Splitting articles over several issues - a good idea or not?

[leccyflyer]

Just a bit of feedback from me, as a long time subscriber to the magazine.

 

There appears to be a recent trend for splitting even the most mundane review articles across multiple issues. That is also becoming increasingly common for even relatively simple free plan builds - such as Mike Freeman's very interesting St8us flying wing design in this months magazine. I can understand complex plan builds, which may even require multiple plan sheets to be spread across several issues as extended projects, but surely the aim of the simpler free plan designs is to have folks build them fresh, in a short time frame. Having to wait further four weeks before seeing the second part of a build article for a model that could be built in less than a week, seems counter productive.

 

The magazine has certainly got a lot thinner post Covid - where it was typically 120-130 pages and is now seemingly capped at 98-99 pages each month. It just feels like these articles, especially reviews of off the shelf ARTFs, being spread more thinly with the dreaded "To be continued in the next issue" appearing more frequently. The advertising for the new XFly Spitfire IX has been off the scale, with banner ads on the forum, multiple updates in the Counterpoint style news of coming models, then a two page introduction last month and now a six page review in this month's issue, with the promise of a further report after the model has actually flown.

 

Regarding the model itself, I always say you cannot have too many Spitfires, but must we have yet another rendition of JE-J - the North Africa scheme is interesting and I might have been persuaded, but the wheels look awfy small for our grass strips. No mention of the most critical aspect of small Spitfire operations in the reviews- I'd suggest that most flyers in the UK do not fly from concrete or tarmac runways, so perhaps this could be addressed in the third article on what should be a model that can be put together and successfuly flown in a morning.

[Cuban8]

I don't buy any mags now, modelling, motorcycling or aviation - they all seem to be struggling in the modern world of vast online content and I feel sorry for those who carry on producing monthly mags in the face of a declining readership and increasing costs. It's their livelyhood after all.  I guess there's only so much that you can find to fill 100+ pages every month without stringing things out a bit.

A change in tastes particularly for younger generations who will never consider buying a hard copy mag on any subject. Not just the young.....sit in any public area and all the folks reading newspapers or magazines will be minimal compared to those with their smartphones seen scrolling through whatever it is.

 

Edited March 22 by Cuban8

[Phil Green]

Good points Brian, I think split articles do discourage a spontaneous build as the burst of enthusiasm has passed by the following month.

On content, I suppose they can only print what they have, and if no-one is submitting articles then they will struggle to fill the mag.

Whilst they do very well in reflecting broad and current interests, unfortunately that means foamies as that is what aeromodelling has become for most.

For the rest (all minus most), this is where the interesting stuff is happening, experiences we dont get to hear about, and I'd encourage readers to please write-up your project,

take some photos and have a try at an article, dont worry about grammar or getting everything spot on, RCM&E have their own Wombles to tidy up your work 🙂

Personally I would love RCM&E to return to the "&E" days but there is now so little interest, so few contributions, that it cant happen. Times change and

any tangent from the majority interest is a risk they cant afford to take.  It cant be easy & I'm grateful to the RCM&E staff for keeping a quality mag going in 2025!

 

[Cuban8]

Agree with all that Phil but I'm not sure if we're going through a bit of a general  lull at the moment. Even this forum seems to me to have dropped off from what it was a few years ago.

[leccyflyer]

Agree 100% Phil - for some time the first thing that I turn to with the magazine is Shaun's Retro Ramblings, as there is always something of interest in the nostalgic and more up to date line. I keep all my magazines and I reread them regularly, usually one at a time, at breakfast, chosen at random from the files. When the pile of re-read mags gets to more than a foot tall, it is carried back into where they are stored and the process repeats. Once I have three piles more than a foot tall, I have a big sort out of the mags back into order by month of publication and it starts off again. So you really notice how the mag has got more slender over the last 20 odd years.

 

Since Tim Hooper's Bench Blog has finished I find that's another favourite regular column that is gone and it must be tricky to fill such boots. I think David Ashby is doing a good job in replacing Alex Whittaker's Weekenders column for the club flyer and contributing to reviews regularly, but I do take your point about previously unpublished contributors needing to chip in. I would miss the magazine dreadfully if it were ever to go and I think that we should all remember that without the magazine this, the premiere UK modelling forum, would almost certainly cease to exist. That would be catastrophic, given the degree of integration of build threads and suchlike, especially around the joint project like the Warbirds Replicas builds. Perhaps there is an idea for an article in itself, right there, drawn from the pages of this forum?