I’m delighted to have been appointed editor of AeroModeller from the January/February 2014 issue. If the name sounds familiar, it is because I’m the son of the late David ‘Boddo’ Boddington who designed over 500 models and was the editor of RC Model Flyer before Ken Sheppard.
With a father like that I was either going to be attracted to aeromodelling (I was!) or totally reject it (as did my brother John). So for my whole life I have been immersed in balsa and diesel, and looking back to my childhood in the 60s it seems that I advanced from learning to read on Ladybird books to the piles of Dad’s AeroModellers going back to the 1940s. My first flurry of intense activity was as a teenager in the 1970s with a broad grounding in free flight, control line and radio control, before university, work and girls got in the way. Like many readers I now find myself again spending more time aeromodelling as my children leave home.
I am lucky to have known some of the greats of our aeromodelling past, including the late Ron Moulton, a previous editor of Aeromodeller. It was Ron that took the accompanying photo at Old Warden in the Summer of 1967 (Not everybody was a hippy back then!), and printed it in the January 1968 Aeromodeller. Thus I’m a modeller to my bone and my links with AeroModeller go back a long way, but my marketing work in the IT industry has also helped prepare me for this role. Producing software catalogues and marketing collateral to time and budget has many parallels with my new role.
Steve Higginson has done a wonderful job over the last year relaunching Aeromodeller. I am picking up the baton and will wear lightly the long heritage of AeroModeller as we continue to develop the magazine you want to read today. I live and work in the UK and look forward to meeting many AeroModeller readers at events over the coming months.
Regards, Andrew Boddington
The Boddington family at Old Warden in the Summer of 1967 admiring a DH Puss Moth built from the APS plan. From the left, me (Andrew), David, Sarah, John and Jill. Photo, Ron Moulton.
Welcome Andrew, looking forward to your editorship. Thanks also to Steve for getting AM back up and running over the past year.
Looking forward to your first issue, Andrew. As you point out, Steve Higginson has done a great job and you have a lot to live up to. I am sure you will, and I wish you every success in your new role.
Andrew
Great news I wish you well. I have sent Steve Higginson 2 articles over the last year for publication and have heard nothing back at all. If these haven’t been passed onto you please let me know and I will forward them to you for your consideration.
Simon.
Welcome Andrew, the Aeromodeller has come back home at last!
I was deeply disappointed to see it become American, as well as
loosing Steve Dorling as the editor.
Boddo mk 2 at Aeromodeller ,the Worlds a better place already. Hope to provide plans if Andrew
approves.Good luck with the English Aeromodeller
The important thing is that Aeromodeller continues – ideally much on the lines we have seen so far. Yes. I find it a bit glitzy but this is surely a result of the ease with which “artwork” can now be done. Maybe too a bit of the American influence – but remember it is not an English Magazine – it is read world wide.
I feel to that the Editor who ever he may be from time to time does not have an entirely free hand. Possibly not much at all. So all power to your elbow Andrew. You have a demanding and selective readership. Go for it!
Great news! Our beloved Aeromodeller is in safe hands.
Hallo Andrew,
I am very happy that you are the new editor now from AeroModeller magazine a model magazine
with a very long tradition in high quality contributions/features.
My father was a very keen model flyer and was already fond of the AeroModeller magazine several years before i was born.
I have read many of the old AeroModellers magazines however the issues from the sixties and seventies took my special interest.
I hope that you will succeed in your task to give the AeroModeller the push upwards which makes this
magazine so extraordinary.
greetings,
Gerard.
I said I was looking forward to your first issue. I am not disappointed. You have not only maintained the high standard set by Steve – you have actually surpassed it. Well done.
Hi Andrew,
An overdue congrats on inheriting the hotseat & congrats on your first edition of A/Modeller. A good read. (Jan/Feb 2014).
Enough of those Andy & to your requests for ‘How To’s’. Maybe you have read some of my past offerings in Radio Modeller (when active), FSM & AMI (also when active) plus recently A/Modeller. If you can remember/recall them would they be suitable for re-doing? Okay, I fly R/C predominantly – am disabled (with RTP in the back garden when rabbit allows!) If you cannot recall any of my past write ups I can put a CD together with past ofFerings entered for your perusal. Okay, as I’ve already mentioned I am now a R/C modeller, but my offerings can be used (?) against any class of aeromodelling not just R/C. What do you think?
On a number of occasions I have spoke with your Dad via the telephone but never had the pleasure of meeting him in the flesh. Maybe I will when it is my turn for a ROG from the great runway in the sky.
Regards & seaons greetings.
Mike A.
Old boy flyer having difficulty reading small print ,particularly when white small print on pink or grey backgrounds, I think black would be OK. But slightly larger print size would be great. Also larger pictures better quality rather than a lot of small pictures with poor definition. Otherwise the magazine is just right for me.
Best wishes for the future.
I was most impressed with the first issue under Andrew’s editorship,and most of all by his declared commitment to coverage of contest as well as sport models. It is surely that balance which defined the old Aeromodeller in its glory days. The great beauty of a paper magazine is that- unlike the internet where we cherry pick only that of immediate interest- we find ourselves, without consciously trying, keeping in touch with other kindred disciplines . As a lad in the sixties I bought Aeromodeller because I loved sport and scale models, but reading the reports of the Free Flight World Champs was an unexpected window into a thrilling other world. As a direct result, I have traveled to countries I would not otherwise have seen and made many lifelong friends. It is therefore in no way hyperbole to say that Aeromodeller changed my life. It’s deeply satisfying to see it back on course.