(yet another) "FLYING" magazine rant . . .

[76Srat]

FLYING has p*ssed me off for the last time.  I renew every year and have since the 1980s, but also have steadily watched this great mark go down quicker than the Hindenburg.  They took my bulk renewal for all 5 of their titles and removed all of them except the worst one--FLYING--without any notice but certainly with what is quickly becoming maliceaforethought.  The only reason I bulk-renew every year is to get the very excellent "IFR" and "Aviation Safety" and I even found usefullness in "Aviation Consumer".  Now all of those have been dropped and rolled up into the occassional single-article published in the mothership rag (FLYING).  Kudos to Firecrown Media Resources (or whatever they call themselves) for taking an historically great magazine and a subset of excellent resources and dumbing them down to the basic, miniscule worthlessness that it is now, and trashing the long-standing community that soaked up all that their other excellent titles provided.  Sorry to any FLYING fans out there who might be offended, but FLYING is now about as useful as an oil change shop specializing in Tesla oil changes.  They've taken the equivalent of glass cockpits and removed everything but the whiskey compass (which is offensive to all whisky compasses out there).

Now for the real kicker:  I got an email this afternoon (in my spam folder, appropriately) asking me to "lock in my lowest renewal rate before any increases".  Increasing subscription rates and decreasing content, quality and literally everything else that such a publication ever offered?  Sounds about right.  No thanks, FLYING.  I'll be tossing your renewal offer in the bin from here on out.

Just like my decades-long subscription to FLYING et al, this rant is over . . . 

 

 

[hammdo]

I joined NAFI, so I get ‘Flying’ for free. I agree, lost very valuable mags. ‘Flying’ doesn’t cut it for me but, free, ok…

-Don

 

[76Srat]

I couldn't care less about FLYING being a crappy read; I hate that they bought up the other excellent resources, bundled them together with FLYING (I forgot to add above that I abhor paying ~$80.00/yr for Aviation Consumer/IFR/Aviation Safety, each, thus the bundle makes perfect sense), yet have now dropped all of the titles except for FLYING.  It's a shame.  But I still read the daily paper in hard copy that gets delivered to my driveway at whatever time the paper carrier decides is the proper time, sometimes (usually) a full day late anyway.  But I digress . . .

[MikeOH]

I dumped my FLYING subscription a decade ago...ZERO regrets.

[midlifeflyer]

12 hours ago, hammdo said:

I joined NAFI, so I get ‘Flying’ for free. I agree, lost very valuable mags. ‘Flying’ doesn’t cut it for me but, free, ok…

-Don

 

My NAFI membership is the only reason I get it. I’ve been seriously thinking about telling them not to waste the postage, but I’ve been curious about whether they will incorporate old IFR and Air Safety articles, like they did last year with one of my old ones. 

[Scott Dennstaedt, PhD]

16 hours ago, MikeOH said:

I dumped my FLYING subscription a decade ago...ZERO regrets.

Well, you can still read all of my articles in FLYING since they are eventually posted online.