Northern Pilot Merger

[Todd C]

I just received my notice about the Northern Pilot/Pilot Getaways merger. Is this now a quarterly magazine?

[Frank T]

That's what the card I got said.

[SJ]

Hmmm, is this good or bad? Must not have been too big an audience? Seems like a pretty well done magazine...

sj

[Crosswater36]

Haven't seen the notice yet but will head out to the ol mail box soon...I thought this was a great little mag...hopefully they will continue to provide the excellent articles with their new partner. :morning:

[klm_ak]

Figures, I finally decided to pony up for a subscription and the thing changes....

[Cub Kid]

KLM,

you and me both...only for me a 3 year sub. OUCH!!!!

[SJ]

But if you notice the card, they extend your subscripton out. My 3 year now expires in 2007!

sj

[Cub Kid]

But if you notice the card, they extend your subscripton out. My 3 year now expires in 2007!

sj

Sorry, I have not seen the card...it gets sent to my home address. I am at school right now. I guess I can't complain yet

Bill

[Steve Pierce]

Still the best mag out there. I will just have to look forward to it arriving longer. Face it, we are a minority. Most everyone wants to read about go fast airplanes and the places they will take you.

[hottshot]

Talk about being surprised with the merger--- we didn't get a card we got a great big envelope full of stuff -- advertising stuff! We have a hard enough time trying to find a quality magazine that relates to our tires for advertisement and look what happens.
Anyways, I talked to Peter- one of the main guru's of Northern Pilot, who is now one of the main guru's of Pilot Getaways and is going thru the merger. He gave me some real good reassurance that they were going to get NP articles over to the PG. He said that they are still working out layout bugs but should have it ironed out fairly quickly. He said that they went thru many different magazine choices to figure out which one would be an appropriate option when they finally chose PG. He listed many of the things they were looking for to do so, type of subscribers (ie; owners or renters, fast or slow planes, location, etc.... and of course what would increase their subsciption numbers).
I'm hoping that we are not false in our trust of Peter and continueing our advertisement and subscription to PG. :-?

Yours Truly the Multi-tasked Bushwheel Office Mgr!!!! :wink:

[85Mike]

I fail to see how this is going to work! The 2-3 Pilot Getaways I've seen are geared to the Bonanza-Malibu-ATP crowd. The loss of NP is too bad.
85Mike

[N816KC]

I anticipate it will be much like the Mountain Pilot/NP merger, a loss of the quality information you subscribed for in the beginning. Generic Flying/Plane&Pilot/etc wannabe.

[cubdrvr]

I am going to speak with sj about starting a pertinent magazine in his spare time............... :lol:

[SJ]

It is not inconceivable, I kinda picture it like one of those biker magazines with a scantily clad young lady lounging inside holding a shotgun and a cigar...

Of course, you will buy it for the articles... :o

sj

[Anne]

a scantily clad young lady lounging inside

Sorry, Steve, doesn't do much for me. Dana, Brenda, Kate, does this do anything for you? Looks like we'll have to write our own column, "Women of Supercub."

From the looks of the cover of PG, we're not going to see much of NP in the new magazine. Articles about Malibu?? Looks like we've lost two good mags, NP and MP both. Darn.

There are a couple of NP writers on this site - tell us what happened??

Anne.

[PA12driver]

Dave Calkins was writing for NP? It seemed they were operating on a shoestring, and struggling, I am not surprised. I hope they still produce at least a couple articles worth reading?

Tim

[Peter Diemer]

Hello everyone. This is the first time I have posted on this great site. Since so many of you read Northern Pilot I though it appropriate to address some of your concerns with regard to the Northern Pilot / Pilot Getaways merger.

Firstly, Northern Pilot is a commercially successful magazine. My decision to sell the title and allow the merger with Pilot Getaways is to advance NP as a business. NP needed a greater circulation be become more competitive in the aviation marketplace. More advertising means more editorial content opportunities. If handled appropriately by the new publisher, the merger will do more for the longevity of backcountry flying than NP could alone.

Secondly, during the negotiations NP/PG was to be bi-monthly. The new publishers changed their mind after they purchased the magazine. I am just as disappointed about this change as you all are. However, they have extended everyone's NP subscription to reflect the change.

Thirdly, the new publisher fully plans on integrating NP content into the new combined magazine. Judging the new magazine by the cover of current Pilot Getaways is unfair, because it does not yet reflect the merged product. I expect that it will take a few issues to get the content in the groove that we want it.

Fourthly, I have been hired by the new publisher to coordinate the backcountry content of the combined magazine, so you guys haven't gotten rid of me yet!

Lastly, with regard to my acquisition and subsequent merger of Mountain Pilot magazine. This current merger is an entirely different matter. Those of you who were Mountain Pilot subscribers are fortunate that I purchased the magazine and restored color, content and bi-monthly frequency through NP. Prior to my purchase the former owner of Mountain Pilot had reduced it to a quarterly 20-page two-color pub.

I'd like to thank all of you for reading NP and I look forward to continued backcountry coverage in the new combined magazine.

Best regards,

Peter M. Diemer

[Cub Kid]

Peter,

Thanks for addressing the issue. As a subscriber, I still have serious reservations about the merger, but I must admit that you have done a darn good job so far, so best of luck. I just hope that it does not end up like what Alaska Flying did to us (or in my case, my parents, since i was six) back in the late eighties. Once again thanks for your time.

Bill

[diggler]

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[85Mike]

Peter
I don't see how you can merge cub jocks with attorney, doctor and ATP Bonanza-Malibu pilots!!!! Who is this Pilot Michael referred to in PG??? He's got to be one of them, att. MD or ATP?? The flying we do is at totally oposite ends of the spectrum!! Good luck, but you won't likely see my renewal!!
85 Mike
PS, I agree!! Mountain Pilot was going downhill faster than a Pitts in a full stall spin !!!!

[SJ]

85 Mike,

Alaskan Bushwheel's is working on the STC for the 31" radials on the A36... They are having trouble with the deflating / inflating part during gear extension and retraction...

sj

[PA12driver]

Peter,

You are a tough bird, getting on this site! Indeed it is a good one. I understand the cost of running a business, and I was surprised to see you last as long as you did with the high quality of print you have. I kept renewing cause your magazine was the "only magazine" that had any semblance to what we do with our planes. Next on my list is EAA's magazine and Dave Sclair's paper. The rest won't hardly start a fire and works even worse as TP. Hope the merger works out well for you and (us).

Tim

[CaptFox]

85 Mike,

Alaskan Bushwheel's is working on the STC for the 31" radials on the A36... They are having trouble with the deflating / inflating part during gear extension and retraction...

sj

Gotta love this site...It puts a smile on my face almost every morning.

Well back to NP, I just recently found out about it from this site and ordered a back issue on the Supercub, they then subsequently sent me 2 trial issues, I thought it looked like a great magazine and was contemplating a subscription but I'm glad I didn't now, (sorry to all you guys that have) I guess we'll just have to see how the new one turns out. only time will tell.

Hopefully it or a magizine like it will survive or maybe even a "SUPERCUB PILOT" magizine will be developed. :lol:

[Gunny]

removed

[mvivion]

This has been an interesting thread. Note that a while back, maybe last spring, when NP ran articles on a log splitter and snow machines, folks on this site nearly had a hissy about running non-aviation articles in an aviation magazine.

It's all about advertising and subscriptions, folks. Pilots are some of the cheapest people on the planet, frankly. They'll pay a bizzilion dollars for an airplane, and then use up huge amounts of time and energy trying to figure out how to save three bucks by installing some non-approved part as opposed to a "real" part.

No offense, folks, but if we want a magazine which reflects the world we choose to operate in, we'll have to support that magazine with subscription dollars. That said, this is a very small "niche" market, and there may never be enough of us around to support such a venture.

In any case, George and crew at Pilot Getaways run a nice magazine, albeit one with a very different flavor. Perhaps they can put together an all new magazine, with a broader focus, which meets everyone's expectations. It wont' be easy to pull off, though with quarterly output.

I wish them luck.

Mike Vivion

[SuperCub MD]

Thanks for posting the info here Peter. Who knows? Maybe you can get those Bonanza jockeys to trade up to real airplanes, and swap their golf shoes for snow shoes...

Back country flying is actually a very tiny niche, within a very small niche. The majority of the pilot population look at it with idle curiousity, and no more. We are still seen as a bunch of nut balls in those expensive, muddy little planes. It would be nice to change that by educating more pilots about it, we all fear what we don't understand.

Glad you still have a hand in it to give some back country focus, and good luck.

[diggler]

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[Steve Pierce]

Amen on the airline pilots Diggler. They are some of the cheapest SOBs.

Rant and Rave

[FlipFlop]

Amen on the airline pilots Diggler. They are some of the cheapest SOBs.

Rant and Rave

My Dad was a Beechcraft dealer, add doctors and lawyers (sorry DJF) to that list... Really hard to collect from...

has anyone read the new "pilot getaways" talk about "yuppieized"

we need northern pilot back again! lol

ill just get the back issues and read thoese till theres something new

tom ford

[AlaskaAV]

Amen on the airline pilots Diggler. They are some of the cheapest SOBs.

Rant and Rave

Steve

You know I have to ask this one. :wink:

Does that include the dudes in airline management that hired those airline pilots?

:cheers

[Steve Pierce]

Not all airline pilots but a lot.

True story:
An airline pilot bellyed in his Comanche. Trashed the airbox. Takes it to an excellent metal worker for repair. he fixes it as good or better than new. The airline pilot comes in to pick it up and wants to know how much. When the guy tells him $75 the airline pilot starts complaining. The mechanic quietly picks up the airbox, takes it over to the work bench :bang and smashes it flat, hands it back to the airline pilot and replies"No charge."

Saw an ad in Trade-A-Plane one time that said airline pilots need not call.

I have many more but you get the idea.

I listen to them bitch on a regular basis about how bad they have it and how they are getting screwed. I just tell them to quit and come to work with me. It's a lot more fun. :D

[AlaskaAV]

How true Steve.

Check out my story about one of our captians that reported a clear, oderless and tasteless oil leaking from the right wing root just outboard of the right engine on a DC-3 at Dahl Creek. He had dispatch and maintenance all confused for a long time and even after he was enroute back to Fairbank without telling them what the problem was. This Captain was very serious all the time and later became our safety check pilot.

A leaking 6 gallon can of Wesson Oil that had leaked through the floor into the wing root and because of the way I had parked the aircraft, had run clear past the right engine.

At times, even Captains can come up with a good one back in the old days.

[diggler]

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[MacNab]

a scantily clad young lady lounging inside
Looks like we'll have to write our own column, "Women of Supercub."Anne.

Didn't I see 'Women of Supercub' in Playboy magazine a while back?

[pzinck]

I would guess about 5 or 6 years ago i paid for a subscription to northern pilot,after i got 3 issues and never got any more.Did this happen to anyon e else? I was pissed.This was a multiple year subscription.I had assumed they went out of business.

[SJ]

Phil, I had a similar lapse, but then I contacted them and they straightened it out. Something about a database error or some such. I still get PG and I have not paid in a while. The pictures in PG are awful nice and it offers more for us lower 48 guys. I'd like to see somebody start a bush flying magazine but I don't think there is much possiblity in it being a viable venture so that is probably why it does not happen.

sj

[pzinck]

Steve,i think i will resubscribe and give them a try again.Also if you want to start a magazine i bet we could all help out.I will volunteer.Please send me tickets to your locale.I will pickup your cub,get me a camera and credit card.I will fly all over and take pics for you and interview people.I cant fly very good or take pics very well but people are sick of those perfect magazines.What a job,spend some quality time with all these great people.Imagine the stories we could hear and write about.P.s. i dont spell too good also.But i will try real hard.Please advise when tickets and credit card will arrive.

[SJ]

Phil,

I appreciate the offer, it may take just a while to organize the venture capital for that enterprise, but I don't see how it can fail. You may want to take a temporary position in between as it may take some time to work out the details.

The last guy I gave my camera to took way better pictures that I do...

sj

[diggler]

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[Steve Pierce]

At least ya'll didn't have a Taylorcraft down at LaGrange, TX getting refurbished. You would have really got robbed.

[Anne]

I'm enjoying Pilot Getaways. They do go to places with grass strips, fly taildraggers, Jessica Ambat has some great pictures, and the columns in the back by folks like MTV are my favorite part of the magazine. It's not Northern Pilot or Mountain Pilot, but those didn't survive because the audience is just too small. At least there's something in PG that's better than the incessant garbage from Flying magazine.

Anne.

[JP]

I received a copy of the latest PG today...fabulous articles and terrific photography. Makes one want to hop in and go exploring. It's great to own an airplane and good fun to see new places to fly to. PG is definitely worth subscribing to.

[MacNab]

I've been a Pilot Getaways subscriber since day one. They've always had a bit of bush flying in every issue and I expect this aspect of the magazine to only get better. I think the bush flying 'niche' is going to get bigger in the next few years for better or worse. Pilot Getaways is exposing bush flying to a larger audience, and I think this will generate more interest in this type of recreational flying.