I quite enjoy most of the aviation magazines published. My favorite one is Kitplanes, althought there seems to be a lot of extra focus (in my opinion) on high tech instruments and avionics (this may be right up many peoples alley) as well as planes that the majority of builders will never be able to afford (Lancairs, etc). I guess these are the articles that pay the bills. I think that Plane and Pilot is a good quality publication. "Flying" is usually of good quality as well, with a focus on the higher end of the GA spectrum ( usually way out of my league). What magazines do you like? Which have deteriorated? Which have improved?

Smithsonian "Air & Space magazine is pretty interesting, I've been a subscriber since it's inception and just dropped the check in the mail for 2 more years yesterday. Top quality pictures and articles on a wide range of aerial subjects. I especially like the historical articles, the current space stuff not so much.

courierguy wrote:Smithsonian "Air & Space magazine is pretty interesting, I've been a subscriber since it's inception and just dropped the check in the mail for 2 more years yesterday. Top quality pictures and articles on a wide range of aerial subjects. I especially like the historical articles, the current space stuff not so much.

Thanks for the tip, I will check that out. I get the usual EAA Sport Aviation and AOPA mags along with my dues each year. Most of the planes covered in AOPA nearly equals my excitement over tv reruns. They have been covered a multitude of times.

Sport Aviation is good, although it has recently been "dumbed down" somewhat in my opinion, compared to years ago when it had much more technical content.

Sport Aviation kind of pissed me off a few months ago when they ran a feature article on some turbine corporate type airplane (TBM I think), written by the guy who had just left Flying magazine. For the average Joe a lot of the high dollar stuff like that turbine airplane, or $4 million Tigercat restorations, or instrument panels worth more than my whole airplane, is not relevant. ( I've been a have and I've been a have-not, and perhaps I'm more sensitive to having my nose rubbed in that than most people )

Air & Space has a lot of great content and wonderful historic stuff I just love.

I only get EAA and AOPA, and am thinking seriously about not renewing either one. I do not like cardboard inserts that make you stop at an advertisement. They both have them. (AOPA stopped using them for a few months, but they are back). Worst, they send me junk mail every week wanting me to buy something.

After seeing what Plane and Pilot did with a good OBP article by turning it into a 6 page advertisement, I will not be signing up with them either. I don't watch TV ads and have stopped looking at internet video stories from major networks because of their commercials before you see the main story.

I feel better now.

PS: I am so sick of the Republicans calling for money every night, that I have been telling them that I am voting for Obama. That's how pissed I am!

Is there a bad magazine about flying? I mean really? I don't understand the revulsion at advertising. That is what keeps a subscription price down under $50. Planes don't fly for free and magazines don't print for free either. Seems that is all part of the industry, I would think that ads in a flying magazine would be good for a company to get their products infront of people who may have an interest in flying. The advertising determines the percentage of pages to editorial content to be dedicated to subjects we may or may not like, without the ads there will be no content that is how they work.

courierguy wrote:Smithsonian "Air & Space magazine is pretty interesting, I've been a subscriber since it's inception and just dropped the check in the mail for 2 more years yesterday. Top quality pictures and articles on a wide range of aerial subjects. I especially like the historical articles, the current space stuff not so much.

Boulder City 172 pilot(Tony Baby) retired from Smithsonian "Air & Space Museum " and is a quite a good pilot. I help occasionally and he sends me all kind of stuff from the Air & Space . Myself as far as Aviation Magazines for me is
#1Trade a plane, #2 Aviators Bulletin ,#3 Cessna Pilots Association Mag, #4 EAA Sport Pilot ,#5 Army Aviation mag ,#6 Fly RC .

The only one I used to like a lot was Northern Pilot, it was a slick paper mag that came out of an older newspaper type mag that was all back country and bush flying stuff.

Nearly all of the content on the others is "city" flying and has no interest for me.

Old school BCP.

Lost submission...

Attempted to recreate it below.

EZFlap wrote:Sport Aviation is good, although it has recently been "dumbed down" somewhat in my opinion, compared to years ago when it had much more technical content.

Sport Aviation kind of pissed me off a few months ago when they ran a feature article on some turbine corporate type airplane (TBM I think), written by the guy who had just left Flying magazine. For the average Joe a lot of the high dollar stuff like that turbine airplane, or $4 million Tigercat restorations, or instrument panels worth more than my whole airplane, is not relevant. ( I've been a have and I've been a have-not, and perhaps I'm more sensitive to having my nose rubbed in that than most people )

Air & Space has a lot of great content and wonderful historic stuff I just love.

I gave up on Flying, Private Pilot and Plane & Pilot long ago. They just seem to repeat themselves every few months.

Sport Aviation seems to have lost it's focus with the addition of Hightower as president and Lane and Mac as writers. It seems to be turning into an AOPA clone. I tolerate the lobbying and political bs from AOPA as a necessary evil, but don't like to see it from EAA. I like to go back and re-read my Sport Aviation issues from the 80's, that was the "golden" period for that publication, IMO.

Zane wrote:Old school BCP.

Zane, did this magazine actually exist or was it just a prototype?

I am down to 5 now..............

1- Kitplanes
2- Air and Space
3- Sport Aviation
4- AOPA rag

Ben.

I better add Contact Magazine as I made the front cover on the current issue.

Northern Pilot was an awesome magazine but was bought out by Pilot Getaways, sadly. Pilot Getaways is a foo foo magazine that highlights the Latte Crowd's idea of roughing it in the Hamptons and such. They toss a bone to the 99%s with an occasional "backcountry" column.

My Favorite

url]http://www.backcountrypilot.org/forum/[/url]

Instruction
Scenery
Politics
Travel
Major BS
Family Fun
Buy and Sell
And so many More

And the best part, A new issue multiple times a day.

The day I get 'issues' over the content and advertising in magazines will be the day I give up flying ...mags need advertising to survive - does anyone really think they cover their costs at the newsstand or subscriptions...

Northern Pilot was an awesome magazine but was bought out by Pilot Getaways, sadly.

My understanding was that NP did not have deep pockets, and with the hemorrhaging of red ink was on its death bed when PG took over to fulfill the subscription obligations....

If anybody has more accurate info-speak up.....
lc

Sooo, Waldo, you 'appropriated*' the title for for this website from the magazine?


lc


*appropriated. A euphemism for 'stole' in this particular usage....

Stol wrote:I am down to 4 now..............

1- Kitplanes
2- Air and Space
3- Sport Aviation
4- AOPA rag

Ben.

Ben, I've seen you magnificent bird grace the pages of "Kitplanes". Well done!

My favorite is Kitplanes but also get Sport Aviation and AOPA. I am really disapointed in Sport Aviation, they seem to cover less and less about actual experimental airplanes, I believe it was last year or the year before that there were more experimental single engine airplanes added to the registry than new factory single engine planes. So I would think that the Experimental Aircraft Association would spend more time on what and how these aiplanes are built and used but they seem to be getting away from that in their magazine. There are more articles on safety and reducing accidents on experimentals which is fine and needed but I still want more on actual experimental airplanes. Sometimes there are better articles in AOPA on planes that people buit. There that's my rant for the day.