And so it ends. SA Flyer has been killed by not one, but two, fatal wounds.
First, by the idiocy of the SACAA, which has forgotten that it is not just supposed to make the industry safer, but actually develop it.
Second, the magazine industry has been killed by the ‘interweb’. There is a vast sucking sound made by our advertising revenue as it disappears down the tube of Google and social media, with its memes and 2-second info-bites.
Without sufficient advertising revenue it’s no longer possible to print the magazine. Over the past year we tried hard to get back into print, aiming to at least print every third issue. But not only were the costs prohibitive, we no longer have distribution channels. Ten years ago, SA Flyer was sold through almost 1,000 shops – and postal deliveries worked, so we could mail it to over a thousand subscribers, both locally and around the world.
Without print we tried hard to make it digitally accessible, using extra-large fonts and shorter stories. But people don’t like reading magazines on mobile devices. Our readership declined, despite our efforts to maintain the quality we have been renowned for. Like typewriters and 35mm film, magazines have had their day.
So the best thing we can do is not to prolong the dying throes, but to bow out as gracefully as we can.
This doesn’t make it any less painful. I have poured the past twenty years of my life into this publication. It has more than amply rewarded me, which makes killing it off even more painful.
I was tempted to try and either sell it, or even give it away to a good home, that is, anyone able to continue the goodwill that we have built up. But it would not be fair or honest to inflict it on anyone who was enthusiastic enough to take it over.
The final nail in the coffin is the CAA’s obdurate insistence on imposing the 12-year rule on piston engines. I cannot bear to watch 20 percent of our aircraft being consigned to the scrap heap because of what has all the signs of being a power struggle within the toxic walls the CAA.
In my editorials and columns over the past few months, I have tried to give both sides of the 12-year rule conflict. However, in the final analysis, my view is that the CAA is wrong. If it had knowledgeable adults in charge, this would never have happened.
The damage is incalculably large. Many of the smaller businesses will close and hundreds, if not thousands of jobs will be lost. Irreplaceable skills will be forever lost to the industry – and indeed the country.
The closure of SA Flyer is just one consequence of this gross stupidity.
SA Flyer is thirty years old, and I have owned it for a wonderful twenty years. Before SA Flyer I was working with John Miller (for no pay) at his Aero Africa magazine. The deal I had with John was that I would contribute for free, as long as I could fly interesting planes and go interesting places. And I had a fantastic time. Notably: I got to fly an air-to-air refuelling sortie in a SAAF Cheetah, and my wife and I got to stay for free at the best of all lodges.
John was a great photographer and aviation writer, but was no businessman, and so Aero Africa folded. I got on with my business, but the itch to write stuck like a duiveltje on a dog.
I managed to get a mediocre novel published and then found myself bored, so John said I should buy SA Flyer. The idea was that I would be the publisher and John would continue as editor. My remarkable wife Nicola was brave enough to encourage me, and so on 1 January 2006 I took over SA Flyer.
I had never intended to be the editor, but John wanted to spread his wings into the Middle East, so we started Mid-East Flyer and I took over the editorship at SA Flyer.
As editor I wanted to develop the human-interest side of aviation, making it as much about people as planes. My editorial mix, and I daresay my often critical commentary, must have hit the right notes, as surveys showed that we were four times more popular than all the other magazines combined.
My strategy was to build a core of columnists, whom I am honoured to still have as friends. Shortly after I became editor, I received an email from Jim Davis, asking if he could do a regular column and ‘prang’ analysis. As the doyen of instructors – a man who has shared his skills with thousands of ‘pupes’, I welcomed Jim with open arms. We have had a wonderful relationship, with Jim expecting a ‘shit-sandwich’ from me every time he sent his stuff – which was always on time – and beautifully illustrated.
I wanted to make SA Flyer less parochial and so developed FlightCom for the African aviation industry. I needed a ‘bush pilot’ columnist, and a writer suggested I meet Hugh Pryor for a cup of coffee. Hugh was passing through Joburg and must have liked the cut of my jib because, as we finished our coffee, he handed me a memory stick. The contents of that stick provided me with 19 years of priceless stories and pictures of his experiences flying Twin Otters and Pilatus PC-6s in the Sahara, the Sudan and other inhospitable places. Readers with good memories will have noticed that I have now run out of Hugh’s stories so have recycled some of my favourites.
John Miller had met Peter Garrison at Oshkosh Airventure and I was thrilled beyond measure when so august a flying writer agreed to become a columnist – for a very modest consideration, paid in Rands, which meant he was paid less and less over the years. Peter is unfailingly gracious of his time and was happy to enter in long dialogues about subjects as diverse as how wings work – or how to get our Saratoga approved for door-off photography.
Helicopters are a big part of general aviation, and I am honoured to have had writers of the calibre of John Bassi, Jannie Matthysen and George Tonking as regular contributors.
Dave Becker created a historical legacy and Ray Watts and then Morne Booij-Liewes continued the register review.
And there are countless others who have selflessly contributed over the years: Larry Beamish, Fyko van der Molen; Darren Edward O’Neil, Andrea Antel, and so many more. I
For the past few years I have been blessed to have Laura McDermid, who very ably stepped into the gap I created by moving out of Joburg. Laura flies a Pioneer 300 and runs her own business, yet manages to make time for the multitude of demands created by being Vice President of EAA Chapter 322 and to cover stories for SA Flyer. And she has the wonderful ability to repair relationships overcooked by our former advertising sales supremo, Wayne Wilson.
Wayne was a godsend. He hectored and even bullied companies into advertising so successfully that our revenue was more than twice all the other aviation publications combined. Yet I reckon its true to say that all our advertisers had a grudging respect for his abilities – and he had to fend off numerous job offers! With Tami van Heerden or Dan Leitch to do his traffic management, and Emily Kinnear doing layout, we were the most incredible team.
Wayne made SA Flyer profitable beyond my wildest dreams. He enabled us to upgrade ZS-FPI, our old C182, to the almost new Saratoga IITC, ZS-OFH, and enabled me to fund our retirement by building a superlative guest lodge, with which we were thrilled to host Tom Cruise and his team for a few months.
Seeing the writing on the wall for magazines, Wayne left two years ago to pursue his interest in trading exotic cars, having managed to acquire a variety of Porches, Ferraris and other exotic cars from his earnings at SA Flyer.
Since then, financial survival has been a struggle, and it is evident that it’s now time to say goodbye. This has not been an easy decision, but I am confident that it is the right one.
I bid all you loyal readers a fond farewell with many thanks for all your support.