Damnit, let's keep this topic on track! We're talking magazines, not parachutes.

We had a thread last year about the Cirrus that was lost in the Sierras near Sugarbowl. Somebody go dredge that up, will ya?

Z

JR, AOPA doesn't advertise it, but I have what they call a "family membership", $19 a year. I think the regular basic membership is about $39. Couple years ago I contacted them & explained that I wanted to be a member, but didn't care about getting the magazine & didn't want to pay for it. They didn't want to let me get away, so they offered me this family membership thing. BTW, when I get a renewal notice, it never has the $19 option on it, so I have to contact them & go thru the whole thing again.
This way, I still help support their lobbying efforts, and get the other benefits (such as they are). Most of their so-called "membership benefits" cost extra money, such as legal aid plan,title searches, etc. I always get a kick out of their "join AOPA & keep GA strong" slogan, should be "join AOPA & keep us rich". But they are in there swinging for us...

Eric

Sorry about the thread creep, anybody remember this one?

I love those wide-angle rear seat photos in airplanes with greenhouses. So cool looking!!

zane wrote:
We're growing around here, but damnit, BCP is tough to take to the bathroom with you.

Not really

"Honey,,, I'm in here reading the latest edition of BackCountry Pilot !"

There's a article in the January issue of EAA's Sport Aviation that is also about the backcountry safari that Lane participated in. They flew the 'Win Me' EAA Husky from Oshkosh to the Frank Church Wilderness with Harrison Ford and his band of adventurers. There have been several articles lately in the mainstream aviation publications about backcountry flying and the airplanes that do this kind of flying. I have mixed feelings about the popularization of our little niche in the flying community. I would prefer that the backcountry remain uncrowded, but there is political strength in numbers.

Mark, you kill me. That may end up in the home page marquees.

There was a recent article in either Flying or AOPA Pilot about how popular "tundra tires" are getting, my take on it was that it kinda compared this phenomona to the popularity of tricked-out 4X4's (that rarely get dirty). Might be some truth to that comparison, present company excluded of course.

Eric

Strata makes a good point, maybe we shouldn't tell everyone about our favorite spots. One crumpled up movie star at Mile Hi, and we're done there.
I have to admit, the big money no sense crowd scares the hell out of me, and they seem to be drawn toward things like this for the challenge. I wish there were some sort of informal rating system in place to give folks an idea of how they should progress. I think they have something like that for mountain climbing. Maybe a magazine could address that kind of stuff.

speedbump wrote:Strata makes a good point, maybe we shouldn't tell everyone about our favorite spots. One crumpled up movie star at Mile Hi, and we're done there.
I have to admit, the big money no sense crowd scares the hell out of me, and they seem to be drawn toward things like this for the challenge. I wish there were some sort of informal rating system in place to give folks an idea of how they should progress. I think they have something like that for mountain climbing. Maybe a magazine could address that kind of stuff.

I don't think I'd characterize Harrison Ford as a member of the 'big money, no sense crowd', but I know of the type you are speaking of and it seems that most of that 'if I can buy it, I can fly it' bunch is is drawn to the 'fast glass', sort of flying. From what I 've read and heard Harrison is very serious about his approach to flying, even though he obviously likes to have a lot of fun with it too. However, I agree that if a person of his notoriety went and got himself killed at a place like Mile Hi it could have a serious negative impact on backcountry flying because of the media circus that would result from such an event. I hope Harrison is taking this into consideration, but from my perspective he does, and he doesn't appear to be any kind of hotdog and takes his ongoing training very seriously.

As far as a rating system is concerned, I think Galen's runway hazard index system works very well and there is a RHI worksheet in the back of all his books. I've used this worksheet to rate a couple of airstrips that weren't in any of his books and it really gave me a better feel for the all the associated risk factors of the strips I was flying into. As a rock climber I can tell you there is a great deal of subjectivity to any rating system and caution should be the rule of the day when using them. A 5.9 stretch move on a climbing route can become a 5.10C boinger for a short guy.

Doug,

I agree with our needing to play the cards a little close to the chest on some of these airstrips. I know I have managed to get permission to use a couple of airstrips that are otherwise closed to the general public because of liability concerns. Pretty hard to share information on a place and then say oh, btw, don't go there. There's a good chance some hotdog will ruin it for good. Not sure what the answer is but it does require some thought before it's too late.

Mark

Yeah, there was a little private strip that we liked to go to and camp, etc. One time when I was there with some friends a bunch of strangers came in,one of whom buzzed the strip and the surrounding farms repeatedly. Really pissed off all the neighbors who then immediately called the airstrip's owners to bitch. The owner's wife was at the strip the next morning and commented about the complaints, one of the strangers (I think it was the ***hole who did the buzzing) then made a smartass comment, something like "at least you got to talk to your neighbors". Totally inappropriate, especially considering how hospitable the owners have always been about people flying in. If it had been my place, I'da run everybody off right then. It doesn't take a crash, people like that can ruin things for the rest of us in a big hurry too.

Eric

I know this one's been dead for a while, but I had to get my 2 cent's worth in too.. Back in April of 2002 Plane and Pilot came to my strip and did an article on me and my operation. I was really flattered and a bunch of people showed up in spite of really marginal (read that.. really bad) weather. To make a long story short, the guys from the mag just wanted to get up the road and hit the microbrewery, and the jackass that wrote the article never even asked me any questions. He wrote a complete batch of LIES and even got a customer of mine a phone call from the Feds about why he didn't turn in wrecking his J-3. The reason why was that he never wrecked it...this jackass stated in the article that we had to cut the plane out of a tree with bolt cutters....what a JACKASS!!! I wrote P&P a quick nastygram, and got ahold of my lawyer, and what we got from them was a statement that they had lawyers on staff and alot more money than I had, so if we wanted to sue them, go ahead..it was just going to cost me money.... I caught the author in the Harley shop one day (he doesn't own one.. just thinks he knows bikes too) and as I was on a dead run through the shop to catch up to him, he was on a dead run to his car... last time I've seen him...but someday...
OK... enough of my ranting.... they also did a great article in the Spring 2002 about a buddy of mine and his Pacer, so I guess this jerk just needed some "media excitement" or something like that to write about..
JH

This is hearsay, but.... I was told by a reliable source that Northern Pilot was bleeding about $5,000 an issue. That's six times a year, for a whopping $30 K.

Think the readership for backcountry pilots is large? Think again. Most of these folks who want you to put your magazine together will actually hang out at the airport and steal the copy they got out there rather than subscribe.

Also, and this is fundamental: Any magazine type will tell you that it is advertising dollars that keep magazines going. If you are a small rag, you probably only print four or six issues a year. That makes it hard to generate a lot of advertising dollars. Magazines, I have been led to believe, DO NOT cover their costs with subscriptions. As in not even close.

So, your advertising base is a very small bunch of manufacturers of VERY niche products. You'll get some big ticket advertising, from the likes of Aviat, maybe American Champion and Cub Crafters, but it probably takes more than that, by a long ways. Most of the manufacturers of back country stuff either don't have a big marketing budget, or sell their products elsewhere and advertise there as well.

Northern Pilot Magazine was bought by Pilot Getaways Magazine. I don't know how much they paid, or what their agreement was. Their (PG) arguement is that the combination of backcountry and destinations offers enough diversity and a large enough subscriber base to attract the advertisers.

There are also a lot of folks who offer to write articles, but I can tell you it's work. It also requires a mastery of the language which escapes me most of the time (my wife Gina edits all my articles) and which is essential to the effort. Add to this the absolute necessity for photos (and believe me this is a huge issue, note that PG does most of their own photography with their 185, and they fly the hey out of it), good editing, good layout skills, and all the other things that go along with a magazine and you get the picture.

We are a niche market. Face it. These sorts of message boards work well, because nobody gets twisted if the grammar isn't perfect, and no photos are required.

A magazine, on the other hand, requires a LOT of work to put together.

It can be done, and I'd like to think that one could make a backcountry pilot type magazine work. I would hesitate to bet money on it, however....

MTV

Well, with the many many many hours I've put into this site, I think I've made about $200 total off Google ads. I've never asked for a dime from anyone, but look at the fun we've had. This is, and always will be, a hobby. I do it because I like be involved in the flying community and I get a certain sense of accomplishment from knowing I've brought a few folks together.

I think a print magazine could work if we weren't too ambitious about it. For that matter, I could just compile some of our photos and threads from this site and print it out and those luddite fellas out there would probably love it.

Mike, quit sandbagging your writing. I've always thought you were well spoken(written) and you use all the necessary punctuation, which really goes a long way.