FLYING Acquires Five Major Aviation Media Brands

1. Hmm!

2. Hopefully they don’t all start to look like Flying has for the last year or so. I can’t tell it from those “look at me I’m rich” free magazines at FBOs.

   • It’s all heavy, glossy paper and ads!

   • You nailed it. Before I let my subscription lapse, the hardcover, slick magazine devolved into something I could skim through in only a few minutes. Lots and lots of white space, ads that were passed off as articles (often on places and airplanes astronomically out of my average Joe retiree finances), and watered-down superficial content. I’ve loved Kitplanes for over two decades, and now fear for its future. Time will tell. I’d like to be proven wrong.

   • I let my subscription lapse when I couldn’t tell it from Cigar Aficionado.

3. I’ve never liked Flying. I found many of the authors are real fanboys of Cessna and Beech while being pretty biased against anything else. Also, they otherwise seem to lack any sort of edge. Haven’t picked one up in 15 years because of it. I wonder if it’s changed.

   • Same here. While I haven’t read one in years, I remember everything in there as rather shallow. I wonder, too, if there is a limit as to how much avionics makers are willing to spend on advertising. The value of many GA panels exceeds that of the airframe already, and it hurts GA pilots to put more and more exotic technology (the kind that does not enhance safety) into a fleet of older aircraft.

4. “Last quarter, we acquired ……………………………., all with the goal of creating the deepest resource of general aviation content and information,” Craig Fuller, CEO of FLYING Media Group stated.”

   ……………. And the only source.

5. Prices going up…

6. Not sure just how I feel about this news. I see a lot of negativity above. I have been either a reader or subscriber to FLYING since 1956 and seen a lot of changes. As a kid, I liked the pictures, as I got older the articles and as I matured further and my piloting career did as well, I most appreciated the columnists. I have a special regard for Martha Lunken, as she is the last survivor of that great tellers of tales from the good old days.

   Today’s FLYING is so fancy I feel guilty that I haven’t the space to store older issues as I once did. Old age and downsizing will do that sort of thing, you know.

   You keep printing and I’ll keep reading, but don’t wander too far from what has been the core values you have displayed all these years.

7. This is terrible news! I gave up on Flying years ago. They became greedy, lowered the quality, was mostly ads, and the articles were boring. I agree with Burr above that Martha was the only redeeming factor, but eventually I had enough. Now, here too?? What could possibly have possessed the decision makers to go this route? Kit Planes as well? My reading list has just shrunk again, Ugh!

8. If you can’t beat ’em,

   acquire ’em.

9. Consolidation goes up…quality and diversity goes down. The reason I’ve been reading Avweb since it went online and their sister print publications since I started flying in the 80s was their straightforward approach to talking about pilot skills, techniques, and insights…not the flashy shiny disco ball toys, puff pieces to satisfy Cessna and Beech (now Textron..) and pandering to their advertisers. So that means, for serious pilots, the choice is AOPA Pilot or Flying magazines. Sad. Avweb and Belvoir was the last independent hold-out.

   “Flying” magazine is to real-world ‘what we need to know’ to keep ourselves out of the weeds as late night chat shows are to serious journalism. You won’t find “IFR Refresher” on the newsstand at the airport…but you can find ‘Flying’ next to ‘Fish and Stream’. That says it all.

   I wish them good luck (well…the die is cast).

10. The Flying and AOPA magazines are almost unreadable. The editing must be heavy, because every article sounds like it was written by the same author, and every article starts with a long, stupid “a funny think happened on the way to the hangar yesterday” kind of story. You have to read a page and a half into the article before you can even find the topic sentence, and until then you have no clue what the point of the article is going to be.

    And AOPA has all but given up on small pistons: almost every article is about high-performance or turbine powered aircraft. Thank goodness EAA is still around.

    Sure will be disappointed if the Belvoir publications suffer the same fate as Flying and AOPA.

    • Is it the same Craig Fuller who was president of AOPA back in 08-13(?) and left rather precipitously? ‘Nuff said, if so.

      All of the advocacy organizations go the same way. Haven’t been a member of AOPA since the late aughts. Same with ARRL. The quality of the information goes down as the numbers decrease (the same demographic forces are at work on AOPA as with the ARRL (Amer. Radio Relay League): what started out as a way for like-mindeds to get together…it morphed into existing for existing sake (does AOPA still buzz it’s CEO around in a citation while most of the members make due with something a bit less snazzy?)

      EAA just hasn’t been around as long yet for the inevitable slide will happen, and as the founding member die off…it will become more and more ‘existence for existence’s sake’.

11. Could it be that the quality and requirement for print media has gone down before Craig purchased flying, and now these other publications?

    Personally, AVweb was my go to source and I hope they don’t change it but improve it. I stopped reading flying as well, but maybe this is how these pubs all survive.

12. Google “Flying magazines archives”. Google has all of them through the years posted. Fun to reflect back. We’ve come a long way since a Superhomer with whistle stop or even a later Narco or King 1 1/2 system.

13. One thing for sure, 15 to 20 readers are dying in crashes each month.

14. Doesn’t bode well for Avweb.

    • What grabs me here is when I see the author’s name, I know what to expect. I only have to surmise that as most folks aren’t born into a a Trust Fund, we’re starting on common ground.

      I come from the school of mow the lawn, drive the truck to pick up for a few gallons of gas for the STC’d guys, sweep the hangar, hand prop a light single in Michigan winters, volunteer to the mechanics, to get a look and lesson under the cowling, be as polite as possible to everyone, volunteer for the dirty jobs for the occasional ride in anything that gets off the ground.

      Some of the best advice I ever got was by my 1st Sgt., Top as you would, who told me when I wrinkled my nose at some opportunity “Mo, never turn down a chance for free training!” That was a big life lesson I think most folks here share.

      This blog seems to be my people. It’s not for the 1,200 hour CFI/FO’s populating the right seats for the legacies and ULCC’s the week after 141 school graduation.

      The writers seem to share their content out of a natural ability to write what they know about the hard way, and share from a love for all that leaves the earth.

      Should Avweb be made an offer it can’t refuse. I just hope the talent doesn’t walk, or more likely tell the new boss where to stuff it, as I get the feeling they have paid their dues, and don’t “need” to provide this for us, and would rather just go fly.

15. The disease is been spread all over. Acquire, acquire, acquire…The Universities are teaching this for years. How to make money on “Acquire, acquire, acquire”… pure greedy. Monopoly is the real name of the game. This is happening in all industries as well. There’s nothing more ridiculous and detrimental to all business involved to be under the “hand” of one company. This kind of stuff pisses me off so bad. Nothing else to say. But, RIDICULOUS!

16. IFR, Consumers, Safety magazines represent the best of Piloting and Product articles with specifics toward improved knowledge and best practices.
    I can’t imagine the “Flying Magazine” gee wizzz product mentality working in our favor.
    Question: Does Flying magazine make money or are they leeching on another market?
    Very Concerned about future quality!

17. I can’t imagine that our front-line AvWeb/Belvoir journalists are thrilled. Overall, media quality tends to suffer under consolidation; independent voices are important. But I guess we’ll see. Best wishes to our beloved AvWeb journalists!

    • Paul Bertorelli is the Richard Collins of our era – and what FLYING is buying is the AvWeb/Belvoir small AV market access, as FLYING’s market has ossified onto the high end. I have faith he’ll keep pumping a few years…

18. AvWeb has already changed if you have noticed lately in the recent months.

19. The Flying Magazine is but a shadow of what it used to be. The Flying Magazine articles typically are how the magazine (and our times) have changed. The magazine is all show, beautiful glossy pictures, the articles are little meaningless soundbites by people who you wonder if they are actually pilots. Gone are the times of the likes of Richard Collins, Len Morgan or Mac McClellan. All show, no substance. Many articles have ‘zero’ information in it. A video of someone playing a computer game stands in for the real thing. The new chief editor had on her bucket list to cross the Atlantic. She did that as a passenger in a TBM – how does that make a bucket list?

20. I agree with all the previous comments. I have Flying magazines back to the late 50’s. The writing was much better until the last few years. Gordon Baxter, Ernest Gann, Len Morgan, even Richard Collins come to mind. Martha Lunken, Sam Weigel, and Dick Karl are still interesting to me. Les Abend reminds me of the recurrent ground school instructors that put you to sleep.

    What’s with the incessant reformatting the magazines? EAA gets larger and Flying becomes smaller, heavier, and slicker, like an advertisement brochure, which it sort of is. What happened to having the month and year on the cover? It doesn’t matter, because they now go in the trash after skimming; “coffee table quality” indeed!

    I get tired of seeing the term “learner pilot” repeated ad nauseum in place of “student” in many articles; just because one is a student pilot doesn’t necessarily mean there is much learning occurring, despite the FAA renaming everything.

    I come close to not renewing my subscription to Flying every year. This may be the year.

    Rant over. CFI 54 years.

21. Virtually all of the sources of aviation information are now controlled by one media corporation. That’s never a good thing.

22. When I start seeing ads for the wealthy owner’s airpark in TN like I have in Flying and Plane & Pilot I’m done with AVWeb.

Comments are closed.