Hi guys,
I know I’ve only just become a member but I’ve read the AFM magazine every month for as long as I can remember. Lately it seems that the publishers for this mag are running out of steam regarding new ideas to run with. When I first started reading it, every month there would be something new and exciting such as reports on exotic air forces, the capabilities of new aircraft, airshow reports and so on and so on. These days AFM has become rather boring – so far they have no in-depth reviews of either the J-10 or Su-30MKI, they over do the war with Iraq and seem to publish continual articles on British or American air assets which (sorry bout this) aren’t exactly rare or exotic.
Does anyone else think this, or am I just a moaning git???
Perhaps they can report on Kazakstan’s never seen before air force? A report on the current state of North Koreas fighters or maybe some nice snaps of Ethiopian or Syrian Su-27s perhaps?
What d’ya think???:confused:
By: seahawk - 21st May 2003 at 12:44
What I find more interesting is that the articles seem to be more and more badly researched.
Let me give you an example :
In the fighters overview in the text about EF the information about german wings to equipp with the EF is simply wrong.
JG 72 in Hopsten is no more. There will be a 16 planes flight Training Centre for the F-4F there until 2006, after that the airbase will close.
So I doubt we will see JG 72 reform at Hopsten.
Furthermore it is not said that some of the current Tornado wings will reequip with late batch EFs and become multirole wings. The first wing to do so is said to be the JBG 31 at Nörvenich. They might even change before JG 71 at Wittmund trades in the last F-4Fs in 2012.
By: skythe - 20th May 2003 at 16:55
Originally posted by Icarus
Give me more reports of lesser known airforces! Please!I would love if they did a spread about the SyAF.
Wouldn’t we all ? :rolleyes:
For anyone interested, the Scramble website has recently added a number of new pictures to their Syrian AF section, plus there’s a new related article on the ACIG website.
By: Rabie - 20th May 2003 at 09:37
wouldn’t everyone 😉
rabie 😉
By: Icarus - 19th May 2003 at 23:08
Give me more reports of lesser known airforces! Please!
I would love if they did a spread about the SyAF.
By: ELP - 19th May 2003 at 03:23
Good point. Combat Aircraft has had some good articles lately. One was an overview of French AF Mirage 2000 ops over Afghanistan. The article on USAF Reserve F-16s was very very accurate ( info about getting USAFR F-16s LITENING capable ). I do find some of their coverage of the Russian AF unrealistic. As if it was written 5 years ago and is just a rehash of what we already know.
AFM: If I find myself getting bored with it once in a while, I will get Air International instead and read up on the half of the articles in there that deal with airline tech. Kinda neat. These two magazines require me to do a 40 mile round trip to get.
By: alex - 18th May 2003 at 11:25
Don’t u have a mag called “Combat Aircraft Illustrated” in the states? Lately this has been far more interesting than AFM despite publishing some late updates. I have a copy which has a great report on the current fighters of the Russian Air Force with some good snaps too, worth a look. 🙂
By: PhantomII - 18th May 2003 at 08:11
Well at least you guys still get to read it. For some reason late last year it stopped appearing (along with Airliner World) in the bookstores both here at home and in the city where I attend college. The Webmaster said he’d do something about it, but he never game me any updates or reasons why the magazine wasn’t being sent to these places anymore. I’d really like to be able to read it yet again.
By: mixtec - 17th May 2003 at 01:49
This complaint is nothing new. About a year ago there was a thread on this forum
about how boring AFM has got. The webmaster even posted a thread asking for suggestions which didnt seem to do anything. In my opinion these forums have
become a sort of online AFM magazine with people posting interesting pics and storys about their local aviation encounters. Maybe the plane spotters here should spend more time taking photos instead of copying down seriel numbers and then we could start seeing some good material here about military aviation.
By: tenthije - 16th May 2003 at 21:22
I completely agree with you! Thanks for bringing it up, I thought I was the only one!
I have bought every AFM for the last 4 or 5 years, but recently I can not really be bothered anymore. I used to go to the nearest shop selling them the very day they came out, which for me takes 1 hour round trip! Nowadays they are much easier to come by, but I am not going to any length to get them anymore. If I see one I will pick it up, but I am not going on a “AFM-hunt” anymore.
AFM still offers very good quality articles, it is just a pity that a lot of articles describe the mondane. Another Eurofighter story, another F16 story, another review of the UK and/or US forces.
Also, let’s be honest about it, a lot of their stories repeat themselves every 2 or so years. In the latest copy (june 03) they compare the planes that will be the big sellers for the years to come (F35, Typhoon, Rafale, Grippen etc). They even say in this article that this is published every 2 years!
And then there always is the before mentioned US and UK review.
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May 16, 2003 at 1:56 pm