BEEEEEP.
You failed the "keep everyone happy" part. I like RV-8 builder Lauran Paine Jr., and I swoon over Lane Wallace with a fair amount of regularity.
See, I see flying as something more than a technical endeavor. I see it as a passion. You just got rid of the passion and that's fine if that's not your thing.
But I have a hard time believing that 800,000 people who travel to Oshkosh every year would agree.
At the heart of this never-ending debate is the reality that people want EAA to be just for them. It's a completely unrealistic expectation. We have to figure out how to get stuff that interests US in there while acknowledging there's stuff that interests other homebuilders that we might not care about.
I do find it a bit interesting than people in this thread say they haven't read SA in months and then declare there's nothing in there of interest to the homebuilding community. How can that possibly make sense?
And again, I'll point out that in a month in which Ron Wantajaa -- RV guy, by the way -- had an article on experimental aircraft accidents and fatalities -- people are STILL saying there's NOTHING in SA that's for them. The whole recent issue was about safety. How does that not apply to all of us?
Personally, I don't CARE about the grand champion at Oshkosh. Those people aren't like most homebuilders. Give me an article about properly installing washers, or flight testing a homebuilt, or mastering the paperwork of getting an experimental registered. Or give me a story about the guy who built an airplane just on determination and doesn't feel the need to park in the last row at Oshkosh (OK, that's not really possible, those guys really ARE the forgotten members of EAA. :*) )
All of those subjects, with the exception of the last one, have been in SA in recent months.
By the way, the fuel efficiency article was in
May 2008.
The Rutan Catbird, originally featured
in 1988, was mentioned
in the June 2011 issue (and should've had a link to an online article EAA wrote)
In this month's issue, there WAS a really good discussion of ADS-B and what we should do, but
it was actually a Garmin ad. Still, I found it full of great information. It's a start and it will lead me to seek more information, specially when I should sell my non-ADS-B airplane. :*)
I think it's important to utilize ALL of the communication tools that EAA has, that includes electronic newsletters and the videos (there was a good 6 minute piece on an '09 grand champion plans built that comes to mind). I'm pretty sure, though, that a few of those recent layoffs were in that department.
But, yeah, less Mac McLellan would be OK with me.