Sport Pilot Magazine

[rhysmcc]

I used the Issuu App on the iPad the last 2 editions and had a much better experience then directly from their website (or RA-AUS PDF).

 

 

[slb]

I would prefer that $10,000 go towards getting me a paper mag back.

 

 

Just received a Special Sport Pilot E-News:

 

 

 

.... not only are they still offering the "12 issues for the price of 6" ...they have a free gift! Suggesting that they do want to keep publishing a hard-copy rather than going digital for all ....

 

Subscribe now to October's Sport Pilot

 

WOW, what a month the October edition of Sport Pilot will be. Subscribe now so you don’t miss out….read on.

 

We have a special gift for all of our print magazine subscribers – the 2015 Recreational Aviation Australia Safety Booklet. If you subscribe by 30 September you will be sure to get a copy of the safety booklet. Plus we will send you six free issues if you subscribe for twelve months for the low price of $90. That’s $5 per edition, plus a free safety booklet.

 

Additionally the October Sport Pilot sees the launch of National Safety Month and contains a fantastic array of articles focusing on safety within Recreational Aviation Australia.

 

Please log in to your member’s portal before clicking here to subscribe by 30 September.

 

Sport Pilot now comes outs 12 times a year.

 

Remember, any member of Recreational Aviation Australia who subscribes to Sport Pilot before the end of September 2015 will receive the Special Safety Booklet.

 

If you do not wish to subscribe to the printed issue of Sport Pilot, use this link to access your free digital copy. The Safety Booklet will also be provided to all members for free in digital format from the Recreational Aviation Australia website as well as the Recreational Aviation Australia digital platform on ISSUU. The booklet can easily be printed at home on A4 paper for any member who wishes to print it themselves.

 

Any member who subscribes to Sport Pilot before the end of September will receive the Special Safety Booklet. October’s edition features an array of articles on safety, it’s a must read for anyone involved in flying. We also detail some great initiatives coming to a school and aero club near you.

 

If you do not wish to subscribe, use this link to access your free digital copy.

 

 

[slb]

...so for those of us who are now digital only .... do we get a free safety booklet as well, or are they suggesting we should all go back to hard-copy?

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

The financial plan for the next year had an assumption about the level of paper subscriptions built in (no surprises in that!) . The reality is that some of the cost structure for the magazine aren't entirely unit based, that is, not all costs scale depending on how many are produced each month. If the current level of subscribers were to not yet be at that budgeted level then the actuals vs. budget financial outcome would be adverse (but still vastly superior to the status quo)

 

I suspect the CEO is merely doing what he should and reacting and trying to fine tune reality as compared to the budget........

 

 

[Yenn]

I couldn't get the September magazine and today I get an email trying to push the papr copy. It had a link. Press here for your digital copy, so I did. Half an hour later on my slow internet connection I am just about getting enough to read and I notice it is July issue. A right pain in the backside, but thy will be hearing from me om monday.

 

 

[ave8rr]

It appears that the Sep issue is NOT on the RAAus Web site as yet (11 Sep 15). I read somewhere a while back that the magazine would be posted first week of each month. If posted then it (magazine) should be available in PDF form on the web site.

 

Yenn is correct as link in latest E news takes one to the July issue??

 

 

[jetjr]

I might have this wrong but think it was sad currently with below expected take up of paper subscriptions the magazine it STILL costing the organisation $5 per issue per member

 

So even those without paper copy are paying

 

Happy to be corrected, but it makes sense if not enough sign up to subscription

 

 

[billwoodmason]

I'd love to know who moved to make this change to our magazine delivery format and increase our annual fees in the one foul swoop. I'm heartily sick of the weekly emails ( and posturing in the magazine) from the CEO sprouting about how the take up of the hard copy option is fabulous but the discounted offer has been extended. It would seem that the take up of the hard copy option is nowhere near their expectation. Candidly I'm not surprised - we have been taken advantage of by stealth. Further more - searches for download options on the web sight constantly lead back to the take up offer for the hard copy option. This is a debacle, I am very disappointed with RAA on this issue and would like to know who to blame.

 

 

[rankamateur]

I'd love to know who moved to make this change to our magazine delivery format and increase our annual fees in the one foul swoop. I'm heartily sick of the weekly emails ( and posturing in the magazine) from the CEO sprouting about how the take up of the hard copy option is fabulous but the discounted offer has been extended. It would seem that the take up of the hard copy option is nowhere near their expectation. Candidly I'm not surprised - we have been taken advantage of by stealth. Further more - searches for download options on the web sight constantly lead back to the take up offer for the hard copy option. This is a debacle, I am very disappointed with RAA on this issue and would like to know who to blame.

That is what you get from a monopoly licencing authority, a great shame there are so few of us.

 

 

[Robert]

Bottom line is I'm getting more and more pissed off with RAAus

 

If only an alternative organisation would become available to offer RAAus a bit of competition

 

The magazine debacle has become a joke

 

 

[dazza 38]

Since CASA have been on a free ride over the years when it comes to coughing up cash to the RAA. Why dont you just issue every body with a current pilot certificate a like for like CASA pilot certificate with none of the bull crap of the RPL. Its not hard guys. Then we all can be on a level playing field, last time I checked, PPL holders didn't have to be a member of any organisation.

 

 

[ev17ifly2]

Given that most of those posting are more concerned about a monthly delivery of a printed magazine why don't you subscribe to Readers Digest, who knows you may even win a prize.

 

Meanwhile the rest of us will go flying thanks to our association RAA.

 

 

[dazza 38]

Given that most of those posting are more concerned about a monthly delivery of a printed magazine why don't you subscribe to Readers Digest, who knows you may even win a prize.Meanwhile the rest of us will go flying thanks to our association RAA.

Yeah but you could also be flying without being a member if the RAA if CASA lifted their game. Even you can work that out.

 

 

[bull]

Given that most of those posting are more concerned about a monthly delivery of a printed magazine why don't you subscribe to Readers Digest, who knows you may even win a prize.Meanwhile the rest of us will go flying thanks to our association RAA.

You should pull your head out of the sand,and smell the roses,cause they really stink mate............................

 

 

[ev17ifly2]

You should pull your head out of the sand,and smell the roses,cause they really stink mate............................

Bloody hell. Bull you're back. Last I heard you were selling your plane, quitting RAA and going into therapy.

 

What happened ? I've missed your sparkling repartee and command of the language.

 

Welcome back

 

 

[ev17ifly2]

Yeah but you could also be flying without being a member if the RAA if CASA lifted their game. Even you can work that out.

Sorry, but I see value in being a member.

 

 

[dazza 38]

Sorry, but I see value in being a member.

Fair enough, but myself being a member on and off since 1987 don't really see why we have to pay a yearly fee to fly where GA guys dont.

 

 

[jetjr]

Thats CASA to blame not RAA, they wont fund it so we have to.

 

If you dont want to pay, get a PPL. If you can't meet their requirements, dont fly

 

RAA IS aparrallel path, an option to CASA

 

If the print magazine uptake is poor, doesnt that mean he move to electronic is sucessful??

 

The basis is that those who want to spend their money on paper and postage can continue. Majority who dont see this as value dont have to

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

I'd love to know who moved to make this change to our magazine delivery format and increase our annual fees in the one foul swoop. I'm heartily sick of the weekly emails ( and posturing in the magazine) from the CEO sprouting about how the take up of the hard copy option is fabulous but the discounted offer has been extended. It would seem that the take up of the hard copy option is nowhere near their expectation. Candidly I'm not surprised - we have been taken advantage of by stealth. Further more - searches for download options on the web sight constantly lead back to the take up offer for the hard copy option. This is a debacle, I am very disappointed with RAA on this issue and would like to know who to blame.

I was part of the board that voted the changes in......

 

I accept that the communication could have been better but at the end of the day had nothing changed we would be flying (and all reading our paper magazine) until around mid 2017 where RAAus would have become insolvent......At that stage the organisation would cease to exist and we would all be reading past magazines while we wait for a mechanism to become available to allow us to all again take to the air while knowing that such a mechanism was no guaranteed thing.......

 

I took the view that the economic realities then and even more so now in Australia meant that simply asking for more and more dollars from every member to retain the status quo was likely to not work because as the Australia Post situation is showing us postal deliveries are very unlikely to remain at costs we have today and its my view that price increase quantums and frequencies are likely logarithmic in scale in the future.....does anyone see it differently to that? Sso we would always be asking for more and more, and in any event while its painful to be an early adopter of any change, its equally painful in a fiscal sense, to be the last adopter...the time was right. Rather we did what we did and members then had a choice that they could each personally make as to whether flying or reading was of greater importance to them.....I accept all wont like it......but in difficult times difficult decisions must be made. User pays has become the Australian default for everything else in life and I don't see any reason why those that can accept and adopt to the change should subsidise those who cant.

 

If folk are worried about subscription costs today.......then let me warn you to look closely at the cost next time around...the incremental cost to each member to retain the paper magazine in approx18 months time will in my opinion be horrendous because you will be one of very few paying for the non incremental costs of printing setup etc.......Its my belief that within 3 to 5 (and that's likely a stretch) years there simply wont be a paper magazine.......However......I believe we will all be still enjoying what is still the cheapest form of aviation available in Australia. While Dazza is correct that there is an annual cost for RAAus that the GA folk don't have to pay I believe if you don't look at individual costs but rather the total cost of participation we come away with far more $ retained in our wallets. I accept that it could be even better, and suspect that is Dazza's point....but in the overall scheme of things we aren't that badly off.....

 

Andy

 

 

[dazza 38]

Thats CASA to blame not RAA, they wont fund it so we have to.If you dont want to pay, get a PPL. If you can't meet their requirements, dont fly

RAA IS aparrallel path, an option to CASA

 

If the print magazine uptake is poor, doesnt that mean he move to electronic is sucessful??

 

The basis is that those who want to spend their money on paper and postage can continue. Majority who dont see this as value dont have to

I not sure Jet whether it means the electronic version is successful or not. It could be taken on face value as yes it is successful because not many have taken up the paper offer . But we don't know how many are out there like me who simply decided not to read the electronic version or buy the paper copy.

 

 

[billwoodmason]

The published numbers for both the paper version and the electronic from memory added up to about 55-60 per cent of the overall membership. People either find it too hard to navigate past the deliberate redirection to sign up to a paper subscription or simply can't be bothered or want to read the on line version. This whole thing is about extracting a 30 percent increase in fees from the membership and in my opinion has been done in an underhanded and slimy (read dishonest) way. Those members who chose to pay for their own online version should have gotten at least a partial rebate of the cost already taken from their membership fees for the magazine. The board should be standing up to CASA and their demands in the name of "safety". Slowly but surely we are becoming another version of GA which is on the cusp of only people wanting to make a career out of flying are getting a PPL. By the way Jetjr I've had a PPL since 1986.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

hang on bill, I get a ton of stuff in my letter box that goes straight into the recycling "unread" and there is a bunch of stuff that I put aside to read "whenever" and there is a small minority of stuff I actually open. I've got more than a few pristine copies of the RAA mag because they are still in the bag.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

The biggest advantage about the RAA mag as an electronic version is the RAA can now measure the numbers of people that are reading it as opposed to assuming that the paper version is 100% read.

 

My personal preference has always been that the RAA mag becomes a blog so you can count individual page views so that you can measure with accuracy the popularity of particular articles.

 

 

[rhysmcc]

I think they can do that was issuu. Also with 10,000 views surely that's more then 60% of the members?

 

 

[jetjr]

Nothing underhanded Bill, maybe you missed the hundred or more posts on the issue

 

Paper magazing costing huge amounts per year, one of the largest costs RAA had. It was either keep it and rise fees or go electronic and leave fees the same

 

By the way its done you have the choice, non paer members are still sponsoring the paper.

 

I travel a lot and no way was I carrying several magazines around with me. Ipad has them all now