Uncle Roger.

There, that's something in Flight worth reading.

... but he is on holiday a lot

... and I can't think of anything else

Sadly, after over 35 years as a subscriber to Flight, my subscription will be allowed to lapse at the next renewal. I really believed that retirement from aviation would happen before I gave up on Flight but it really has become such a sad reflection of its former self.

How sad too that the Editorial staff, and in particular David Learmont, have nothing whatsoever to say!

Scimatar,
I totally agree - why NO response from the team at FI, especially David Learmount?
Come on chaps give us some feedback, or are you all too embarrassed to reply on this forum. How can you ignore the comments here and the numerous intentions to cancel future subscriptions?
Maybe you are all too busy compiling another 10 page directory of APU fuel pump valve manufactuers........

:rolleyes:

Agree with Rover.I read it in Smiths every Tuesday then put it back unless there is something really interesting in it.
Who else sets really p****d off when they insist on wrapping it in a plastic bag?

Like the rest of you I found better magazines with better articles so I didn't renew my subscription.

And they still keep sending it to me!!! Now that it's free I can safely say it's as dull a read as it was when I paid for it. Wont miss it. In fact I barely notice it when it does turn up.

Long, long ago the parent company's research showed people in suits placed and paid for the ads - the big glossy ones that pay the real money. The magazine is now for the widgets to airframes aerospace industry.

Awards are given to people in suits by people in suits and it keeps the advertising rolling in and the magazine in business.

It's been that way for a long time - it's just that us knuckledragging pilots take a long time to realise the odd flight review and Uncle Roger writing as if the whole magazine is still intended for pilots are thrown in as a sop to try and keep us on board a little longer.

Oh, and don't assume the editorial types like it anymore than you do - they face the same commercial realities and pressures as we bemoan in our world as pilots.

Wise words PT. With that in mind I would like to change the last sentence of my first post, FI have not lost the plot, but merely changed it and we are no longer IN IT.!

flaps to 60,
For the same reason I have stopped buying (and sometimes just looking at) FI, I find I am strangely attracted to the fun glossiness of Airliner World.

FI seems to be more and more boring as time goes on, while at the same time having less and less in it worth reading (two separate statements I think).

So from no on, I think I will also follow this thread bandwagon and continue my recent trend reading AW for the more interesting articles.

Good point flaps260, I thought I was the only one.

Ez

Bex

Does Skyport have a web site or is it the free news paper given out around Heathrow...cheers.

Ez
I think the comments from the others proves "We're not alone".

sky9
Good idea about Danny starting up a job website. It would be free, high quality and above all up to date.

What do you say Danny? I mean what would it take to set up. Most of the airlines recruiters look at this site, some even find out whats going on in thier own company on PPRuNe.

Think of it this way.
You will be saving us each the equivalent of some 50 odd pints a year by not having to buy the once excellent but now no more FI.

[ 11 August 2001: Message edited by: flaps to 60 ]

So you all just do what you have to do...
:cool:

PPRuNe Towers,

Understand what you said, but surely these same suits will STOP advertising IF the subscriber/reader base falls significantly because people are no longer as interested in the magazine?

Anyway after being a subscriber for as long as I can remember, have just recently refused to renew my subscription, still getting reminders.......

Best regards,

"lame"

Flaps to 60...(way too draggy for me BTW!!)

Skyport is indeed that free paper available at LHR (LGW has it's own weekly version), usually out on a Friday.

The LHR version always has some rant about Bus services or T5 on the letters page, but it DOES have a couple of pages on Airline News every week. And it's FREE. Don't have a copy with me at the moment so not sure about a web page.

Hope this helps

Rgds BEX

The truth of the matter is that Flight has not been interesting for a very long time. It leans quite heavily towards big business. Roger Bacon stoppped being funny a while ago. There are currently no magazines in this country that cater for the average pilot. The average pilot nowadays flys a 737 or some other three letter number and does not care about he latest type of missile. This arhaic bias towards the military is as outdated as those posh English accents on old black and white newsreels.
Some

Another point to remember is that Flight have a lot of 'give-away'copies for the industries that the advertising is aimed at, it is aimed at major league sellers and buyers, not us, the flying.Ops/engineering fraternity, anymore.

Yes after 32 years of buying FI I think my money would be better spent on Airliner World. Does anyone have a website/address please? Thaks.

I have to agree with addinfurnightem....I've been buying Flight for 33 years, this last format change sealed it for me and I don't intend on renewing my subscription.
The magazine has been changed to a format that is not really aimed for the aviation minded but for the big end of town! :mad:
If the magazine continues in the manner that PPRuNe Towers suggests, then they will end up with a publication that just prints adverts and has few readers!
It would be good to see a responce from the magazine or even better, a change back to what it was 10 years ago!

[ 12 August 2001: Message edited by: Offchocks ]

I only read FI because of the back pages. Been doing that for years.

Personally I gave up Flight 6 years ago, for all the reasons mentioned above, in favour of Airliner World.

Click the hyperlink for the website to Airliner World

FYI, and on the subject of advertising versus revenue, in order for Flight to be able to say to an advertiser that they have a circulation of such-and-such (which greatly influences the advertisement pricing / yield - about which PPRuNeTowers so succinctly wrote previously) they have to be able to prove it with some degree of certainty, and to that end there are organisations that independently verify that what they say is indeed true, e.g. The International Federation of Audit Bureaux of Circulations - it's amazing what you can find out on PPRuNe, ain't it ?!

Ps. Who else remembers that old joke of Q). Who're the only people who read Flight from the front ? A). BA Training Captains !

If Flight International has indeed retargeted itself at big business then its on a hiding to nothing. Big business reads Air Transport World - free to the selected and chock full of interesting airline related stuff.

The only part of F.I. that sells copy is the job pages. Its just a matter of time before it peters out and joins John Bull, Woman's Realm and the other worn out magazines that couldn't keep up with a changing world. We were most amused over here at the Flight International Awards when Brunei Shell Aviation won an award - presumably for its hugely successful downsizing operation? :rolleyes:

**********************************
Through difficulties to the cinema

On the subject of nostalgia and the great days of Flight:

Is there anyone who preserved the wonderful line ad during the last great hiring boom in the late 1980's?

An utter classic windup wherein a pilot advertised for airlines to apply to him advising salary, conditions and enclosing photocopies of their last three year's accounts.

It's not an apochryphal tale told over a pint - I used to have the page torn out but somewhere, during some move or another, it went AWOL. I'd love to be able to pass it on to the huddled masses here. :D :D

Aeroplane Magazine is still circulating. Lots of mags have gone the way of FI. Shame. Give us info we want to read, not info that will be useful to our great-grandchildren when they fly their stratospheric rocket liners.

Kermie :mad: