RE: Magazines say there are no bad planes??
I have done some reviews for R/C Report magazine and I think I can say that mine are different from most you'll read. I usually devoce a couple of paragraphs to building, if that's what you call sticking an ARF together, and the rest of the review to flying. This is usually the opposite from all the other reviews I read.
I normally do acro and 3D planes. For example, I did the Funtana 40, Twist, Taco & Burrito. The latter two I had to build since they weren't ARFs. The Twist had 4 major parts, wing, fuselage, horizontal & vertical tail. What's to do.
I spend most of the review on flying. Maybe the general RC flying population doesn't like that, but when I read a review, I go right to the part on flying so I make my reviews the way I like to read them. I fly every maneuver the plane can do and report on each one. Sure, if there is something messed up in the construction, I do report on that. You know, if it builds really tail heavy or nose heavy and I have to re-locate servos in addition to the battery to get it to fly. That needs telling about, but how many times do I have to see someone photograph swabbing the inside of the wing joiner with epoxy and taping the seam.
As for the covering, 99% of the planes I review have a better covering job than I'll do. I'm not doing those fancy patterns. Speaking of wrinkles, after a plane spends a week hanging in my garage, it starts looking like a prune. I just hope I get the pictures before it starts looking really bad. Use a heat gun on it, get outta here, I'm getting the next one ready to fly. The plane whose covering has stayed the best in my test cell (garage) is the Cedar Hobbies Twin Stick. It's the Fokker red with Maltese crosses so there are at least a million similar planes, but it still looks pretty good after a couple of months. It's covered with something called Cedarcote, whatever that is. Chinese Oracover under another name, maybe.
When it comes to integrity in the review, I've not had anyone pressure me for a good review. Of course, Gordon would probably sic his dog on them if they tried. We are a little magazine that is big on telling it like it is.