www.PSFmagazine.com | January/February 2021 | 41 40 | January/February 2021 | Powered Sport Flying SPECIAL ISSUE OF LIGHT AVIATION + eVTOL+ MOTORS + INSTRUMENTS + PROPELLERS + RADIO + AVIONICS + GPS... 2020-21 > Australia $15.50 • USA $16.99 • UK £6.99 World Directory of MagaZine Certified Aircraft > Trikes > Gyroplanes > Helicopters > eVTOL > Motorgliders... Buyer's Guide y i 2020-202 1 instruments - propellers radios - avionics - GPS... motors Certif ied Aircraft Trikes Gyroplanes eVtol Motorgliders Fixedwing/LSA Helicopters 1 000 AIRCRAFT... Microlights, LSA, eVTOL Flügel Das Magazin A Banner Year For Aviation So what happens when people can’t go to Europe, can’t camp in federal parks, can’t go out to eat, can’t go to movies, can’t go on cruises, can’t go to Disneyland and can’t stand staying indoors for an entire year? It may not seem like there are a lot of pursuits left to spend time and money on. But wait… there is still the dream of personal flight. And as it turns out, it seems that a lot of people rediscovered their dreams of becoming pilots and owning their own aircraft in 2020. Learning to fly is an adventure. And a pilot certificate along with an aircraft is a gateway to even more adventure. In a world that is becoming more and more strange, pursuing flight is making more and more sense. The data seems to be bearing this out. Aircraft sales are doing well and flight instructors seem to be as busy as ever. And it makes sense. If circumstances are forcing you to get involved in activities that involve as few people as possible, a cockpit (or flight deck) with only one student pilot and one flight instructor is about as small of a group as you can get! Then there is the wonder of flying solo. And then finally the joy of piloting your own aircraft with just family and close friends on board. Many people have been planning to learn to fly for years, but life has been getting in the way of the dream. Now that normal life is kind of on hold, many people are discovering that now is a great time to pivot to learning to fly. My personal situation has almost been the opposite. Teaching others to fly has gotten in the way of life. Well, it certainly has been if ‘life’ means putting out issues of a magazine! While 2020 was always going to be the year when I increased flight training, I didn’t expect it to be so time intensive. And of course it is, but it was worse than I expected. That’s because last year it wasn’t always the flight training itself that was taking up the time, it was the travel. And that happened because students didn’t really want to travel a lot last year after the outbreak of Covid-19. So if training was going to happen at all, that meant that I ended up having to travel to the students. So that is where I’ve been in 2020, along with (potential) issues of the magazine. I learned a lot from last year and this year I’m putting those lessons to work. For example, this year I’m cutting back significantly on both the travel and the number of students I’m taking on. The hope is that I’ll free up a lot more time for other responsibilities and interests. This magazine being both responsibility and interest! This magazine is a wonderful outlet for getting the word out about training and it gives authors a way to reach a lot more people with information about flying. It’s also rewarding to able to help spread the word about all aspects of recreational flying. So this year I expect to get a lot more issues to the printer. And yes, that is my responsibility since I do all of the magazine layout. There is one thing that is unfortunately going to have to change in the future, though. That is the frequency of the magazine. Not only is time that much more precious, what most people don’t realize is that this is a labor of love. Meaning that I get a lot more love than financial compensation for producing it. In the ten years plus since taking the magazine on, we have increased the size of the magazine, increased readership, and increased the quality of the magazine. This has been while other things such as printing and mailing costs also increased on a yearly basis. Meanwhile, we haven’t increased the subscription price. And what we don’t want to do is increase the subscription cost of the magazine. However, something has to give and it seems like it has already given. That is, the frequency of the magazine. Therefore, moving forward, the magazine will be going to a bimonthly distribution. In reality, that will probably increase the number of magazines you see each year. That number of issues is something that two people can realistically produce and is also a number that matches what many other magazines in the sport are doing both in the usa and internationally. Thanks so much for your patience with the magazine and good luck in 2021. I look forward to visiting with you more regularly!
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