Sadly I think the days of aviation magazines are approaching the end. The expensive bit is original content which sells a periodical.
All the modern editors would never allow any criticism that might upset their advertisers who fund the magazine and they pay very little for text. I learnt to fly in 1980 when Pilot was stuffed with great writers like Alan Branson and James Gilbert. We also had Flying with Len Morgan and Gordon Baxter.
There are no modern equivalents. Virtually all the current aviation contributors have never been out of the local area or at best hopped across the channel. Flight tests are a waste of time as few of us will ever fly the aircraft let alone buy one.
I bought Pilot throughout the 1980’s for the editorial, original content, air accident reports and the classified adverts through which I bought my first aircraft. This is now freely available and up to the minute online. Pilot went downhill when Archant bought it because the late Ian Davies,who died in an accident at Seething, suggested it was a good investment.
The UK forums tend to feature the same clique talking to themselves about nothing.
There is a parallel UK GA movement out there flying from private strips who never mix with the urban elite.
All the glossy magazines face the same problem. Their business model has past its sell by date and I suspect newsagents are facing a grim future.
I will leave this post with a quote from the late Len Morgan.
“True, there was no teenager sport to equal tumbling about the glistening cumulus on a summer morning, rolling, looping, stalling, spinning (while supposedly practicing steep turns), then cruising back to our little grass field with its single hangar and neat rows of yellow biplane trainers. Check the windsock, follow the landing drill exactly and join the downwind leg at 800 feet, reduce speed and look for other planes, turn base, chop the power and descend to 400 feet. Then the slow glide down final with the engine muttering in idle to cross the fence and level off with wheels skimming the wet clover. Finally, the moment of truth: bump...bump...and slowing to a walk. Taxi to the flight line, shut down, hear the ticking of the cooling engine and inhale the exotic aroma of gasoline and dope and leather --- aware of being truly blessed. You never forget such moments."
Last edited by Mike Flynn; 19th Feb 2022 at 20:26.