Ken, effeminate fop and sissy.