EAA/Sport Aviation survey

pfarber

pfarber

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pfarber
Anyone else take the EAA/SA survey? I'm interested if anyone would share what they thought.

I rated the magazine as poor, and that I barely read any articles. For feedback I was quite clear that I don't care about rich people spending $200k to restore a barn find. But that I wanted how to/building articles like you know, in the before time.

What'd you'all put?
 
I don't think that was a question on the survey, but you might add it in to the free form response.

Sadly I don't care about a $100k+ restoration of a Cessna X done buy a guy with 'restore barn find' money, no matter how pretty the photos are.

Show me a dude building a wood Falco wing and you now have my attention.

I would be happy if they took the 'Experimental' out of the name.

With all the new LSA stuff they should really be called LSAA as I can only imagine how many issues will be devoted to that and NOT experimental aircraft.

Think of it.. a dude build a scale reproduction of a P-38 FROM SCRATCH and SA did a puff piece with a few photos. Its an amazing accomplishment, and if the designer/builder didn't want to talk about it then ok, that sucks. But seeing what SA put about it? Couldn't have been more disappointed in the article. I mean the guy has to have photos/records to give the DAR for the certificate... none of those were published IIRC. You could have done a major spread on 'guy beats a stack of 2024-T3 into an amazing P-38 replica'.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Ever consider “Experimenter” magazine of EAA?
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They folded that a decade ago and rolled the content (supposedly 14 pages per issue) into SA. That content has diminished since the 14 pages promise. Truthfully, EAA is trying to fill the void AOPA has created by going upmarket.
 
DaleB said:
By also going upmarket.
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Or to being everything to everyone. In all honesty, the hardcore build an airplane from plans community was never big, but it is an even smaller segment today. So the typical builder is building a nicer, more capable, and more expensive airplane. And the award winners, which have always been a point of focus, are way up at the top of the market - warbird, antique, certified, or experimental. Oshkosh wouldn’t be very interesting if it was restricted to plans built aircraft.
 
kyleb said:
They folded that a decade ago and rolled the content (supposedly 14 pages per issue) into SA. That content has diminished since the 14 pages promise. Truthfully, EAA is trying to fill the void AOPA has created by going upmarket.
Click to expand...
I guess I knew that.
 
Even if SA would republish some of the articles from the 80s-90s about building that would be great... sadly I didn't keep copies from then. I do have a few Kitplanes issues and they are completely different magazines from today. I still remember the 'Stress without Tears' series they did. 35 years later! All composite articles (Burt Rutan in his heyday) and many wood/fabric articles.

They may be niche topics but compared to the 'rich guy spends more money than you will ever have on an airplane you will never fly/own' they are interesting. Is it really interesting to read about how some guy paid a mechanic to find parts?
 
In years past I used to read it cover to cover. I used to find it more interesting than APPA, less so the now defunct IFR and others.

I skip at least the first third to half with all the tired, op Ed, wannabe novelist writing. At best they could say the same thing in a quarter of the article, but they bloat it to make copy and keep page count up for ads.

Many of the other writers seem to rehash old tired concepts just to get an article in.

The resto mod articles are OMG long. Do we really need that much back story?

The best material is at the last half with builds and tech articles.
 
Kitplanes used to have a cartoon on the last page... forgot the name (around the patch?) even that would be more interesting than a $60k Garmin panel upgrade to some dude's Piper... unless they actually went through on how to actually do the install.... not just order some gear, write a check and gush over how neat it is.
 
pfarber said:
Kitplanes used to have a cartoon on the last page... forgot the name (around the patch?) even that would be more interesting than a $60k Garmin panel upgrade to some dude's Piper... unless they actually went through on how to actually do the install.... not just order some gear, write a check and gush over how neat it is.
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And SA always had a nice picture on the back cover. And they sold their soul to rock n roll.
 
Initial Fix said:
In years past I used to read it cover to cover. I used to find it more interesting than APPA, less so the now defunct IFR and others.

I skip at least the first third to half with all the tired, op Ed, wannabe novelist writing. At best they could say the same thing in a quarter of the article, but they bloat it to make copy and keep page count up for ads.

Many of the other writers seem to rehash old tired concepts just to get an article in.

The resto mod articles are OMG long. Do we really need that much back story?

The best material is at the last half with builds and tech articles.
Click to expand...
The restoration articles used to be interesting. Ma and Pa Kettle pull an abandoned gem off of a tie-down spot and rebuild it in their garage. That was interesting. It has changed to Mr & Mrs Jones, who own 3 Caddie dealerships, hired someone to track down an interesting airplane and paid a million dollars for someone else to restore it for them. I actually talked to <essentially> that couple in the vintage area at Oshkosh this year. They had a beautiful classic. They had paid for something like 15,000 hours of labor for the restoration. Great people, but not a story I want to read.

And the recurring columnists? Uggh. Maybe the problem for me is I've read too many aviation articles and there are very few new things under the sun. Steve Krog 'splaining P-factor or the IA going on about this month's "frightning find" during an inspection. I'm just not interested...
 
pfarber said:
Kitplanes used to have a cartoon on the last page... forgot the name
Click to expand...
Pen name was Robucha. Think it was a concatenation of his real name.

He did a parody version on one of my (overly complex) drawings. Nearly bust a gut….

Ron Wanttaja
 
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