What does the Kitfox community think of Sport Aviation?

[Chad Jensen]

I try to check in here daily.

[Av8r3400]

Chad - I know you must be a busy guy and we appreciate your checking in with us here every once in a while (though you haven't in a couple of weeks).

I just got my most recent Sport Aviation (SA) and I had to resurrect this thread to comment.

What an absolute disappointment.

Not one feature article about an experimental airplane in the entire magazine. The beautiful cover shot of the Pitts Special got me in and in the first paragraph of the article the author admits the plane only the cherry on top of the article (not a prominent part - an afterthought). Another human interest story. The Staggerwing (Museum) story with little aircraft content, and on and on.

Then to top it all off a $100k electronics makeover of an AZTEC?? Who are you guys publishing to? Because I surely don't get it.

The first "meat and potatoes" mention of airplanes is 100 pages in, with the builder reports. At that it's only little paragraph descriptions.

Do you guys publish a magazine about airplanes anymore? Is there technical content in the war birds or classics publication that may be of interest to people who are building and flying EXPERIMENTAL aircraft?

Speaking as an officer in a large and very active Chapter, I can tell you I am not the only person who is of this opinion. I hear it from my membership at virtually every meeting and function we hold.

If you want to publish an aviation human-interest, sociology journal, more power to you. I wish you well. Just let it be known to the people there that you have tens of thousands (if not more) members who would love to have the old SA back - technical content, feature articles about airplanes or building techniques or kits or engines or ...

[rcnut]

I compleatly agree, I use to look forward to getting Sport Aviation and reading it from cover to cover. but now I wish I had a bird cage so I could put it to good use and line the cage with it. Or maybe all of the members that are coming to Air Venture could bring their copy alone so they would have some fire starter for their camp site. Were is the Experimental articles in the Experimental Aircraft Assc. magazine???????? To bad the new "regime" did not have ROOTS in the EAA . I miss the construction, how to, articles.

[rwaltman]

One more vote to the "its not about us anymore" list.

Please allow me to remind you that the 'E' in EAA stands for 'Experimental', not 'Exclusive', 'Expensive' or 'Estranged'

Roberto.


The most detestable word in the English Language is 'exclusive' - Carl Sandburg.

[bdemunck]

Put my vote in for "disappointment" of the new Sport Aviation Mag. What's with the over-sized paper anyway. I liked the old size magazine. And content, man EAA is missing the boat there. If Tony B. were alive today, he couldn't write fast enough to get some good building tips published. I'm sorry EAA, you need to go back to the drawing board on this!

[Geowitz]

Yup. Me too... And last month, personalizing the NTSB. That brings a thought to mind... "we're from the government and we're here to help"...right. Just another sign of the times.

[HighWing]

Couldn't agree with the sentiments more.

Regarding taking the copies to Oshkosh to light fires, why not take them and stack them on the ground in front of the EAA headquarters booth. My plan was to be there, but circumstances have changed that. It would have been fun to make such a statement.
Lowell

[Torch]

I had a huge deep belly laugh when I found out mac maclellen was onboard. What a joke. Lane Wallace=boring, same thing with Lauren Paine. I'm going to keep my EAA membership to support the EAA in general but I will be renewing "no magazine" when my membership is due. I just found out you can do that. Some of the recent articles just floor me, rich kid "commuting" in a P51 to "pay his dues" working on the race plane that fell in his lap. Anything maclellen writes puts me to sleep. I've had enough of Lauren Paine's military stories. Van's aircraft is sure getting plenty of exposure although I know they are advertising customer. I bet Van himself is even tired of all the Van worship. I remember when EAA was about airplanes, not anymore. I will be going to oshkosh this year to help the bottom line and boost the economy but there is less and less for me and the EAA.

[Chad Jensen]

Thanks for the continued feedback guys. I was kind of surprised to see a lack of feedback (there was some) on the Kitfox radial cover though.

I keep the folks here at EAA informed as to what is being talked about on the forums with regard to the magazine. On the forums, it's more on the 'we don't care for this' side, and in person, chapter visits, people at the museum, etc, it's 'we LOVE the magazine'...and yes, these are homebuilders too.

It's an odd mix if you ask me, and after being here for 10 months now, the mix is the same. We continue to survey members on the magazine, and from what I see, the magazine is taking direction from member feedback from the surveys. I know you probably won't believe me, and I can't share the survey (it's not mine to share), but it surprises me too. One note about the size though, because it comes up all the time...the majority overwhelmingly love the size of it. I could go either way, but I do like that it stands out in my magazine stack.

I'm slowly leaking the relaunch of Experimenter in digital magazine format (no more newsletter!) where there will be interactive videos that will download with the issue so an internet connection isn't necessary once you have it downloaded. I'm really excited about it...and it will be launched very soon!

I would love to see a bunch of Kitfox articles from owners and builders, so if you have something to write about, send it to me!

cjensen@eaa.org

920-426-6806

[Esser]

My only comment about the kitfox article was that it was a year and a half old news.