TheEdge

My Feedback: (788)

The responses that come with thoughts on how to improve upon a negative, certainly stand out better than the ones with a familiar moan to them. It's refreshing to read comments on positive alternatives.
It would be nice to see the moaning Scaled back a bit.

airega1

My Feedback: (204)

I've been flying RC for 43 years, full scale for 40 and the one thing I've always noticed, flying full scale you need your rudder coordinated with your ailerons, rc airplanes are grossly overpowered thus the need to not coordinate in your rudder with a bank, your turns are just as smooth without rudder. I've had conversations with world class flyers about using rudder in turns and it's sort of 50/50 on what they do.

scale only 4 me

My Feedback: (158)

Depends on the airframe and the type of flying, I use rudder on my scale airplanes and warbirds,, not so much on my aerobatic planes,,, there's never just one answer for every situation

airega1

My Feedback: (204)

excellent point!

TheEdge

My Feedback: (788)

And then there are those whose thumb is always working the rudder as it's the natural thing for them to do.

tailskid

My Feedback: (34)

One of the biggest problems writing for a magazine, it the word count...the article has to fit into the mag

mattnew

My Feedback: (2)

not moaning...as an example I tried contacting MAN directly at first.. ignored, I tried posting constructive comments in their online pages and on their facebook page... deleted. I've tried going the do something to make it better route... it failed... I WANT my magazines... I like getting them, reading them ( and I do donate them... ) ... but I don't want to spend $25 a year to read inaccurate how-to articles, and bad flying tips... I was just wondering what others had for ideas that might be more successful in helping to improve... short of applying for a job at MAN.

mattnew

My Feedback: (2)

anyway......as said in original post.. I'm not sure I could do better in terms of writing articles... I realize a ton of work goes into them... I was just frustrated and not sure how to best go about being a solution rather than a problem... b/c I don't like complaining...I don't want this thread to turn into a bunch of whining either... was looking for solutions that I could participate in....

jetmaven

My favorite edition ever , Aquila plans and her , life is good.

Steve S. Helland

My Feedback: (15)

Model Airplane News Has always been my favorite-Rich Uravitch, Clarence Lee...you guys over the years have helped me immensely. I especially liked the pull out plans of the Extra 300 back in the '80's (which I promptly built then attached a Wankel motor on it), ah yeah...the good old days! I do what I am supposed to do. Read the knowledge, take what I can use and discard the rest-simple. I mostly read theses magazines to see if I'm missing something, not much as of late but I have been building for a great many years! I still learn stuff every month, whether it is a new project or a new cutting edge technique! I just try to keep this hobby fun and simple, don't read too much into the stuff that isn't ever going matter anyhow.

hairy46

My Feedback: (1)

My problems with all magazines is I am a builder and they all seem to be about ARFs, not trying to pick a fight but have no interest in electric planes and that seems to be a big subject of the magazines, and today I got an AMA magazine and it has a drone on the cover, again of zero interest to me!

CafeenMan

I don't know what's out there as far as magazines any more because there's nothing stocked locally. But when I did buy magazines it was RCM and anything scale. The last decent mags I saw came from overseas.

Model Aviation is the only one I get now because it comes with the membership. I'm done with it in five minutes and dump it in a lobby at work.

I find most contributing authors to be kind of sophomoric. It's like they just got into the hobby a year or two ago and think they discovered something special and want to share it. It's always an overly complex way to complete the task. The author tries to be extra-technical in his language which to me is a dead giveaway he hasn't really been in the hobby that long. I see it in all the forums as well.

So much available on the internet now I don't know why magazines even bother to be honest.

The information put out on a forum like this could fill 100 or more magazines in the same month.

jetmaven

Model Aviation caters to and takes its cues from its advertisers , that's obvious . I've seen more than enough foam , toy grade quads ,
ARF's ,tricked out radios complete with camo face plates and all manner of things that are hard to take serious .
I'll pay my dues because I have to , but the magazine , although of late there has been a small effort to explain what balsa wood is , gets
a quick flip and then into the recycle .
The truly sad part is that what the magazine presents will lead to its own demise , that's the nature of instant gratification and throw away
technology .

Geebeefanatic

My Feedback: (2)

The great thing about the internet is being able to voice your opinion to the masses!! also the bad Part!! The article you use as a reference was dead on as to how the " Elite" turn as I happen to have won Top Gun twice in the Pro -Am category turning like this. Was it over simplified? Yes. I think there could of been a lot more explanation given to as to why, how and when to do things as there is always changing conditions while flying. Unfortunately I think these magazine are writing to the pilot who is very new in a lot of these articles that are written. It has to be hard to get a tip or suggestion written in a small amount of pages. I understand your frustration but am very happy we have a couple of magazines to enjoy our hobby/passion with. Thanks for all the hard work of those working on the magazines and maybe there is room for a magazine dedicated to the expert modeler looking for specialized help.

mattnew

My Feedback: (2)

Guessing a little bit here....
Top Gun -> you likely were flying a warbird -> most warbirds have quite a bit of dihedral in the wings. Dihedral in a planes wing promotes the plane to turn when a bank angle is set, reducing the need for rudder. Depending on the plane you had chosen, your plane may have looked like it was flying a coordinated turn without any use of rudder due to the way the plane was designed/built.

Now... you spent 100's of hours practicing with this particular type of plane... you learned its habits and determined that the turn looked most scale without the use of rudder. but I have to think you at least experimented with a bit of rudder as you were practicing to learn what was best for that particular aircraft.

In many planes an uncoordinated turns look ugly, even weird ( especially WW1 birds ) , the nose is high ( adverse yaw ) through the entire turn. I don't get to Top Gun due to my location but I get to some other events in the northeast like Rhinebeck. The pilots that use all 4 main channels are noticeable b/c the flights look significantly more realistic... smoother... and the pilots that don't make me squirm.. I want to go over and show them that their $1000 transmitter has 2 sticks that move in 4 different directions... ( joking obviously... but you can tell who is using their rudder in the air )

I don't know... maybe I'm just a rudder snob :-) but I don't think that you can have a discussion on "elite" turns without a discussion on evaluating what the plane is doing, and then using all 4 inputs as necessary to keep the plane in a coordinated turn.




This conversation didn't really go the way I wanted it to...admittedly I may have started it off poorly. I like getting the magazines, I recognize a lot of hard work goes into them. I get frustrated when I see things that I feel aren't 100%. There is no way to fix it, there is no ability to have a discussion on the topic, there is no way for me to even learn that I am wrong and the magazine is right....b/c that could be the case too ( though you'll never hear me admit it :-) )

dirtybird

My Feedback: (5)

I once wrote an article for RCM. I worked several months on that article. RCM published it as their feature article.They paid me $100.
I decided writing articles for RC magazines was not a lucrative occupation.

do335a

Sure, there's lots of incorrect info in the model mags from the self-appointed experts. This carries on as fact, parroted by the readers.

In many cases I've seen the problem is that the pontificators have no clue as to how an airplane really flys. They don't have a complete understanding of what the controls do.

For instance, the OP mentions using 4 controls for co-ordinated turns. And he's correct. Throttle plays a part as well as yaw, roll and pitch. However, with our overpowered models, we can generally forget about throttle first and yaw second. Do that in a full size plane - roll into a 60 degree angle of bank for your turn - and you'll soon find out that you'd better do something about those extra two controls as well if you left them out of your co-ordinated actions at the start of the turn.

MTK

I've been at this modeling hobby longer than many readers have been alive. Early on, the information in the various magazines was devoured. Magazines were filled it seems with modeler passion. Later, as I gained experience, I became more particular on what I read. And now, with the conscious direction that MA (just one example) staff took several years ago to do away with articles on competition that were of great intereset to me, I hardly look at MA anymore. Bob Hunt's articles are about the only ones that interest me even though I don't fly Stunt.

HOWEVER, since I have no real desire to write articles myself I won't criticize too much. Well, just a little: come to think of it, even if wanted to write articles, my scibbles would be edited on the floor.

LJE4357

My Feedback: (74)

I just read this thread and found it very interesting and mostly true. The real issue is what has caused all this. Unfortunately the problem started in the mid 50's with the education systems. Now four generations later the complete education system has gotten worse, not better. The real problem is it's now accepted to be this way. It's how everyone justify's there existence. AMA today is not even close to the way it was 25 years ago. It's more of a business, than an organization for modelers. I been a member for 62 years. I started when I was 7, and flew control line 1/2 A speed in 1959 at the Nationals, in Los Alamitos, Ca. ( The built in spell checker need to go back to school ). Last month I donated 50 years worth of 6 different model magazines to the public library. It took 3 trips in my SUV, with no back seats. Today I only get MA. I look at it for 10 minutes then throw it away. It's worthless, except for the contest guide.


My 2 cents worth.

init4fun

Post deleted

mattnew

My Feedback: (2)

I would have never started this thread if I had known that this is where it was going to devolve to...


sorry guys... thread over... I'm speechless.

DaddySam

My Feedback: (9)

I think it's hard for magazines to compete with the internet. By the time a product review makes it into print it's old news on the web. I've been able to contact the designers and company owners of many products I use and the person to person communication is unbeatable. That being said, I remember reading MAN in the junior high school library back in the '60s ; and over the years have subscribed to most of the magazines that have been out there: RCM, MAN, MA, RC Report; and some I can't remember. I currently get MAN and MA. I find that I don't read them right away, I wait until our family goes camping - no internet, TV, or radio. I find that I read them all cover to cover, and find out that some of the disciplines I used to ignore have some interesting aspects. Maybe I'm just getting older, but I like the variety that MA puts out each month, and I enjoy the articles in MAN, both online and in print.

init4fun

Yes , threads do wander somewhat , but there was no good reason for the racial attack that was posted in post # 44 , that truly wasn't called for ..... .

Now , as to the magazine thing , It's kinda funny how many folks chose to not discuss inaccuracies in the articles , as the OP had intended , and instead attacked content that wasn't factually incorrect . My mentioned pet peeve is the amount of content VS advertising , but the content itself I fully understand the business needs to print what sells . All the "but gee , there aren't any building articles anymore" responses are typical but the fact remains , the mags write about what's being sold today . Anyone wonder just how many kits VS arfs are being sold today , July 24 2015 ? Unless the magazines are catering to aircraft modeling history they are going to write about what sells . And like it or not , today that sure seems to be ARFs and Drones , with very few articles about growing your own balsa .

049flyer

My Feedback: (18)

Magazines WERE the internet of the past. Used to be that to gain information you read books, for real up to date info you checked out the magazines. Books tend to be a more durable resource, magazines less so . The internet has largely replaced magazines and to a lesser extent books as a souce of information. Magazines dependancy on advertising revenue tends to cloud the judgement of editors when deciding what content to include and how product reviews will be presented.

It's amazing to me that modeling magazines exist at all.

LJE4357

My Feedback: (74)

I read your post. The problem you wrote about a totally different issue. It's the education system. If you think it's so great. How come the engineering schools in this country are closing. How come young hobbiest only fly ARF's, nobody builds. If we did that 50 years ago, where would we be today? There are engineers out there today that are very good, it the percentage that has gotten smaller. Japan already has very good engineers, we taught them, in the 50's & 60's. Now China , India, are now getting engineers, that can design and build, and not just do paperwork design. This is what I was talking about, not what you posted. I just stated when it started and the way. BTW, I don't know what you done in your carrier. I have 2 patent in my name as the designer. I don't own them.The company I worked for does. I did part of the design of transmitter modulator of the AN-SPS-67 Radar. Still used today, I also did the redesign of the modulator on the B-52 search Radar. I have done a lot more, but I really don't need to write about it on here. Maybe you really need to give the apology. What I said had nothing to do with what you wrote about.