Modeling Spoken Here - 2004/02

THE COVER DATE of this issue is
February 2004, but I’m writing this editorial
at the end of the production cycle for this
issue in early November 2003, and you are
probably reading it in mid to late December,
so let me start off by wishing you all a great
holiday season. Confusing, eh?
I’ve never liked magazine lead times; we
are usually approximately three months out
of sync with the “real world” and reporting
on stuff that happened in a completely
different season. Consider also that any
“coverage”-type articles take the author at
least a month to write after the event in
question has happened, and it’s easy to see
that being topical and timely is difficult at
best.
Add to that the fact that at any one time
we have multiple event-coverage pieces in
the files or scheduled to arrive—and that we
can’t possibly print them all in the next
scheduled issue because of space
constraints—and it’s easy to see that we
have a real problem with reporting on
newsworthy modeling events in a timely
manner.
In this world of instant communications
via E-mail and Internet forums and bulletin
boards, it is becoming increasingly difficult
to produce a magazine that is essentially a
viable news medium. Today’s news is
distributed today, and in three months it is
stale.
Does that mean the magazine’s day has
come to an end in our society? Hardly! In
Model Aviation’s case, if we can all agree
that immediacy is not the goal, we can
restructure the magazine to become a tool
that teaches and informs about things that
help us become better model-airplane
builders and fliers.
I have always believed that I should
inform the readers of this magazine, and the
members of this organization, about the
realities of any situation, good or bad. That’s
the only way I can hope to retain any shred
of credibility in the long run.
Of late, we have faced the fact that there
is no possible way to cover the myriad
events that take place in the many modeling
disciplines. There are literally hundreds of
events each year, and we have a finite
amount of space to offer up for coverage. So
how do we equitably distribute this space,
and what do we opt to cover?
Let me clue you in to the math of the
situation. We produce 12 issues of Model
Aviation each year. But the December issue
is dedicated to covering our AMA
Nationals, so we have 11 issues in which to
publish other event coverage.
In each issue we publish no more than
seven feature articles, and 11 multiplied by
seven equals 77 possible article slots each
year that we have to divide among Control
Line (CL), Free Flight (FF), and the many
Radio Control disciplines, and further into
construction articles, how-tos, technical
features, product reviews, special-interest
articles (such as the January 2004 piece
about Maynard Hill’s record model-airplane
flight across the Atlantic), and contest/event
coverage.
We can generally run one eventcoverage
article per issue (although
sometimes we can publish two shorter ones
in one issue, and occasionally we won’t run
one), meaning that nominally we include no
more than 11 coverage articles per year.
Given those constraints, we cannot even
begin to feature all that is happening in the
wide world of aeromodeling.
Solutions? There are no absolute solutions;
there is no way that everything that happens
in modeling competitions and at fly-ins will
be reported. This subject has been
vigorously discussed by the Publications
Committee and the magazine staff for a
couple of months, and we have had valuable
input from AMA President Dave Brown.
Dave suggested that we contact the
Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and ask
them to recommend what events they would
like Model Aviation to cover. They would
make suggestions with the understanding
that perhaps only one article per year, or
even two years, might make it into print.
Keep in mind that there are 25 AMArecognized
SIGs! That kind of puts it all
into perspective, doesn’t it?
Bob Hunt Aeromodeling Editor
... we cannot even begin
to feature all that is
happening in the wide
world of aeromodeling.
Modeling Spoken Here
Continued on page 184
February 2004 7
02sig1.QXD 11/25/03 1:43 pm Page 7
AMA’s Web site (www.modelaircraft.
org) lists the various SIGs’ contact
information and links to their Web sites.
Most groups have newsletters (in many
cases they are fairly thick magazines!) that
cover all aspects of their particular type of
modeling. We are offering to list all of the
features that can be found on the SIGs’ Web
sites each month.
In this manner, all SIGs can have a
direct path to all interested members and
vice versa. Then the SIGs can publish, on
their Web sites, all of the contest/event
coverage they want, secure in the
knowledge that AMA will help them get the
word out. That’s about the best we can
offer.
How do we currently decide what to
publish? We have a database of information
about the average AMA member. For the
most part, Scale modeling in all of its many
forms is a member favorite. I’m not
suggesting that the majority fly Scale
models or compete in Scale competition,
but they have an interest in Scale-looking
models and enjoy reading about them.
Therefore, we try to feature several
Scale events each year. Top Gun and the
Scale Masters competitions are popular, and
we usually cover each of them each year.
Beyond that, we try to spread it around as
best we can.
One of the most difficult things to
address is FAI (Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale)-competition coverage. The
US sends 12 teams to their respective
World Championships (WC) every other
year. There are even more team selections
because CL and FF have several events and
teams for each event, and team selections
are held for each event.
Featuring even all of the team selections
would be impossible to do in the magazine,
and covering a WC is difficult. We cannot
ask any of the contestants to cover one of
these events; they are far too busy
competing, and we want their focus on the
job at hand. Spectators and supporters may
or may not be qualified to prepare a WC
report, so we run a chance of getting uneven
coverage.
The team manager is supposed to write a
report on the contest as part of his duties,
and it is supposed to be included in the
“Focus on Competition” section of Model
Aviation. Sometimes we get good coverage
and sometimes we don’t. We’ve decided to
let the team manager’s report suffice for
WC events that are held in other countries.
Model Aviation will strive to feature the
WC events held on US soil because we can
more closely control it. That’s not a sublime
situation, but it is how we are going to do it
for at least a year.
Perhaps the most difficult obstacle to get
over in contest/event coverage is the fact that
few of our members (less than 10%) compete,
and they have indicated little interest in
reading about any type of competition. In fact,
we receive a number of complaints each year
when we present our Nationals issue. Many
cannot fathom why we spend so much
magazine space on competition when so few
of our members compete.
Being a competitor myself, I try to
present them with the logic that much of
AMA’s heritage was built on competition.
I further explain that dedicated competitors
developed much of the technology inherent
in the products we use, and often take for
granted, in sport flying today during many
years of competition flying. Many see that
logic and understand the need, and many
still prefer not to read such content.
In summary, Model Aviation is going to
work with the SIGs to try to promote and
publicize the coverage on their Web sites
in any given month, and we’ll try to
present as much coverage as we can in the
magazine in a fair and balanced manner.
We’ll also try to be as timely as we can
with the articles we choose to present.
The preceding is probably not what
many of you wanted to read in respect to
coverage articles. It is, however, an honest
look at just one of the many problems we
face on a regular basis when trying to
bring as many facets of our sport to as
many members as possible in a finite
format.
We are all going to have to try to work
together and use the resources that are
available to us to increase all aspects of
reporting on all modeling subjects. The
Internet is now, and will continue to be, a
big part of the solution to getting out the
maximum amount of information.
You can get in touch with me via E-mail
at [email protected]. My address is
Box 68, Stockertown PA 18083. My
telephone number is (610) 614-1747. MA
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