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Scale Aircraft Modelling 41/8 October 19 Failed again!


Selwyn

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There is a difference (or possibly several differences) between systematic changes in languages (which includes dialect and slang) and the presence of random errors, whether through ignorance, carelessness or typos.  It is as foolish to suggest every non-standard usage is an inevitable foresight of the future as to declaim every one as a revolting sign of decadence.  Sometimes wrong is just plain rong.

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46 minutes ago, Rickoshea52 said:

You should see the standard of spelling in letters sent home from my six year olds school...!

Ah, letters from school. Where judicious use of Tippex ensured each missive was on behalf of the Hamster.

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Interesting comments above, but it does not excuse an editor from the checks that should take place regarding his magazine. Afterall, if we can spot the errors, why can't he and his team? 

 

Also, what about the aircraft identification errors, Thunderflash/Thunderstreak?

 

Sorry, but that is just.poor workmanship

 

Andy

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I always get a buzz seeing the latest magazines on the shelves, part of the enjoyment and  I prefer a paper magazine to the net, apart from these pages of course! But this month is the first time in years that I haven't purchased SAM, glanced at it in WHS and there was nothing for me that justified paying a fiver. Lots of white space and not really interested in the articles. I have been buying SAM since 1979 with a few breaks and enjoyed Gary Hatchers' editorship over the last few years. I liked his policy of having a packed magazine that took a while to read, looks a bit thin now. Will keep checking out future issues though in hope.

Cheers, paul

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7 hours ago, ptmvarsityfan said:

I always get a buzz seeing the latest magazines on the shelves, part of the enjoyment and  I prefer a paper magazine to the net, apart from these pages of course! But this month is the first time in years that I haven't purchased SAM, glanced at it in WHS and there was nothing for me that justified paying a fiver. Lots of white space and not really interested in the articles. I have been buying SAM since 1979 with a few breaks and enjoyed Gary Hatchers' editorship over the last few years. I liked his policy of having a packed magazine that took a while to read, looks a bit thin now. Will keep checking out future issues though in hope.

Cheers, paul

That is the first step to cancelling your subscription or stopping buying it completely. I was in the same boat having taken it from volume one.

 

You begin to realise that it offers you no advice or learning of new techniques, it has too many errors and you are only buying it to keep the collection going,

 

Andy

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Funny, but I also got a freebie copy after my sub lapsed some six month back.  Very dramatic cover but it turned out to be yet another litany on "weathering techniques".

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Like others I have taken Scale Aircraft Modelling since Issue 1 and have noticed that the general style of the magazine as originally set out by Alan W, Hall is what has set it apart from other magazines over the years but that on occasion it does fall prey to market forces and regenerates with some brand new look and when that happens I find that I buy it , flick through and file until normal service resumes.     

 

The North American excursion of a few years ago was perhaps just one example and since then Gary Hatcher did well in getting it back on track and so obviously it was time for a change (probably a managerial rather than an an editorial decision)  and do what everyone else is doing which increasingly means preaching the  current dogma on paint effects.

 

Pre-shading and the like trumps research in many publications and for some modelers that is fine because for them the hobby is all about the latest and most expensive kit , etch , resin and the currently most fashionable brand of paints much like as can be seen in many full-size aviation web-sites where having the biggest lens or being first to post photographs is the goal , actual knowledge of the subject  is boring. 

 

Setting typos aside (ohhhhhhh!) did anyone ever pour over Alan Hall's work for typos and more importantly did they dare tell him?     Gross factual inaccuracy is different but if that is turning readers away from a publication there is not much point in venting here , maybe some point in telling the editor but definitely worth telling his management because they will have been the ones who came up with the strategy of trying to reconnect with previous subscribers.

Edited by Des
if/that potato/potato
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On 9/29/2019 at 4:15 PM, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

Reading a Victorian era book, for example, even by acclaimed authors often gets tiresome, repetitive and unnecessarily verbose. There are turns of phrase in there which nobody uses any more and whilst old people today need to cross reference what younger writers mean, the same is also true in reverse.

It does. but good, economical. writing stands out, whenever its from. Sir Walter Scott I still find readable, Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe too! It surprised me that Sherlock Holmes was a bit impenetrable, I gave up after a few of the short stories (What the hell is the 'Mystery of the Red Haired Men' all about?).
Most 1960's Science Fiction (and other 'cool' novels) I loved at the time are almost all complete drivel now. See, fashion and contemporary style dates badly. Surely tech articles never date? Must dig out the few Airfix and Aircraft Illustrated that I still have from the late '60s and early '70s to see if I'm right. Bet you there are very few typos, though!

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I bet there aren't many typos, if any,  as the old magazines were proof-read by experts who had been doing the job on old printing presses for years. Remember the art of reading a sentence backwards?

 

Those skills were lost with spell checks on computers.

 

Andy

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1 hour ago, Red Dot said:

Those skills were lost with spell checks on computers.

Not entirely.  I can proof-read a hundred-page document in an afternoon and render drivel into useable English - in fact, in my job I often have to.  Incidentally, this service is available at stupidly low rates to any magazine editor who's reading this and hasn't yet kicked the screen in.

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I think the new SAM editor is taking a while to settle in. Magazines seem to follow trends because they believe that is the way to keep and gain readership. I think this partially explains the current fad for build articles that spend a lot of space with (repetitive) stuff about weathering, but often little about the accuracy etc. Model Railway magazines seem to be the same. 

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14 hours ago, Red Dot said:

You begin to realise that it offers you no advice or learning of new techniques, 

This appears to be a problem of taking a magazine - any magazine - for some time.  The editor has to satisfy not only the grognards but the newbies.  You and I have seen it before but our numbers are thinning out but it is new to an increasing proportion of the magazine's readership.  And if editors change, then it (whatever it is) may well be new to them.  They are after all only human.

 

As for new techniques: modelling hasn't changed all that much over the years, and certainly not quickly.  All this over-emphasis on panel lines etc (the "Spanish School") had its predecessor decades ago in the "Verlinden style".  Once upon a time, airbrushes were new and wonderful things, but many still use hair brushes.  Acrylic paints appeared decades ago, but enamels still sell despite a recent fashion to complain about the smell.   Change does occur but not quickly.  New techniques do not appear as rapidly as new kits.  Or new modellers, for that matter.

 

Of course, in the olden days everything was wonderful and flawless.  I was there - they weren't.  Just different.  Remember the Wasp conversion that required four Hudson tailwheels?  Or the Russian Dak that required one B-29 domed window?  One thing remains the same - modellers are never satisfied.

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True enough, but getting back to the original point of errors, there is no excuse for so many in a single edition of a magazine, and then to do the same again in following months too

 

Andy

 

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On 26/09/2019 at 15:53, andyf117 said:

I'm saying nothing - got taken to task last time I voiced my criticism regarding the state of the then new editor's first issue...

 

....I don't buy any of them; it's not hard to find them all available online to download for free - already got most of October's...

 

Sorry Andy but the way I read that is that you won’t buy the mag but you’ll take an illegal copy !   Isn’t that a copyright issue? 

 

Thats no different to copying someone’s resin products in my book fella so really amounts to theft? 

 

Just saying the obvious... and I wouldn’t be shouting out on a public forum unless you might be inviting a knock on the door ....

 

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34 minutes ago, Graham Boak said:

As for new techniques: modelling hasn't changed all that much over the years, and certainly not quickly.  All this over-emphasis on panel lines etc (the "Spanish School") had its predecessor decades ago in the "Verlinden style". 

 

Personally I would lay the blame for that particular obsession with whoever did the catalogue builds for Hasegawa back in the mid-1970s.

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I wasn't alive to irritate anyone six decades ago (though admittedly it's a close run thing!) and the semi-literate are by no means all youngsters. It's not a matter of evolution but of incompetence. People who misunderstand the meaning of words and have a poor grasp of grammar often end up writing something quite different from what they're actually trying to tell the reader. The same people tend to be incapable of understanding something explained to them in writing if it calls for more than a couple of sentences, no matter how carefully it's phrased. Presumably this is because they're not accustomed to reading and can't, or don't want to make the effort to, keep their attention focused any longer. A case today: my wife texted a client proposing a meeting on Monday 7th. He turned up this morning because he only read as far as "Monday". He isn't young.

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45 minutes ago, Des said:

 

Personally I would lay the blame for that particular obsession with whoever did the catalogue builds for Hasegawa back in the mid-1970s.

Wasn't that more an obsession with inking in every panel line in black as opposed to tons of preshading? Good timing on your part sir, as I was only leafing through a 1981 Hasegawa catalogue earlier today. A veritable feast of black panel line washes. Did I try this myself back in the day? Guilty as charged M'Lud. 🙂

 

Steve

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40 minutes ago, AWFK10 said:

I wasn't alive to irritate anyone six decades ago (though admittedly it's a close run thing!) and the semi-literate are by no means all youngsters. It's not a matter of evolution but of incompetence. People who misunderstand the meaning of words and have a poor grasp of grammar often end up writing something quite different from what they're actually trying to tell the reader. The same people tend to be incapable of understanding something explained to them in writing if it calls for more than a couple of sentences, no matter how carefully it's phrased. Presumably this is because they're not accustomed to reading and can't, or don't want to make the effort to, keep their attention focused any longer.

And - without getting political about it - when you see a current world leader struggle to put together a coherent sentence, either spoken or written, and he admits that he doesn't read, it isn't a problem that's confined to the 'modern' generation....

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