R/C Modeler Magazine...Gone?

I don't know if they are officially gone or not, Frank. RCM's passing will mark the end of an all too brief era, should it turn out to be true.

I can remember when R/C folks were different from average folks. There was a time when one had to have at least a passing knowledge of electronics, woodworking, aerodynamics, etc., just to participate in the hobby. That time has long since passed too.

Maybe we few can carry on the tradition a while longer, in between the latest ARF and RTF models that keep capturing we geezers' attention.

Ed Cregger

All too true. Nowadays the so called modelers are "buy and fly" types and they can't even repair their planes...for a scratch builder like myself, I find this amazing. And the worst of it is that you can buy a nice ARF for less than you can buy a kit and all ittakes to finish it. Progress? I guess so, but you are right..the era is ending and although I am fast coming up on my 80th birthday, I still build for my own use and for other friends as well and fly every weekend...What with the "jump out of the box and fly it" little foam junk, I see the hobby taking some strange turns... Most of the suppliers in the "old days" were modelers and devoted to the hobby...nowadays it is strictly business and mass sales...progress? I guess you can call it that.. Regards to all. Frank Schwartz AMA123 still building and flying......

Yes, but without progress, without change, the hobby shrivels up and dies. I suppose it's nice to be able to sit there and look down your nose at "ARFers" and the guys that fly "foamie junk," and wax nostalgic about the good ol' days when real men were so into their hobby that they grew the balsa trees that they made their planes from. The problem is, you're dying off, and between your exhorbitant union-driven wages, artificially inflated investment returns, luxurious "golden parachute" pension programs, and wasteful work habits, you've sucked this nation dry to the point where a dollar isn't worth a nickel. The younger generation's salaries may be higher on paper, but they don't go nearly as far as yours did. The younger generations actually have to WORK, work like hell, and work 10, 12, 16 hours a day just to scrape by. The younger generations neither have the time nor the disposable income to do it "right," but they still want to fly because flying is FUN, period.

These advancements make the hobby accessible to people who would normally not be able to participate, and there's nothing wrong with that. More people means a wider acceptance of our activity, which means we might not have to live like outcasts of society, driving 20, 30, 40 miles out of town just to go flying.

So, keep your crumudgeony narrow-minded opinions to yourself when you're out at the field and let people enjoy themselves the way they see fit.

Hello Fellow Modelers:

I have just returned from Japan where I spent the week visiting my father who is an advid modeler. You can't even begin to imagine all the interesting and exciting planes I saw. I hope Mr Billy, my manservant, did a good job filling in for me while I was gone.

Over the past year, I read a few issues of RCM which once was a very popular magazine. But times change and technology moves forward. With it, the tastes and desires of people change along with it. Looking through RCM, it is hard to imagine how the articles would apply to or interest the video generation.

Look at the current crop of magazines like Backyard flyer, Model Airplane News, and others. They offer diluted non-technical easy reading for people who want to get airborne with the least amount of mess and fuss. I predict that soon there will be a magazine that caters to the SPAD enthusiast, and manufacturers who will be offering ARF Spads! In fact, one exist already:

You can expect to see many more as competition heats up for this new market!

Anyway, there is nothing sad about RCM disappearing. It once served it audience, but it didn't keep up with the times. It's only appropriate that it go away to be replaced by one that does. Also the personnel will probably move on to the new one.

Ciao,

Mr Akimoto

| about the good ol' days when real men were so into their hobby that | they grew the balsa trees that they made their planes from.

You had trees to create balsa wood for you? Luxury! We had to assemble our planes from our own bones and cover them with our own skin, using our own blood, sweat and tears as glue ...

| The problem is, you're dying off, and between your exhorbitant | union-driven wages, artificially inflated investment returns, | luxurious "golden parachute" pension programs, and wasteful work | habits, you've sucked this nation dry to the point where a dollar | isn't worth a nickel.

Ok, I'm probably a member of this younger generation you're talking about (being 36) and I like my ARFs and foam planes, (even though I can generally repair them myself), but I tend to think that you, Mathew, have gone a bit off the deep end here.

If somebody wants to build and whine about ARFs, foamies and park fliers, let 'em. They can do that while you're at the park flying.

| So, keep your crumudgeony narrow-minded opinions to yourself when | you're out at the field and let people enjoy themselves the way they | see fit.

Um, who's being the curmudgeon here?

Most of my generation of modelers still buys American brand automobiles and trucks, keeping American workers employed. Right? How about your generation? You can't buy foreign vehicles and then blame it on the oldsters for shutting down American factories whose good paying jobs have moved offshore. The wife and I drive a Plymouth minivan and a Chevrolet Venture. What do YOU drive?

Need I say more?

Which generation of CEO's underhandedly forced my generation into retirement before age 55? Not ours. Your generation built the present world. Don't blame it on us. We were sitting at home after being forced into retirement. Is it our fault that some of us invested wisely? I could go on, but I have some building to do. Ta-da.

Ed Cregger

Okay, I goofed.

I don't really believe that your generation, or other generations, are directly responsible for what some see as the present day mess.

I can understand your frustration, Matthew (one t?). My generation, the first baby-boomers, was the one that began buying the imported goods. Not yours.

Do I feel guilty? No. I had no idea what was going on at the time. If I had known and then proceded to abandon the American brands, perhaps I should feel a twinge of guilt.

Believe it or not, Matthew, no one asked my opinion on how today's world should be. I, like everyone else I know, was just living life and this is the way it turned out. I would never intentionally do this to my fellow man.

On the other hand, there are more opportunities for getting rich today, for the average person, than there seemed to be when I was young. Others can and probably will argue that point. But that is the way that I see it. Granted, there are less opportunities for making an adequate wage by just going to work, vegging out and putting the last bolt in a product. Those jobs are in China. Again, no one asked me.

I wasn't trying to make today's modelers feel badly with my initial post. I was lamenting the passing of an era. As far as I am concerned, people are pretty much the same as they were ever since I first walked the face of the Earth. But, undeniably, the hobby has changed overall. This is not to say that there aren't some fine young (and old) modelers out there doing the same level work that we did as youngsters. They are there. They are just a bit more difficult to see in all of the clutter.

Believe it or not, my generation also had folks that tried to buy their way into the hobby with little to no work done on their part. That hasn't changed at all.

My shop is full of ARFs and RTFs presently. Most will eventually be sold untouched, or end up in the landfill intact upon my demise. That is unimportant. What is important is that we do not permit barriers of generation to block our friendship.

Ed Cregger

Although there are those who deprecate `top posting' I thought it worth while this time.

Boy ! Are you full of crap ! The reason you are working excess hours and whining about jobs having evaporated is due to your own ignorance and gullibility (and those like you with similar warped views) and also with the companies who would rather transfer work to cheap labour countries with repressive governments, who ensure that the (extremely) low paid workers toe the line.

Get your head out of your butt, wake up and smell the coffee (or whatever it is you buzz word freaks do) and go find out the truth and then you can toss away the twisted view of reality that you seem to have.

Guess you have been reading too much of shrub & co. and Murdoch's propaganda. One thing about Rupert he sure knows and understands perfectly the stupidity of the audience he plays to. Only good thing I can think of about the guy.

If it hadn't been for the generation you are snarling at you may well have been working on a production line yourself, unpaid and for foreign occupiers !

Remember... you can whine, bitch and snarl, but the generation before you had the acumen to have good jobs, good pay, and also kept the worst excesses of the greedier end of capitalism at bay.

I like others took early retirement and enjoy every minute of it. I did many years of 12 hour shifts and had the sense to be in a very good company pension scheme.

Now you can quit whining and take stock...

You pay, while we now play >:-) I have models to build from scratch and thats a great way of passing the time, then there's flying whenever the weather is nice >:-)

Don't blame our generation for your generation's gullibility and inability to get a grip of the situation, just carry on believing the bulls**t that you seem to think is the truth.

Reg

Well, Mr. Kirsch is entitled to his own opinions, inasmuch as I expressed mine. However he has it all wrong..I sure do wish I had a golden parachute. I liveon Social Security and a very small pension. Without Social Security, I'd be in bad shape...however, I try always to buy American...I am a WWII combat verteran and beleive me those Japs were trying to kill me. On a trip toJapan back in the sixties, I had some mixed feelings. One had to admire their work ethic, but I wondered if I ever encountered someone from a family whose son I killed in combat. Agaiin, my opinion: We seem to have lost the work ethic, corporate heads steal from their companies and there is no one in this world that can convince me that anyone is worth millions of dollars a year salary. And the Chinese are making inroads into ouor ecomony..and they are making good products too...however the American worker is now paying the price for the Union people who insisted on constant salary raises without showing any productivity gain or reason. Back to R/C...there was a time when Kraft and Proline and EK to name a few were sold world wide..as were Foxstill hangng in there) and K&B engines were also in demand world wide. Somehow, some way the Japanese andthe Germans beat us at our own game. Brother, I lived and grew up during the depression. I saved pennies to buy 10 cent model airplane kits. The building was the challange as was the trimming and flying it. Nowadays we have indulged ourselves in instant gratification and some people call it progress. The same thing happened to Ham raddio. I have an Amateur operator since 1946 when I got out of the Navy. I build and designed my own equipment and nowadays the hobby of Ham radio consists of "appliance operators" who buy expensive equipment and clutter up the air waves with senseless chatter, because they have no interest or knowledge of electronics. Am I a dinosaur? I suppose so...but, Mr. Kirsch, that is no reason to attack me because of my views..... And with that I will get off the soap box and will not rewspond to anymore hate mail. My regards to all, Frank Schwartz AMA 123 W4KFK going on 80 in Hendersonville, TN USA

Hi Ed-

Lot of philosophy that can only come from experience, and having dealt with it with insight and resolve, in your post. The opportunity is better now than it ever has been, if you simply want it enough. The microcosm of culture in my shop (R&D Lab that develops stuff for people that are in the business of, in the words of Rush Limbaugh, "killing people and breaking their things"), provides some diverse inputs on that view. It's in a locale where the housing affordability index is the worst in the country; fewer than one in ten families can afford a home, even with mutiple wage earners in the household. I hear tales that echo Matt's often, from engineers, programmer/analysts and scientists at the prime earning capacity of their careers. In counterpoint, there is a young engineer of Vietnamese extraction, who came to the US as a small child with his parents on the last boat out of Saigon, with nothing. Five years after getting his BSEE, he is working on his MS, has a lovely wife and new son, and is buying his second house, this one in an upscale neighborhood with the best schools in the district, and keeping the first for his parents to live in. OTOH, he drives a crappy old Honda Civic. Sticks out like sore thumb amidst the immaculate new Accuras, Corvettes, and Suburbans the others guys drive. Oh yea, he flys an ARF model airplane when he gets the rare opportunity, too.

Abel

Frank reflects a lot of what the greatest generation is all about. I am proud to be part of it.

Not far to go for all of us, but then, considering where we have been it has been a great trip.

Sorry those following us could not have shared in the meaning of it.

Ed...Same thing has happened in Ham Radio.....for years the Code test kept out the "riff-raff" and those just wanting to "good buddy" you to death. Look for the AMA to be next.

| Ed...Same thing has happened in Ham Radio.....for years the Code test | kept out the "riff-raff" and those just wanting to "good buddy" you to | death. Look for the AMA to be next.

Did you really mean to say AMA? There's no qualifications for joining the AMA, beyond sending them money and some paperwork. As far as I know, this has always been the case.

People have always been able to fly R/C without knowing anything about building -- you just buy somebody else's used planes. Perhaps it was harder back when radios and planes were more rough around the edges but you could still do it. And now, well, you can buy a plane, throw it on the charger and fly it in a few minutes. I don't see it getting too much easier than it is now, except that the RTF electrics may start coming with LiPos, already charged ...

And as far as ham radio goes, even the no-code technician test, as easy as it is, keeps the `riff-raff out' too. And the code test, as slow as it is, keeps the `riff-raff' out of HF. At least for now.

And I'm not sure I understand the problem with `good buddy'. If you don't want to talk to somebody on ham radio, don't. Why would you need the FCC to keep them out for you?

(Though I've certainly heard lots of hams whine about CBers. If anybody says 10-4 or `my handle is ...' many hams go nuts. Some even act like the people using CB lingo are breaking the law, even though they have ham licenses and are IDing themselves as needed, not using profanity, etc.)

It's sort of pathetic, actually. I've heard of people talking in a ham radio net, and they say 10-4 or something similar, and then they get an `anonymous' email a day later that tells them to go back to CB or something.

I guess I see the same thing in R/C, where glow fliers look down on electric fliers, vice versa, pattern fliers look down on 3D fliers, glider fliers look down on any sort of powered flight (especially on glow/gas), everybody looks down on R/C car drivers ...

rcm IS NOT DEAD. THERE WILL BE NO JULY,AUG ISSUE BUT WILL RESUME IN SEPT. yOUR SUBSCRIPTION WILL BE EXTENDE 3 MONTHS..

...so, RCM isn't dead, but the Caps Lock key on your keyboard is?

Well, glad to hear that RCM is not completely dead...even though publication is delayed a couple of months.... There was a time when modelers considered RCM the absolute definitive word on anything in R/C...although, in my opinion, it is a carrier for too many product reviews and I will admit that the quality of advertising (layout, etc) is greatly improved over the early days of R/C... Again,my opinion: The magazine used to be full of useful articles and more than one plan for builders.... And finally, If you can find it, take at look at the British magazines, R/C Model World (RCMW) and also Radio Control Models and Electronics (RCM&E), both of which I subscribe to...have build many planes from the full size plans included in each issue. They also have web sites... As far as the magazines here in the USA (again, my opinion coming up ) I see the usefulness as only a source of what is selling and pricing of r/c stuiff...at least that's how I see it. Well, we all have our own opinions, don't we? Regards to all, Frank Schwartz

Sooooo

After all the generational bashing, does anyone know for sure whethe RCM is dead or not? Cashing a check is not necessarily a sign of life it's a conditioned reflex.

I never did get a refund on my last Pan-Am tickets......

howel

-- gwinh

----------------------------------------------------------------------- gwinhh's Profile:

If you read my reply it said they are not,this is fromthem when i talked to them on the phone. th e caps key was no broken,i typed that reply 4 times and i wasn't about to redo it again..........