What the heck is this???

[Lone Eagle]

Hope not , I'm a 50 year of AOPA and they are becoming a pain in the email.

[Chad Jensen]

Are the sentiments expressed here being discussed at EAA HQ meetings? Are EAA's leadership and SA's editorial staff being made aware of these posts, and of their growing number? What is the reaction, if any?

Absolutely Eric! Many of the staff members follow the forums and the topics specifically relating to SA. You will see Hal and I here daily, but several other staffer's, including Directors and VP's participate in the forums when their schedules allow. It is being discussed, and the editorial staff and leadership is well aware of what is going on, and what is being said. I think December's issue of SA will be a welcome sway back the other way from what I've seen at this point.

Maybe the TBM article was a shot across the bow to the membership to see if there really was a pulse, I don't know, but if it was, I think we've opened up the lines of communication.

[Hal Bryan]

Are the sentiments expressed here being discussed at EAA HQ meetings? Are EAA's leadership and SA's editorial staff being made aware of these posts, and of their growing number?

Eric -

Forgive me for cherry-picking, but these are the two questions I, personally, can answer unequivocally, and that answer is absolutely and vehemently "yes." As for the others, beyond what's already been said, I'm hoping to get some of my colleagues in Publications to dive in here and join the discussions.

Regards -

Hal

[Eric Page]

Cheers, guys! Thanks for the prompt and candid replies. I look forward to the Dec issue.

[Mike Switzer]

Anybody get theirs later than I get mine?

I got mine today

[Bugs66]

I finally got my hard copy of the November SA. In addition to the extremely out of place TBM article, there was also a bad article on Mac flying a Bell 47...

Looked like his hands were down by his side and feet on floor to me, on all photos including the cover shot. I found that hillarious.

Took me 5 minutes to read this month's mag. Skipped the TBM and Bell 47. Thumbs down. Thumbs up to Super Chub, Hands On, WOMB, Lauran Paine, pretty much the last 10 pages of the mag. And oh I wish I was there for the "50 years ago", what a time.

I wish we had Barry Schiff and Peter Garrison.

[Barnstorm]

This thread and it's sister thread "Sport Aviation Magazine" are of keen interest to me.

I VERY much want to see how the EAA and the content editors handle this problem because an organisation I help manage has the exact same problem(s).

Problem 1. A percentage of sometimes highly vocal members see the org not as a club/group of aviation enthusiasts that promote aviation through world-class events, fly-ins, sponsor-ships, Young /Old Eagles, Museums, restorations, on-line tools with support, legal watch-dogging and activism but ONLY AS A MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTION.

Problem 2. An aging population that are unwilling / unable to see or understand the movement of the media world from PRINT to DIGITAL. Print "Pinch" has killed many great publications and organisations that have not been able to make this transition. Print cost and postage costs continue to go through the roof, internet media draws away the younger subscribers and the remaining pool of subscribers feel the cost of a $50 publication that now leaves little remaining revenue for any projects outside of the quickly dying print publication.

Problem 3. As online media continues to prove a better media for quick news, better responses to troubleshooting questions, many stories, photos, how to and help content is directed away from the print media leaving mostly "human interest" and high end photography as the last bastions for print content. Sensing this change even the print sticklers now complain about the print media content because the format is not covering the topics they once found in the pre-digital revolution days. Print editors to meet the financial needs of a print publication have to appeal to wider and wider audiences and even when 4 or 5 articles are "on topic" to the reader seeing a few "off topic" articles causes a sense of abandonment. Citing examples like "Kitplanes" where the organisation is not a pilot "org" but a publishing house, subscribers completely forget about all of the other benefits of the org (see problem 1) and don't understand why the org can't "be like them".

Ironically, as we see in these threads:

"Concerned Members" that are affected by Problem 1, then inspired by Problem 3, cancel their "subscription" (membership) in "Protest" thinking they are some how helping the org, as if non-participation is a valid form of communication when what they are doing is actually compounding Problem 2.

Thus they are contributing causes to the the change that upset them in the first place.

All that said.... Sport Aviation really does need to publish more GYRO articles!

.

[Karevoll]

Just got my magazine today.
And, yeah, jets and warbirds and anything costing more than a Honda Accord are of no interest.

[av-mech]

I'm a long time "on again--off again" EAA member. I used to hit my "off" times because I got real pissed at what the EAA leadership seemed to be doing. By that I mean that I viewed EAA as a corporate, money gobbling machine that continually left the homebuilders behind. I joined about 1985 when I was a high school kid in central Indiana. Me and three of my buddies talked one of our parents into letting us take a car to Oshkosh and so we went, airplane crazed and bound for the greatest airshow ever!! Mind you that we went to a high school where there was an aviation program where we built a 66% scale Jap Zero, I had my picture in Sport Aviation, along with some other students for that build. You could not ask for kids more crazy about airplanes and especially hombuilt planes, it was in our blood. That first Oshkosh was everything I had hoped with homebuilts flyinging everywhere, a million things to see......we camped in pup tents in the area now occupied by Aeroshell square(or close). Over the years most of my friends wandered off to more lucrative careers but I stayed with aviation doing all sorts of jobs and eventually becoming an A&P and IA working in my own shop. Today I look at the EAA quite different than I did back in 1985, it's simply nothing like it used to be. Back then it was indeed still about homebuilts, today it's really not so much. I flew my Varieze to Osh this past year for the Rutan Salute, what a joke that turned out to be. They basically found time to squeeze Burt and a few of his planes in and that was it. Cancelled the flyby for those of us who showed up. Anyway, I used to quit EAA from time to time because of idiotic magazine articles like the socata one this past issue, fact is I finally signed up for the forum here just to get pissy about it. You guys at HQ got your heads stuffed clear up your A$%, thanks for leaving the rest of us low life hombuilders in the dust, you are delusional if you really think you a good connection with the average homebuilder these day's. J Mac...Go back to wherever you came from. I have no doubt that you are competent but you are not one of us. Why don't you go out and build something before you have the nuts to write for a mag that was founded on that exact activity!! Speaking of SA, you almost had me over the last year. I was really starting to like what you were doing but you have let me down as a member. This (Socata article) is not the content that belongs in this publication. I read somewhere that EAA has to appeal to a broad spectrum of the membership.........It is my observation that the broad spectrum is made up of people who build are interested in "EXPERIMENTAL AVIATION" HENCE THE NAME "EXPERIMENTAL AVIATION ASSOCIATION". I don't see a friggen experimental sticker on that Socata!

EAA---you have outgrown your shoes and like the current national debt, I don't see anyway it's ever going to turn around. Will I quit EAA again? No, as a matter of fact I recently became president of my local chapter and quitting would only let the leadership get away with it's crappy misdirected management of what used to be a very good and useful orginization. No I will stay, and maybe complain loudly with the hopes that it comes back in the direction of what it once was, what I joined in on back in the 80's.

Any of you that want to reply with some crap about printing costs, digital media, appealing to a broad spectrum etc... can stick it right in your ear, your nothing but excuse makers and enablers to those who have taken it away from us.

Sincerest Regards
Arnold Holmes
EAA 519850
TC 4476
Chap. Pres 534
A&P/IA
PP/TW
Varieze N80SH

[pylon500]

OUCH
Wow, I was getting annoyed at all the articles about people building all the dime a dozen common kits, RV's, Zeniths, Rans etc.
I always look for people that are actually doing EXPERIMENTAL stuff, I used enjoy the odd one off's that appear in the magazine, and used to get 'Experimenter' till it was discontinued.
I know some of the one off's out there can be a bit rough, but it's a start, people are learning.
As an example, here's an airplane I built about 15 years ago;

Never got around to writing an article, plus I'm in Australia.
One day maybe...
Arthur.