Air Comix

[speeddemon]

Hey, was I the only one who noticed Michael O' Leary's 'recycled' photos in this month's Air Classics Reno coverage?

The double page spread on the title page of Dreadnought and the #57 F2G, and the double page pic in the article with Dreadnought and Argonaut were photos that were taken in 1999, and used in the 1999 Air Classics coverage.

Way to get more bang for your buck there, Gueniveirre. Use 'old' photos, but give them new captions to make people THINK that you went up on a photo mission this year.

[Terry]

Re: Air Comix

Also, they made a few errors in their reporting. One of which stating that Argonaught finished third behind Bear and Dread. And confusing Bearcat with Fury.
And what was with September Fury on the cover? I think it should have been Ridge Runner or Sept. Pops in that new garish scheme.

[Randy Haskin]

Re: Air Comix

Hey, was I the only one who noticed Michael O' Leary's 'recycled' photos in this month's Air Classics Reno coverage?

Yeah, you probably were...none of us ever read that, unless as part of a dare. It gives me that not-so-fresh feeling when I pick it up.

[King]

Re: Air Comix

Yeah, you probably were...none of us ever read that, unless as part of a dare. It gives me that not-so-fresh feeling when I pick it up.

Not so fresh feeling? Try drinking a lot of water. This should flush your system and hopefully eliminate the problem. Perhaps consider a brazilian wax. I hope this helps.

[RandyGoss75]

Re: Air Comix

Made from real Brazilians????

[Victor Archer]

Re: Air Comix

It's not so bad if you have a pair of Brazilian women turning the pages for you......

[paintboy]

Re: Air Comix

What a slap in the face of every race team that brought their racer to compete at Reno. I am not a fan of the Rare Bear, but they certainly deserved to be recognized for their accomplishments for winning the championship 2 years in a row. How insulting is it to have the image of a racer that did not even make it to the dance plastered on the cover when the Rare Bear has more championships than Mr. Browns little red Sea Fury will ever have. The coverage was superficial at best with inaccuracies printed on every page. Where is the in depth coverage of the greatest motorsport? Thank god I attended the races and was able to get the info first hand rather than depending on O'Leary's observations. I also noticed a full page ad from the September Fury Team (Mike Brown) thanking everyone. Gee, ya suppose that may have helped in the decision on the cover photo? Which by the way is the second year in a row Sept Fury has been on the cover. To all those who actually brought their racers to Reno to compete, stand up and hold your head high as you deserve all the applause. Regardless of what Air Comix has failed to say.

Dave

[King]

Re: Air Comix

Gee, ya suppose that may have helped in the decision on the cover photo? Which by the way is the second year in a row Sept Fury has been on the cover. To all those who actually brought their racers to Reno to compete, stand up and hold your head high as you deserve all the applause. Regardless of what Air Comix has failed to say.

Dave

And Mikes other two air-racers don't count?

[lowpasskid]

Re: Air Comix

Yeah, you probably were...none of us ever read that, unless as part of a dare. It gives me that not-so-fresh feeling when I pick it up.

whats wrong with air classics?(dont look at me in that tone of voice)
saw my first issue a couple months ago,thought it was neat.

[John H]

Re: Air Comix

Air Classics has many times not featured the winning airplane on the cover. Don't know why. I know I got that issue from 99 but don't remember... sad about the recycling.

John

[SCEPTER]

Re: Air Comix

(dont look at me in that tone of voice)

cool,now i have something new to say to my wife

btw.mol is part of sept.pops team.

I have a 1996 air classic on the races and the coverage was a lot better

[Randy Haskin]

Re: Air Comix

whats wrong with air classics?(dont look at me in that tone of voice)
saw my first issue a couple months ago,thought it was neat.

This isn't really the appropriate forum to discuss the merits (or lack thereof) of Air Classics. I will say, though, that there are a lot of people who have a lot of dissatisfaction with the whole act.

Speaking in general terms, AC was a great magazine for many years, but over the last two decades it has suffered from leadership that angered many warbird owners, pilots, photographers, and fans for many reasons. On top of that, the journalistic coverage has been on a constant slide to the gutter. There are also those who really hold the editor of AC in very low regard, and think the magazine is barely worth the pulp that it's printed on.

I won't go that far, because I haven't personally been involved with any of the issues with the editor (there are plenty of folks on AAFO who have, though) and I think the magazine features some outstanding photography (although the style is getting tiresome and repetitve after seeing it over and over and over and...). Back issues of AC also serve as a great historical archive to follow the development of the warbird movement from the late 60s to the early 80s.

That being said, I think there are significantly better magazines that currently cover the warbird movement *and* are owner/pilot/fan friendly.

[speeddemon]

Re: Air Comix

whats wrong with air classics?(dont look at me in that tone of voice)
saw my first issue a couple months ago,thought it was neat.

Well, I guess if you've never seen it before, then you might feel that way.

However, those of us who have been exposed to "There I was" O'Leary, have seen a definite change in the way the magazine reports things--probably about the time Mike took over from Ed Schempf as Publisher of Challenge Publications. Air Classics used to be a great publication. I'd say the heyday was in the 1980's. John Tegler used to do great Reno reports (taken with a grain of salt, naturally), and there were lots of black and white RACING photos taken by Bucky Dawson, Jim Larsen, Gerry Liang, and Neal Nurmi. There were usually a few color 'gatefolds' thrown in as well.

Tegler was thrown out around '93-'94. In fact, the '94 Reno coverage was strictly a pictoral, with no write up at all. About '97 or '98, Mister O'Leary started making it about 'him'...with his 'there I was, hanging out of the back of the Challenge B-25' stories. The Reno coverage turned into a series of 'sidebar snippets'. It started featuring more pictures of the owners and pilots, and less of the racers or the action. Now granted, it is all full color now...but there is no 'reporting' of the actual race.

I kind of liken it to what Bernie Little used to do in the Unlimited Hydroplane world. He would put out his Bernie Book every year. It started out as a press book about the team and the sponsor...but each successive year, it had less about the boat and races, and more photos of Bernie 'with' someone. Oh look...here's Bernie with President Bush. Here's Bernie with singer Bob Seger. Here's Bernie with fellow Heratio Alger award winner....etc. It became about him and not about the product....to the point that it became a parody of itself.

Air Classics also used to be great about covering the various warbird airshows....Oshkosh, Tico, Breckenridge, Madera, Shafter, etc, as well as having great aircraft profiles, and such. But in the '80's, they decided to do a spin-off magazine called Warbirds International...and most of the interesting stuff went to that publication. Except the air racing stuff.

Sigh.

So, enjoy Air Classics for what it is. But those of us who have been around a while...who have seen Mister O'Leary become the egomaniacal entity that he is, and have seen warbird owners fall over themselves to try to get their picture in the magazine are just a little bit skeptical. And as I said in my original post, to 'recycle' photos from six or seven years ago, 'just because you can' is pretty sad. It screams "hey, look at what "I" was able to do, and you guys weren't.....and you're probably too stupid to realize you've seen these before".

Just my .02

[Shawn Aro]

Re: Air Comix

He one time used Ron Burda stuff and i herd he wrote a threnting letter to O leary Shawn

[AAFO_WSagar]

Tough Being at the Top

I've sat and watched this thread for a while and can hold my tongue no longer..

Firstly, I'm also a bit "disappointed" with this year's coverage of Reno in AC... Some of Jim Larsen's comments and definitions of terms were... well a bit patronizing and some, downright wrong..

His definition of what makes a "Mouse Motor" most prominent in my eyes as being incomplete and, just plain wrong. A "Mouse Motor" is one made by Dwight Thorn's Mystery Aire.. Any others would be "Mouse Like" motors... at least in my humble opinion..

OK.. now, in defense of MOL...

He and his contributors have, arguably, the most notable "ink-and-paper" publication out there covering warbirds on a continuing basis. They manage to get inside of many projects, incomplete and complete. The clalmor that the owners go through to get into his publication makes it possible for the rest of us to "be there" through MOL's and other's eyes...

Larsen's coverage of the Stormbirds project has been very complete and timely.

It's really easy for those of us less fortunate than MOL and his team to sit back and turn green (in my case, all shades of the rainbow) with envy for the guy in the photo slot not being us!! But, at least *someone* is getting the shots and information out to the masses.

I've never met MOL, I did meet Jim Larsen, briefly, on the lottery out to P4 a couple years ago.. not what I'd call an overly friendly man but he was working and probably didn't need the distraction of chatting with a fellow shooter..

I've heard a few times that MOL has had some issues with using others photos without permission in the past but due to a situation that cropped up a few months ago, I have to wonder how many times that he's been left hanging out where other's should have really shouldered the blame, or, at least, part of it...

I've been really hesitant to say anything about this but... back that few months ago, a series of shots appeared in both AC and WI that were credited to someone other than who actually owned them. The "contributor" made much noise on the net about it claiming he had nothing at all to do with the said photos getting into MOL's hands..

Well, in this particular case, I happened to be privy to actually seeing the "contributor's" actual email to MOL and, for sure, he made it fairly clear that permission was, at least, implied that MOL could publish..

I mean, after all, you send photos to a publisher, you expect he's going to publish them. There was NO mention of.. "these are not my photos, just informational for you to view.. not to publish".. something to the order of... "from one of my sources" was what was in the email that accompanied the aforementioned photos...

In a recent issue of Warbirds International, in the errata section of the magazine, there was a retraction of the mistaken photo credit, along with a fairly well worded statement of fact on use of images and respect of ownership therein..

Point of all the above being.. I wonder how many times that MOL has used images that later were griped about by various sources, may have been sent to him with implied consent to publish..

There's always two sides to every story methinks..

Just my humble opinion...

Wayne