In the Spring 1997 issue of High Flight we included a "Reader Feedback" survey and I asked our members to "Drop that balsa, push back from the workbench and take a break from your latest project for a few minutes... " to fill out the one page form. When the "dust settled," we received over 900 responses by mail and fax. I asked students from the Math Department of Michigan State University to help compile and average the raw data. Fared copies of many responses were sent to President Dean and we were surprised by some of the feedback.

While our members indicated that they spend more than 5 hours a week participating in R/C activities, 8 out of 10 have never attended the annual I.M.A.A. Rally of Giants. Also, while they enjoy the chapter reports,- over half of those responding reported they only fly at their local fields.

When it came to magazine content, 97% felt High Flight fulfilled their giant modeling magazine needs. Eleven readers wrote that they wanted to see less Chapter Reports and more technical articles. The survey told us you enjoy the Tail Feathers, Builders Corner, Specifically Speaking and construction articles. Our advertisers will be happy to see that all but 9 of the returned surveys indicated that they "Always read" our advertising, looking for that new giant airplane product.

The readers next giant scale aircraft purchase was evenly divided between engines, kits and radios. Lower priced engines, easy to build kits and longer life batteries were some of the things you would like to see the industry develop.

It was no surprise to see that the average age of those responding to be 62. We read the responses and found that you spend your time building and flying model airplanes. Both President Dean and I were somewhat surprised how few of our members utilize computers. But that could be due to the fact that I have to use one daily to produce High Flight so it was natural that I felt "everybody does it." But you would rather spend your time at the flying fields or building models. The amount of our members who have and use computers will surely increase in the future.

I would like to thank the hundreds of members who took the time to complete their Readers'Survey. The information that we received is invaluable to us since this is a member based publication. If you have any other thoughts or concerns, feel free to give us a call at 248-628-0917 or fax at 248-628-7800. It's always a pleasure talking to I.M.A.A members either on the phone or when we have the opportunity to meet in person at fly-ins or shows like Toledo.

It's the time of year that we are planning our future reviews and construction articles. As we all know, when it comes to building and writing about large aircraft, it takes much more time, experience and interest than smaller models. So we would like to know what you would be interested in seeing built or reviewed in the next year.

If you have a particular model or product you would like to see either built or tested, please send me a note. We will do our best to build and test what you want to see in 1998. Speaking of 1998 ..... Happy Holidays from all of us at High Flight!