AIRFIX MODEL WORLD

[Obi-Jiff Kenobi]

Yes, I guess I'm the root of the problem.....!!

on & out the

You're only making it worse for yourself...

Obi-Jiff

[John]

Well, I finally finished the first issue this morning, and it's quite good. I like the approach to the writing: it's not "I did this" (OK) or "we did this" (odd) or "this was done" (very, very bad); it's "do this". Done right, it's barely any different in substance, but it has a pleasant lead-you-through-the-build tone to it. A couple of articles were a bit confused, though, especially the one on the WWI tank. I'm fairly sure the pictures were in the wrong order.

Subject matter: luckily, an interesting choice for someone who does only military subjects. I should be disappointed if it carried too much in the way of cars and lorries, like Scale Models International or Tamiya Modelling Magazine, so I'm going to have to reserve judgement. The bias towards Airfix is understandable but it would be nice if they'd let it drift.

Presentation: very positive. Good layout, pictures mostly OK, nice typography. It could probably use a bit more text but it's not completely useless in this respect. And I did learn things about the Sea Vixen and the Saturn V that I didn't know. Mind you, the statement that all the Apollo missions landed successfully except for Apollo 1 is, er, open to challenge. I'm sure there was a movie about it.

Overall: I think it's good. I don't think it will be a regular for me, though, but we'll see.

I wondered about some of the pictures too. There's nothing wrong with numbering the captions in an article like that if the photos need to be followed in a specific order.

John

[Toe]

re: distribution.

I assume it is in the larger supermarket stores?

Our local Tesco had Railway Modeller, FlyPast and Tractor Monthly

No AMW.

Of those three the latter will be the biggest seller here!

Is that Tesco Ipswich then?

Obi-Jiff

Bloody cheek....... :lol: We're not all sugar beet munchers...... :lol:

Anyway my view is its not a bad magazine, but not ground breaking, I'm not loyal to any of the mags, it depends on the subject inside really, I like 48th British subjects so I bought it, if it hadn't I probably would've still have bought it but only 'cos it was the first issue.

I like to get good value for money, as said earlier in the thread I want to be able to read it on the pan and elsewhere, i.e. its gotta have plenty of words in it to put it simplistic! That is where I think SAM falls down.....I'm a casual magazine buyer and at the moment Airfix Model World is doing well...........lets see how it develops.........

[Obi-Jiff Kenobi]

Bloody cheek....... :lol: We're not all sugar beet munchers...... :lol:

I'm allowed to say that, cos I grew up in Ipswich.

Obi-Jiff

[cmatthewbacon]

I guess if you substitute "Returned the crew safely to Earth" for "landed successfully..."

When you think about it, it's quite an astonishing feat. Given what they were attempting, at the cutting edge of 60s technology, it's amazing that they flew nine missions to the Moon and didn't lose a single crewman (The Apollo 1 fire was a disaster, but it wasn't a flight mission). When you look at the death rates of pioneer aviators, or motor racing up to the 70s (or indeed Space Shuttle crews) it's even more impressive...

bestest,

M.

[BWP]

When you think about it, it's quite an astonishing feat. Given what they were attempting, at the cutting edge of 60s technology, it's amazing that they flew nine missions to the Moon and didn't lose a single crewman

It gets even more impressive when you know just how "on the fly" each vehicle was built. Stuff they learned from one flight (i.e., faults) were addressed and incorporated into the next flight. They had a "faults list" which was ticked off as each vehicle was built and launched, the goal was "zero faults" but of course they never achieved that, but they went from "hundreds" in the early flights to much fewer by the time they got to Apollo 17. The book Chariots for Apollo by Joshua Stoff & Charles Pellegrino is quite illuminating and a very good read. (The section on Apollo 13 is quite interesting; there's a very amusing section where after the crew returned to Earth, the manufacturer of the Lunar Lander (General Dynamics?) sent a detailed invoice for "towing services" to the manufacturer of the Command Module (Northrop?). Calculated at $1 a mile, the final charge was very impressive!

[Giorgio N]

The lander was manufactured by Grumman, the command module by Rockwell.

That's a fantastic story ! I would not have wanted to be the manager who was presented such a bill !!