Straw poll - magazines
 

I have noticed a few threads before on print media for the general aviation community but unfortunately I couldn't find a great deal in the search :confused:

Just wondered if either Pilot of Flyer magazine are worth the subscription money? Does anyone regularly receive them, are they interesting or useful? Are they a waste of time?

Thoughts most welcome before I hit 'buy now'!

Cheers in advance.

I'm very biased (I own Flyer), but I think it's pretty bloody good value for £7.50 a quarter on DD - the team works bloody hard to bring you thirteen great issues a year, but if you want something more tangible there's the six free landing fees per issue.

Ian

Flyer and other magazines, as well as the LAA, AOPA etc. are all helping the constantly close to terminally ill UK GA scene.

Since I am hopelessly public spirited minded and in the (vain ?) hope that my contributions and subscriptions will in turn also assist, I happily pay my hard earned money to a small handful of these.

This forum may be the wrong place to say so, but I also think that in particular Ian and Flyer deserve a huge pat on the back for the Flyer Forum - which can be joined for free but again merits support and would be cheap at half the price.

B.

I suspect that like most private pilots we probably take both Pilot and Flyer. The problem is that there is probably not enough news each month to differentiate between the two so it's really down to presentation. In this case Flyer has recently been rejigged and is now a very professional magazine. My own view is that there is perhaps too much safety stuff in Flyer (5 pages this month) which we can get from other sources in the general run of things. Pilot,by contrast, has several pages of vintage stuff which is covered by Aeroplane Monthly and Flypast. You pays your money etc.

I subscribe to Pilot. Originally I did so to make sure I kept up to date with current affairs within the GA world. IMO for that reason alone it is worth the cost. Add to that the "Safety Matters" which I always read, and always try to see how that would apply to me, I think it is very good value.

As a serial collector of flying magazines, I have read most over the years (and still have all the back copies but that is another story.....)

In the Pilot v Flyer debate, I would lean towards Flyer if just going for one. I always found that it had slightly better presentation and there were usually more articles in it that appealed to me - but it is close.

And, as Ian says, the free landing fees can come in handy!

FTN is also worth a look and usually has a few good articles - notably James McBride's column. But this is not a direct competitor to Flyer/Pilot.

Same old, same old?
 

After more than thirty years of flying (and therefore buying magazines), I am almost bored with what is contained now (it sort of repeats e.g. how many articles have you read about flying Crazy Horse P51 in Florida? I think I actually wrote the first for a short-lived magazine called Pilots International). And then how a PA28 navigated around Europe and managed to find way home to somewhere in Southeast England?

Despite all that, I still buy them because I feel the need to keep up to date - I'm thinking legislation particularly. And a physical magazine still has more appeal than anything online. Just because it was my original subscription, I still favour Pilot, but they have given up on free landings recently, and Flyer still has some good ones. So you pays your money and takes your choice, but I always go for discounted subscription rates which can be really cheap if you search hard and time it right. Would not pay full price in the newsagent!

Given the issues with a hot topic elsewhere I found it amusing that Archant have
just given me a years free subscripton to Pilot :ok:

To be honest that was because I told them what was wrong with Pilot and the UKGA website they bought last year.

In the long term most low circulation glossy magazines are doomed. The internet is killing them.
Strip out the adverts etc plus the fillers which are mostly press releases and what are you left with?

I bought Pilot 35 years ago to access the AAIB reports,GASCO info and frankly material that James Gilbert was sent free in press releases and padded out with a few regulars such as Alan Bramson,Bernard Chabbert etc.

The classified adverts were also a key reason why I forked out my money every month.
Advertisers now want targeted results. Google etc deliver and at a much lower price than a half page in a monthly. Magazines need the advertising to survive and if they get 30% then they are doing well. Local newspapers have seen all their small ads disappear to the internet which has also destroyed Yellow Pages.

I understand these days the cover price will barely pay for the print and the distribution cost. One big issue that all publishers have is they have to pay to have the magazine to be put on the shelves - WH Smith charge for this big time.

A magazine on the shelf for £3 returns around £1.50 to the publisher so subscriptions are more profitable. The stores also stock them on a sale or return basis.

Pilot, although claiming to be the best selling UK GA monthly, only manages around 10'000 copies a month just below What Mountain Bike.
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/full-2...verage-4-cent/

Lachlan Smart is an 18 year old trying to circumnaviate solo from Australia. Why would I want to read his out of date story several weeks in the future when I can interact with him now on his website.
http://www.wingsaroundtheworld.com.a...lachlan-smart/

Newspapers I read 100% online.

My pet hate is the standard air to air magazine shot with the titles and content super imposed.
Ground hog day.

Pilot mag stopped giving free landings..So I stopped buying it!...Just pages of flight training and non-GA stuff I am not interested in.

I subscribe to Pilot. It's what I am. I could also be described as a Flier, but never a Flyer.
That's a scrap of paper used to advertise the local takeaway and the like.

Is subscribe to Flyer. I gave up on Pilot mostly because I couldn't bring myself to read a magazine which publishes the bonkers stuff which Pilot does on its letters page. The photography in Flyer is much better too.

Thanks for your thoughts - just subscribed to flyer... ��

Mostly buy as I go now, but I would have pitched for Flyer - I got the hump with Pilot after getting more and more irritated by little things in their articles; the clincher for me was when they spent a full 2-page spread telling me how wonderful the inside of a new aeroplane was and filled the article with 5 or 7 very similar photos of only the exterior...

Both are excellent - Flyer is aimed more (in my opinion) at people who have to think harder about how much money they have to spend on their flying than Pilot, which assumes more that you just have enough. Having a limited budget, and liking Ian, I am more likely to buy Flyer.

The other two I rate are Light Aviation (formerly Popular Flying) which comes with my LAA membership, and Microlight Flying, ditto BMAA. LF is much better for flight tests and engineering advice, MF is much better for trip reports.

I just wish I could find the blasted time to do them all justice. Hence that the only subscriptions I have are with my association memberships, and I buy Flyer and occasionally Pilot when I think I'll actually have the time to read them that month.

I'm also very much a fan of the US magazine Flying, which has the sort of detailed thoughtful writing I particularly like. I have failed miserably to get them to do an overseas subscription for me - so buy it when I'm in a suitable newsagent outside of the UK.

G

Genghis - I concur re Flying. Is it no longer available in the UK? When I started flying and was going nuts buying anything and everything to read, I remember getting the odd copy and found it excellent though obviously from the American angle.

Brad, thanks for bringing up the subject; the death of magazines in general!

I was wondering which was best for reviewing my new book! and no I dare not mention its name here.....because the mods would have to delete any commercial angle. Ghengis, which magazine would you go for?

Pass, they all ignored my last book.

Maybe just send a review copy to each - that's what review copies are for.

G

I have to say that most newspapers these days are not worth buying but magazines are even less value for money.
I am receiving Pilot magazine on a free subscription from Archant but walking the few hundred yards from my gate to the house I had scanned it and thrown aside in the hall.

The front page is a stereotype UK GA magazine air to air shot of the F35B! Now how many UK private pilots will ever fly one let alone when will the RAF get to throw it around East Anglia?

Apart from fillers,so called news and adverts it is page 31 when we end the review of the fast jet followed by adverts and a few letters.

Then there is a gliding feature,nice but this is a GA magazine followed 'Old Timers' stuff that I used to read in Aeroplane Monthly.


Steve Slater fills a whole page of waffle on page 50 without ever mentioning his organisation giving a passenger a navigation award from the LAA.

Pages 52 to 60 are taken up with a personal flight feature and big boring pictures.

Note to magazine editors...we can read better realistic blogs on line ,such as Michael Peare ,who runs life and times of a flying instructor in Canada and Thailand. Life and times of a flying instructor traveller

The rest of the current issue of Pilot is just a big plug for Sywell which we all know is a nice place to fly in to but little more than a glorified period cafe.

In short Pilot is a glossy magazine with a lot of advertising,little or no content and certainly no real news.

I guess telling the truth why they send me this boring magazine every month free of charge.



My beef extends beyond flying magazine because I find the majority of the stuff you see on newsstands is glossy garbage.

Advertisers are only going to pay when sites deliver and Afors must have stolen all the classified aircraft for sale adverts?

Am I being unfair?

I don't think so but am happy to challege editors.

Jay, I am surprised that your scan of the latest edition of Pilot did not pick up the final paragraph of Dave Unwin's PTT column, as it surely would have given you some ammunition to resurrect the highly amusing TCT thread !

I miss the daily diversion from the devotees and detractors that the thread elicited :E:E:E

You really think the classified ads section of a magazine ever put food on the table of a magazine publisher?

I think you just wanted to tell everyone your driveway was a few hundred yards long ;)