Gerard,
I've been buying 'Australian Aviation' since the Jan/Feb 1988 edition. That was the one with ARDU Mirage A3-2 flying inverted at low level on the cover, as displayed within the current magazine. I've just had a quick look at that copy from 25 years ago. Jim Thorn's editorial was known as RECCE. One thing I always admired was that he quite often had very strong views. And he wrote many articles himself. That would be difficult to do today. I'd guess that anyone writing an article critical of say, A.J. would never be granted an interview again with anyone at QF. I must say that some articles about QF written by G.T. over the last couple of years could only be described as very soft. But I still maintain a subscription to 'AA' and find the magazine a good informative read. And as an ex RAAFie, I do enjoy the RAAF articles. One contributor I really miss from those days is Carlo Kopp who wrote a lot of very well researched defence material.
G.