Thanks ken,
I’ve tried Pprune but not the Lightning pilots. I’ll do that directly.
Doug

Just had my subscription issue drop through the letterbox with a letter enclosed explaining that CA was being incorporated into Aviation News. Also informed me that I would receive the balance of my subscription (3 copies) as Aviation News plus two further free copies. They also offered an alternative if I did not want AN of Flypast, AFM, Airliner World or Air International. So not all bad news though I will miss Clasic Aircraft in its current form.

I will look forward to seeing the same quality of post war aviation articles as we have seen in Classic Aircraft, in Aviation News from January!
How’s that for optimism!

Yes, that (IMHO) is when it all went wrong for “AI”.
But, once AI became “Classic Aircraft”, it was all too similar to Flypast or Aeroplane Monthly.
Paul F

I cannot see how Classic and Flypast were remotely similar! Classic always has a balance between Post war Jets and WW2 and pre war subjects; with the accent on the post war both civil and military. Take a look at the contents of the Flypast December issue, and the November issue of Classic Aircraft. They are poles apart.
I agree that the way forward is for Flypast to try for a balance between the two.

How right you are Graham to mention Air Enthusiast. What a loss that was! and how superbly balanced.

Quote – Where there was once a source of outstanding professional journalism in the monthly journals , contributors seem now to be enthusiastic amateurs, often with no particular talent in that area, and the fall in quality is very evident, leading to the death spiral of falling sales, falling revenue, cheaper paper, less money for contributors.

When everyone is a journalist, nobody is a journalist.

The above may be true to a degree, however, I think it is unfair to the ‘enthusiastic amateurs’ to denigrate their efforts in any magazine publication. For some the subject is often their overriding passion and they sometimes provide information they have unearthed that was previously unknown or unpublished. If it was not for the ‘enthusiastic amateurs’ starting somewhere where would our serious writers and historians be now – how did the likes of Martin Middlebrook, Norman Franks etc hone their skills (who? I can hear the IT generation ask) and where would our historical knowledge of aviation be without them?

Just the thoughts of one ‘enthusiastic amateur’!

I too am at a bit of a loss to understand the denigration of the efforts of the enthusiastic amateur. I have read some remarkably good well researched stories by such people; and some bad, ill researched and lazy work by ‘professionals’.
Please do not generalize.

December issue is the last one.