Whirlybird,

How about something to do with NOTAMs cos we haven't discussed those in a fair while... :p

I managed to buy a copy of Pilot for the first time in a long time last week. (For some reason Flyer is readily available in France, Pilot not at all....).

On the basis of the October issue, I've got to agree, it's not what it used to be. There were still some good things - John Templeton Smith, who's articles are always a pleasure to read, and the article on the SE5a for example. Some of the rest was a bit off target though. The flight test of the Italian microlight was rather too obviously just a quick jolly from the passenger seat, and was pretty dire.

And please, bring back Lynn Williams! The illustrations that accompanied Nick Bloom's article on side-slipping really weren't pretty - the little aeroplane looked as if it belonged in Tellytubbyland. (Interestingly in this article I learnt that side-slipping a Pitts down to the flare takes "years of practice"..... Most people I know who've tried learn after 4 or 5 circuits.)

I hope things recover soon. It would be a huge shame to lose Pilot. I see that James Gilbert is a "consulting editor" - I hope the new team are consulting him.

Come on, Whirlybird, don't be smug and patronising just because you don't happen to agree with the point being made.

QDM

I admit to being an employee of the owner of 'Pilot' and a member of the board of the business which publishes the magazine 'Archant Specialist'. I was also responsible for the deal which brought Pilot to a well funded community media business which has two active pilots on the four strong core management team. I am not, however, responsible on a day to day basis for the magazine (although I do have an involvement in both the web activity and the creation of a photo archive). The Publisher is Bob Crawley and the Editor Dave Calderwood.

Now you know where I am coming from I can offer some thoughts:

I have learnt before that debating through forums such as this is both futile and inappropriate so I won't take issue with any of the comments here. I am saddened and concerned that there is a body of readers who are keen to reject the publication but ultimately in a market where there are three titles a magazine lives and dies by its ability to interest purchasers in buying regularly or subscribing. Pilot contines to be the highest selling GA magazine in the UK (circulation figures are independently auditted) and has an increasing subscription base. Despite the changes in content and contributor base Pilot must be doing something right.

We are all entitled to our views though and I both respect the right of posters here to criticise the magazine and support the freedom of speech a forum such as this creates.

I know that the team involved in the magazine take a great deal of pride in it. Many are very active pilots and some of those who are not yet active pilots have embarked on PPL training. They are all open to suggestions of how to improve.

Nick Bloom can be contacted via the Pilot office and is always willing to listen and discuss issue concerning the magazine.

I know that one of the main areas of concern for the team has been poor photo reproduction in issues going back many years. They have been striving to improve this and will continue to do so. The Spitfire cover recently is a good example of the quality which can be achieved and this issue was one of the best selling for many years.

If subscribers receive a copy late the team would like to know about it - it is normally something outside the direct control of the Pilot team but they are keen to try and improve the service offered by external organisations.

If you have received a copy which has an article printed twice and some content missing this is indeed a printing issue which the team has already been made aware of. As far as we know this is restricted to a small number of copies. We believe that most of them are in the North of England and we have had copies pulled from the shelves to be reprinted. If you have one of the rogue copies I am sure the team would want to arrange for you to get a corrected copy (I have not spoken to them about this but knowing their desire to serve the reader base I would expect them to help - at worst I will send you my copy). Feel free to contact Nick Bloom at the office or contact me direct ([email protected] - 07802 611647).

We do read the various forums and try to react where helpful criticism can point to changes for the better.

I am sure the contribution from LPL will assist in creating a better magazine in the future!.

Finally some of the posters here have direct experience of the Pilot team and in some cases providing contributions. If you believe you can do better the team is always keen to hear from people with a story they have been dying to write.

Good to know that the Spitfire issue was a best seller, formationfoto. But as I recall, the Spitfire feature was commissioned by the editor your 'well-funded community media business' fired, and written by an immensely talented and long-serving contributor who walked away from Pilot in disgust. Credit where it's due.

As an occasional buyer of all 3 of the magazines, and a monthly columnist for an American flying mag (I only rarely write for anything in the UK at present), I find this interesting. Ian, I'd like to pose a couple of questions about Pilot that I, and perhaps some others, would find interesting.

(1) Do you have a target audience? Flyer primarily targets the keen-to-learn PPL, Todays-Pilot seems to be more targetting the enthusiast pilot who isn't hugely concerned about self improvement - where does Pilot see itself sitting.

(2) Do you have a core of regulars, or rely primarily on "spec" writing such as the stuff you've had from Whirly? Flyer for example has tended to rely upon specialists (Ronnie Faux for microlights, John Farley and Irv Lee for technical articles, etc.) Whats the rationale behind the approach that you are taking?

(3) Do you have a core content to the magazine? Flyer and TP generally endeavour to have at least one each of technical / microlights / rotary / fast GA for example, but I can't quite see such a "keep all interests happy" format from Pilot. Am I right here?

G

As a sometime contributor to 'Pilot', and a subscriber since 1978, I have to say that the magazine has changed under new ownership - and not for the better. But IMHO it's still better than the opposition.

Before the recent changes, 'Pilot' was owned and edited by James Gilbert. Because of this independance, James was able to stamp his personality onto the mag. Not everyone liked the result, but I certainly did, and it had a great deal of character, was not afraid to be opinionated, and didn't pull its punches.

James wasn't everyone's cup of tea, but as a contributor I always found him, and the editorial office generally, a delight to work with. Maybe it still is - I havent submitted anything for a year or so so don't know.

When James sold up, the magazine came into the ownership of a large publishing organisation. The editor was no longer the owner - he was an employee of this organisation - the same situation AFAIK as at the other two mags. This is bound to have a profound effect on the mag's character- and it has. I think (and this is purely my opinion, not neccessarily fact, so I may be wrong) that James' successor tried to continue editing 'Pilot' in the manner that James had done - and this might be why the axe was wielded in the editorial office. The editor was sacked, and several other members of the team resigned in sympathy.

'Pilot' was unique in its editorial freedom - and we are the poorer that it no longer exists in that guise. Perhaps, these days, it just is no longer possible for a market leading magazine to exist as a completely independant entity - more's the pity.

'Pilot', with one or two exceptions, always IMHO had better regular writers than the opposition - Bob Grimstead and Maxi Gainza come to mind, and the increadibly good Brian Lecomber always used it for his all-to-rare forays into print. I will admit, however, that in John Farley 'Flyer' probably has one of the most interesting contributors on any aviation mag - but 'Flyer' also carries regular copy (though not so much these days) from one who is IMHO the very worst aviation writer ever!

I still think 'Pilot' is the best, but if Grim Bedstead and Maxi (and Brian?? - we can but hope!) start writing for one of the others, that may change.

SSD

I got through the Oct issue in record time a few days ago. I did not question why until I read this thread, so I pulled the issue out to check.

Like many previous posters, there have always been articles which are of interest to me, and others which have little or no interest, but are obviously of interest to their target audience.

October appears to have covered a reasonable spread of different subjects, so why did I not bother to read them?

Was it jet lag on returning from the far east, or was it the difficulty in reading the extremely glossy format, which might be great for photo reproduction, but is not conducive to easy reading.

Whirlybird/Formationfoto/Bottieburp

I, as a subscriber, did take part in the last reader response survey that Pilot ran, I made my views very clear at the time via the survey AND I subsequently wrote to the editorial team expressing the same opinions as I've already posted.

Guess what - no response whatsoever :rolleyes: .

Little wonder, that I, and many others have not renewed our subscriptions, despite the desperate attempts to woo us back by offering us prices that must be well below production costs.

James Gilbert and his team were far from perfect, but at least they were prepared to offer us something fresh and enlightening each month without necessarily agreeing with the content.

I stand by my original post, the magazine is very average these days, when it really should be (as it did for a long time) competing as number 2 to Flight International, but I somehow doubt that will happen under the current structure.

If I knew how to do it, I would do it myself, but how about running a vote amongst us to see what is the current most widely read publication?

Blueskies

As a subscriber to Pilot for the last 6 years, I must confess to having been decreasingly satisfied by the content in the last 12 months. A lot of it's intangible, but some of the nagging feelings that I had have been identified by contributors to this thread. My general feeling is that it's a bit prescriptive; there's the mandatory 'new ultratight' [non deliberate typo, but I left it as I liked the term ;) !!] article, the 'flying a historic/unusual type' article, the 'I flew somewhere overseas' article, the 'report on a big GA meet', the 'interview with someone big in aviation who's about to retire'....., etc. For my personal interests, I find the Old Timers section seems to be getting bigger and bigger and more 'anorakky' [I fully confess to being less than interested in avaiation history, so am maybe being a little harsh here] and the 'How Air-Minded Are You?' test seems to include less questions about aviation knowledge that could reasonably be expected to be known by a fair cross-section of the GA community [ such as 'Which country's registrations are the only ones to be all-numeric?' - that's one you'll either know or not, usually because you fly in or around that country, so is not really a check of 'air-mindedness'].

Aerobatic Flyer - like you, I was similarly appalled by the quality of the illustrations for the sidelipping article and felt that the whole tone of the article massively overdid the 'mystery' of sideslipping - it's a good technique that needs to be practised for the first time at safe altitude, but it's not rocket science to a qualified PPL if approached with caution.

I did respond to the survey a few months ago in this tone and suggested that the education and safety content could aford to be increased and the historic element reduced [all IMHO, of course].

My subscription runs out this month; I have not yet renewed, as I have been considering trying Today's Pilot for the next year. There are, however, some aspects of Pilot that I enjoy and would genuinely miss - I tend to feel that on balance, I'll renew my Pilot subscription, but with less of a feeling that it's a 'no-brainer' decision.

As per most of the other replies to this thread, I am a long time subscriber of Pilot (15+ years) who has also become disappointed with the downturn in quality.

The difference between Pilot and the other aviation mags used to be quite marked - now it has become just one of the also-rans.

My subscription runs out in the new year......I will be giving some serious thought as to whether to renew, instead of it being automatic as usual.

QDM,

I added a light throw-away comment, and I even put a smilie after it! Smug and patronising? Where did that come from? :confused: I daresay I have been at times...but not on this particular thread.

I actually think Pilot's improved. But that's probably because I'm female. Back in the old days, it had a definite old boys' club we're-all-in-this-together-lads sort of flavour, as though women didn't exist in aviation. I can't actually remember any examples, though I do remember the then chairwoman of the BWPA writing a letter pointing out that women do fly - and there was a reason for her doing so. At one point I vowed never to subscribe - but when they accepted the first ever flying article I'd been paid for, I bought a subscription. I think that's called selling out, but there you are. Anyway, that feel in Pilot has changed, and about time too.

I have subscribed for a long time. It is not as good as it was, but it is not appalling. It will be interesting to see if the other two, particularly Flyer, have closed the gap on the number of copies sold. My guess is Pilot is going backwards in relation to its competition, but may still have its nose in front.

Will I renew my subscription? I am not sure. I will certainly think hard about it for the first time in many years.

Rod

QNH1013 I picked mine up at Brighton train station on the way up to Luton for the tower visit friday just gone (18th). Left it on the train as well on the way home.. :rolleyes:
Lots of pages were missing and some repeated 3 times.

Well this latest issue with the big feature on Miles aircraft is one of the best ever superb photography!! though I must admit recent issues have been somewhat variable.Guess after nearly forty years of reading aviation mags I,ve become slightly jaded ,just how many flight tests on the "classic Cessna 150 " can you cope with in a lifetime.Best as with all journalism to remember you are reading one persons (possibly inexpert opinions).I remember reading flight tests in Pilot in years gone by on both the Stampe and Condor aircraft of which I have years and many many hour of operating experience ,they were full of inaccuracies , biased opinions not bearing out my knowledge of the types.However the quality of all the Uk mags is exceptional compared to the dreadful American equivalents we are lucky to have such a choice and pilot is still the best of the bunch and an entertaining read.The printed word should never be taken to seriously.

I subscribe to both Pilot and Flyer. I have no relationship with either other than as a reader. I have no idea what everyone is talking about as Pilot is by far the superior publication. I can only assume that so many posting on a similar vein are due to some hidden agenda.

Or maybe, just maybe, a fair number of us readers are becoming unimpressed with the magazine.

<hidden agenda>
but I would say that, wouldn't I. I've made 1000 posts so that nobody would suspect a thing when the chance came to take a shot at Pilot magazine....

Damn. Exposed. :)
</hidden agenda>

:p

Bit of a sweeping generalisation about American aviation magazines, Stampe. Undeniably, some once great U.S. titles are, like 'Pilot', in decline editorially, but there's still some fineaviation journalism on the other side of the Atlantic. Try 'AOPA Pilot' or 'The Aviation Consumer'. At the heavier end of things 'Business & Commercial Aviation' sets very high standards of accuracy and authority, and 'Air & Space' is for my money unmatched anywhere for quality writing and illustration.

BRL

Thanks for the info. I'm still waiting for my November issue. Looks like subscribers get served last !