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Old 14th January 2018, 04:53
bearoutwest bearoutwest is offline
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Re: Declining quality of British aviation magazines

You weren't asking me directly Nick, but let me attempt an answer from my perspective.

The attraction of the 1980-90s AIR International magazine format, for me, was the balance of 10-page articles on modern jets (Mirage 2000, SAAB Viggen, MiG-23, etc), early post-war era (F-86 Sabre, MiG-15, Hawker Hunter, etc), WW2 historic (dH Mosquito, P-51, Boulton Paul Defiant, etc) and occasionally WW1/Between-Wars aircraft. For the aircraft with greater volume of data/details, these articles would appear over a number of issues. The sister publication AIR Enthusiast, was the avenue for the strictly historical aviation articles - e.g. USAAF use of Spitfires, Franco-Thai Air War, F-84s over Korea, expanded Fiat Cr42 article.

AIR Int. was also inbibed with modelling profiles and kit reviews, personal views of aviation (e.g. interviews/articles on test pilots, industry characters - Roy Braybrook, etc).

I don't know of any current English-language magazine that has that balance. AIR Int. doesn't do a great deal of historical articles anymore (well not in the few copies that I have purchased from the newstand in recent years), and AIR Enth. ceased after copy #131. The closest in format would be the new French Aero Journal or Avions. Alas my poor French language skills does not make a subscription from the other end of the planet, a practical option.

If I was to be asked for a sample of my personal preference, it would be for more 10-page articles on the following (or longer articles split over 2 issues):
B-58 Hustler, Su-27/30, Mirage III, Grumman Tiger, SAAB 32, Lavochkin 15, Avro Lincoln, CAC Ca-15, Dornier 26, Kawanishi H8K Emily flying boat, Hawker Fury/Demon/Hart/Nimrod (biplane).
Mixed with operational histories:
Air War over the Atlantic (Fw200, Ar196, Bv138, etc), Allison-engine Mustangs over Burma, USAAF WW2 use of remote control guided bombs, Ha-1112 Buchons in action.
Up to date news and aircraft development:
Syria, Iraq, F-35 JSF, JJ-20 "Chinese Stealth", etc
Occasional articles:
Model kit review, how to build vacform, random profiles - Fw190 in RAF, USAAF, French service, etc.
Science & tech:
Aircraft strength (why does the Fw200 snap in half so often), Engine performance versus drag (why did the radial-engine Ki-100 out perform the in-line engine Ki-61).
I'd be happy with quarterly or bi-monthly.

...geoff
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