Martha?

Half Fast

Half Fast

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Half Fast
A couple of years ago I bought a subscription to Martha Lunken's column. Every month it's delivered to my mailbox in a wrapper that says "Flying" on the front. The wrapper has some pretty pictures of airplanes and lots and lots of advertising. Seems excessive for packaging one good column.

But,....

For the past two months they've sent me just the wrapper! No delightful column from Martha.

Anybody know what's happened to her? Did the FAA finally catch up with her and lock her away somewhere? Is she tied up in a libel suit from someone she mentioned in print? Is she in a holding pattern over Atlanta?

If this continues I'll have to seek a refund. I can't see paying for a subscription to the wrapper.
 
Half Fast said:
Anybody know what's happened to her? Did the FAA finally catch up with her and lock her away somewhere?
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Could be. She actually was an FAA ASI before she was writing for Flying. Word on the street is that her FSDO was not a fan.
 
Thing is, the magazine publishing business has become so low margin that they can't pay people who have expertise enough to make it worth their while. Not saying that was the case with Martha, but it's endemic to the field.
 
I enjoy her columns. I’m fairly certain it was in the most recent Flying I received though I could be wrong.
 
I received an issue yesterday and couldn’t find her column. She’s still on the masthead, though.
 
After her latest "incident", things are not looking good for Martha.
It's a shame. She is almost a national treasure.
 
Martha, Peter Garrison and Les Abend are the reason I still subscribe to the magazine. Like the OP says, the rest is just a fancy wrapper. I go back to the days of Richard Collins, Gordon Baxter and Len Morgan and from my perspective the magazine is definitely suffering these days, especially if Martha fails to return.
 
Love love love her stuff.

Best since Bax.
 
It is good to see others that like her writing. Flying will find another pilot to pen in the publication post haste if needed. I look forward to who's next!
 
Eric Stoltz said:
It is good to see others that like her writing. Flying will find another pilot to pen in the publication post haste if needed. I look forward to who's next!
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They've already added a new guy named Ben Younger. His first column was fair.
 
Rushie said:
Quick googling reveals she attended college in the 60s so she's getting up in years. I'm wondering if she's having health problems. Was this her last column?

https://www.flyingmag.com/celebrating-i-think-birthdays
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As I recall, she was kicked out of college a time or two. Something about her affair with Effie Lunken and immoral conduct, I believe. I’d guess she’s in her 70s, so health problems wouldn’t be surprising. Or she might just be ready to retire.
 
She had a funny send-up of operational risk management a while back, made the beer come out of my nose - hope she is well. I read Garrison, and his Melmoth web site is fascinating. I like Karl, too. The rest is so-so, but much better than AOPA's mag.
 
Brad Smith said:
Martha, Peter Garrison and Les Abend are the reason I still subscribe to the magazine.
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I completely agree with you. I also really like Richard Collins, he wrote really well and was a very pragmatic down to earth solid dude

Dick Karl is a pompous ass.
 
Half Fast said:
They've already added a new guy named Ben Younger. His first column was fair.
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I actually really enjoyed the column and it was a apropos since I'm planning a trip to Telluride in a couple weeks


My thing with Flying magazine is that it has seemed to become kind of elitist lately.. we all get it that Aviation is an expensive hobby reserved for only a few skilled and financially healthy people.. but the older crop of authors were either mostly recreational or general aviation pilots or worked in the industry specifically

Ben younger, while he seems like a solid dude, is an accomplished writer, film director, politician, etc.. I kind of just miss reading from people that are more like the general aviation public.. that's what I get from Martha, Garrison, Les, (and Collins from when was still alive) just good, down to earth, honest and well written content about flying
 
Tantalum said:
I actually really enjoyed the column and it was a apropos since I'm planning a trip to Telluride in a couple weeks


My thing with Flying magazine is that it has seemed to become kind of elitist lately.. we all get it that Aviation is an expensive hobby reserved for only a few skilled and financially healthy people.. but the older crop of authors were either mostly recreational or general aviation pilots or worked in the industry specifically

Ben younger, while he seems like a solid dude, is an accomplished writer, film director, politician, etc.. I kind of just miss reading from people that are more like the general aviation public.. that's what I get from Martha, Garrison, Les, (and Collins from when was still alive) just good, down to earth, honest and well written content about flying
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When Collin's was Editor of Flying mag it had a subscription volume close to 500,000 copies per month and sold another 100,000 on newsstands. You could find it on the rack at every magazine vendor in airports and elsewhere. It's a bit of work to find a copy on a newsstand today, and I can't imagine what the subscriber numbers have fallen to.

The decline in Flying is mirroring the decline in GA. Every year what's left of GA becomes more "elitist". Twenty-five years ago my home airport was filled with Cessna, Piper and Grumman singles. The top of the food chain were those lucky b@st@rds who owned Bonanza A36s. Today the Bonanzas are an "at risk species" around the joint, and its astonishing how many privately owned SR22Ts, turboprop Meridians and TBMs there are. There are even a few privately owned and flown (non-corporate) Citation Mustangs. Not surprising the mag is increasingly reflecting that.
 
GRG55 said:
When Collin's was Editor of Flying mag it had a subscription volume close to 500,000 copies per month and sold another 100,000 on newsstands. You could find it on the rack at every magazine vendor in airports and elsewhere. It's a bit of work to find a copy on a newsstand today, and I can't imagine what the subscriber numbers have fallen to.

The decline in Flying is mirroring the decline in GA. Every year what's left of GA becomes more "elitist". Twenty-five years ago my home airport was filled with Cessna, Piper and Grumman singles. The top of the food chain were those lucky b@st@rds who owned Bonanza A36s. Today the Bonanzas are an "at risk species" around the joint, and its astonishing how many privately owned SR22Ts, turboprop Meridians and TBMs there are. There are even a few privately owned and flown (non-corporate) Citation Mustangs. Not surprising the mag is increasingly reflecting that.
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There are other dynamics at play as well. Pre internet days, magazine profit margins were typically 20 to 25 percent. Target marketing was advanced enough, and specialty magazines were the best outlet available.

The internet changed consumer expectations, in that so much content became available for free. It also segmented the advertising marketplace even further, and magazine profit margins came under great pressure. That started the "shrink to profitibility" model. Anecdotally, I ran a magazine in the mid 90s that was 276 to 300 pages per issue, with ad 55 to 60 percent of those pages. 10 years later, it was under 100 pages per issue. I was no longer there, but I doubt my departure had much to do with that.

Flying has been through a couple owners in the last 20 years, with each trying their hand at making a run. Targeting the content to engage the kinds of readers the advertisers will pay for is the name of the game. That's not to say pay for play. It's a complicated model that print publications of all kinds have been struggling with for decades.

Printing is slow, expensive, and not interactive. It doesn't mesh so well with modern expectations.
 
Ken Ibold said:
There are other dynamics at play as well. ... Printing is slow, expensive, and not interactive. It doesn't mesh so well with modern expectations.
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I expect to buy print copies of my favorite magazines as long as they print them, cuz I won't take my Tab A into the can.
 
I remember the glory days of Flying magazine -- the soaring poetry of Gill Robb Wilson; the "just-the-facts-Ma'am" reporting of Dick Weeghman; the self-effacing humor of Frank Kingston Smith (Sr.) and later Gordon Baxter; and the early careers of such talents as James Gilbert and Richard Bach. With his innocent awe of flying and insatiable desire to educate himself to become a better pilot, Frank Kingston Smith stoked my passion for flying more than anyone else, rest his soul.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, however, the publication and its advertisers took aim squarely at the diamond-studded end of the general aviation spectrum. It might as well have been called "JetFlying". It made B&CA look like a hang-glider flyers' newsletter. I expected the masthead to repeat the words of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard, "Flying an aeroplane with only a single propeller to keep you in the air. Can you imagine that?" They made a fitful attempt in recent years to return to grass-roots aviation, but that seems to have fizzled.
 
“Flying” needs at least one columnist who flies something like an old Cub or Cessna and who relates well to us commoners.

Oh wait - that was Martha.

Damn.

BTW, did Plane & Pilot go belly up? I haven’t seen it on newsstands in several months.
 
Flying, Plane and Pilot, AOPA Pilot, etc.

Featured articles (on a yearly rotation) "We Fly the Cessna 172", "Aircraft PreBuy Checklist", "Planning a Cross Country", "Best Airport Restaurants", "The Annual Inspection", etc, etc.

Wash, rinse, repeat.
 
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