'Model Aircraft' magazine May 2019 issue

[Nigel Bunker]

I received my copy today and it may well be the last one I buy. 9 model articles are in 1/48 and one in 1/32, with not a single one in 1/72.

 

Now before it is said that people don't build in 1/72, we had the monthly meeting of my local club last night, Thames Valley Scale Model Club in Marlow. Of the aircraft bought along, 17% wre in 1/144, 50% were in 1/72, 25% were in 1/48 and 8% in 1/32. These are typically the proportions that  appear at our club with 1/72 always being the best supported. So where is the magazine support for this scale?

 

And on the back page, Mr Evans lists next months models. You guessed it - 1 in 1/32, 5 in 1/48 and one with no scale but I bet it is in 1/48. Perhaps the editor should change the magazine's title to '1/48 Model Aircraft'?

 

If you see a column of steam over High Wycombe, it's me still seething.

 

Regards

 

Nigel

[cmatthewbacon]

...at least you HAVE a Model AIRCRAFT Magazine 😜

 

Try being someone who builds cars, motorbikes, modern and historical warships, science fiction, plastic figures, Gundam/anime, real space hardware, trucks, birds, static railway models, architecture, heavy plant machinery, oil rigs or even office furniture and vending machines: any of those other things that manufacturers make kits of and people like us build. That's why I only really buy AMW... at least they have some diversity of content. Aircraft modellers are really extraordinarily well-served in this country by any reasonable measure, followed by AFV/military modellers. There's one? magazine for figure modellers focusing mostly on large scale resin one piece figures. TMMI covers a fair bit of ground (more or less the only place you'll find bikes), but is hard to find, and now seems to be printed on loo roll.

 

So, the fact that one of the four aircraft-specific modelling magazines is not giving enough space to one scale is hardly the worst problem in the modelling magazine world ... IMHO (there seems to be regular 1/72 content in AMW, for example...)

 

YMMV, clearly...

 

best,

M.

[Des]

I am more attracted by the subject rather than the scale as what has been done by a modeler in one scale is often transferable or provides inspiration to be applied in other scales which to me anyway is one of the more interesting aspects of the hobby.

[Roman Schilhart]

You may consider switching to SAMI?

Current issue features six builds in 72 scale.

 

[spruecutter96]

Does the scale of the kits featured really make that much difference, ultimately? As a previous poster has stated, aren't the majority of building and painting skills relevant for any scale you might want to build? I would have thought that the only truely unique aspect of a build article would be a critique of what is inaccurate or difficult to build, related to a particular model...

 

Chris. 

[Nigel Bunker]

Problem solved. I have cancelled my order at the newsagents for this magazine. No point in buying what you don't want.

[Graham Boak]

14 hours ago, spruecutter96 said:

Does the scale of the kits featured really make that much difference, ultimately? As a previous poster has stated, aren't the majority of building and painting skills relevant for any scale you might want to build?. 

 

True, but the majority of such reviews simply re-iterate such advice.  Better to buy one of the many books on the subject than a regular monthly magazine.  The value of any review is in how much it would help you if you were to think of making the same model, or to a much lesser extent one from the same company or of the same subject.  This has little or no value if the reviews continually ignore the scale you are working in.

 

I would go further to criticise reviews in general when they were written (as is often unavoidably the case) by people with little or no knowledge of the subject, and ties by editorial policy to avoid criticism of the accuracy of the kit and its transfers.    The magazine is only of value if it provides useful information, either for the short term (the thing is sitting on my modelling bench now) or long term (I always fancied one of those sometime).  Especially when specific to the model or to the subject.  Hence the value of historical articles that don't need to mention models at all, yet these have been excised from some modelling magazines.  Yuck, real life, don't want anything to do with that!  Pretty pictures of made-up models are just that - pretty.  If that's all you want then fair enough, but it's pretty thin fare.  

 

I keep looking at a number of current modelling magazines without feeling the slightest desire to ever buy them, for the reasons above.  I have renewed my subscription to Scale Aircraft Modelling because of its content.

[Paul Bradley]

As a reviewer for three different magazines in my time, including two of the most popular, I can state that I have NEVER been pressured to avoid criticism of products, nor have my reviews been censored to remove such criticism. 

 

We cannot all be experts on all types, but I personally try to do as much research on an unfamiliar type as i can before doing a review. 

 

I'll state the obvious here - editors can only print what they receive. They rarely have the luxury of picking and choosing from a wealth of potential articles. If they don't receive 1/72, they can't print 1/72.....

Edited April 18, 2019 by Paul Bradley

[Des]

4 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

Yuck, real life, don't want anything to do with that!  Pretty pictures of made-up models are just that - pretty.  If that's all you want then fair enough, but it's pretty thin fare.  

 

The way that the current fads and fashions in painting techniques are championed over accuracy in some magazines does sometimes make me wonder where their priorities lie and for that reason I gave up on some publications some time ago.     With those that I still take the occasional lapse does grate but not every editor has an encyclopedic knowledge and possibly takes it on trust the the writer has verified as least the most basic facts in his project research.     

 

But a bit like aviation photography where possession of huge zoom lenses does not impart knowledge of what is being photographed  (100 Squadron Hawks once described as black Red Arrows by a gentleman festooned in thousands of pounds of gear) modelling skill does not necessarily bring great knowledge of the subject.

 

Which unfortunately returns to the May issue of Model Aircraft and its 'In The Next Issue' coverage on the inside back page which includes an image of a well-painted and weathered RF-101B Voodoo with open panels and what seems to be a lot of additional detail added but with an 'AH' tail code.     The RF-101B were only operated for a short time between 1971 and 1975 by the 192 TRS of the Nevada ANG and during that time did not seem to wear any form of unit, state, ANG or other unique marking on their tails except a small serial.     The 'AH' tail code had been allocated to the 45 TRS with the RF-101C at Tan Son Nhut in 1968 and carried until the unit disbanded in 1971 , during the period that the RF-101B was in service the code had been re-allocated to the 415 SOS flying the AC-130H.

 

Possibly just a small point but as I mentioned one that grates because even the shallowest level of research could have avoided it.

[Graham Boak]

1 hour ago, Paul Bradley said:

I'll state the obvious here - editors can only print what they receive. They rarely have the luxury of picking and choosing from a wealth of potential articles. If they don't receive 1/72, they can't print 1/72.....

 

Sorry Paul, but whereas it is indeed obvious it is only the end of the process.  Good editors go out and search for contributors.  This is how they set their individual stamp on their magazines - anyone with more than a few years experience of modelling magazines can point to individual editors who have placed their stamp - not always to the pleasure of all established readers - on magazines even if age has fortunately blurred the names of most of the less successful ones.  Going back in time, Chris Ellis's Airfix mag was not the same as Bruce Quarrie's, Bob Jones' IPMS Mag was not that of Mac Mackennaugh nor that of Neil Robinson.  Alan Hall's SAM was not that of Jay Laverty nor that of the current editor.  If there are no 1/72 reviews then the editor is not going out of his way to get any.  Maybe this is because he prefers 1/48 himself: perhaps because an excess of 1/48 reviews (or modern jet reviews, or Spitfire reviews, or whatever) has biased his readership to accept and even demand such.  There is a feedback loop here, as always.  As Nigel has demonstrated in this thread.  If someone who might think of doing a review on a 1/72 kit thinks it would not be welcomed because of a lack of similar reviews,  then the editor may be stuck in a loop to his regret, or to his preference, but in the end he has more control over what he receives than simply lying back and waiting.

 

I wouldn't wish to suggest that there is no place in the market for magazines specialising in 1/48, or Spitfires, or modern jets, or whatever, which may have very good editors.  If sufficient buyers like it that way, they will thrive.  But don't expect modellers of other scales, subjects and periods to buy them.

[Giorgio N]

We should differentiate reviews and articles here. I've never felt the lack of reviews of 1/72 kits, these have been present over time in the same way as 1/48 ones.

It's the build articles where in many magazines 1/48 subjects abund more than their smaller competitors and really it's been this way for quite a long time, I'd say at least 20 years.

I can think of several reasons for this, larger kits may mean more detail, certain subjects are well covered by modern 1/48 kits more than they may be in 1/72 scale and there may be others. I would also add that the popularity of 1/48 kits, particularly of WW2 fighters, has been pretty high among modellers in  the same time, no surprise that these are represented in magaines.

Now is this a problem ? May not be a problem if I'm interested in seeing the model as "inspiration", then the colour scheme or the details would be useful for a model in any scale. If however I'm interested in understanding how a certain kit fits and how best build it, then if this kit is not the one chosen by the author I'll not be able to get this information. And for quite a while it's not been easy for those modellers with a preference in 1/72 kits to see the ones they're intereste in built in the pages of magazines.

As someone pointed out, modellers interested in different subjects have much worse problems but this is due to the nature of the hobby in Britain 8and in most of Europe too): aircraft kits way outsell all others, and the modelling press simply follows this. Other countries are different, as shown for example by the offer of modelling magazines in Japan, where other subjects are much better covered and sci-fi even takes the lead. I sometime think that the best gift I could ask related ot the hobby would be to learn Japanese...

[Paul Bradley]

1 hour ago, Graham Boak said:

 

Sorry Paul, but whereas it is indeed obvious it is only the end of the process.  Good editors go out and search for contributors. 

I can't speak for my former editors, but I'm sure they don't just sit back and wait for stuff to roll in, be it articles or reviews. I've been solicited in the past for articles; I'm sure it's quite common for editors to do that. I notice that the editor of Airfix is still appealing for modellers of genres other than aircraft to submit articles. So not just a scale-related issue.

 

One issue that modern editors face is the competition from the Internet. Modellers tend to post build threads and 'ready for inspections' on forums such as this, and editors understandably tend to want fresh material for the magazines - imagine the outrage if magazines simply reprinted builds previously seen on Britmodeller? 

 

I know that for reviews at least, there's always been regular conversation from the editor with the magazine's 'reviewers corps' and the lists of offerings sent by manufacturers always includes a good mix of scales, though 1/72 tends to predominate. Why this doesn't translate into more 1/72 build articles is anyone's guess. 

 

As I don't buy many mags nowadays, I can't comment directly on the mix of scales in magazines over the past year, but it would be interesting to see what the ratio is for the different scales over an extended period rather than from a single issue.