Editorials and Letters to the Editor

It was a wonderful event at the Dübendorf Aviation Museum—the 40th-anniversary celebration of “our” magazine. Despite the prevalence of the Zurich dialect, as a Bernese, I felt like part of a big family.

Here and there I spotted a familiar face—including the person sitting next to me. After a brief exchange, I realized I was sitting next to Bruno Ferrari. It immediately dawned on me where I recognized all the other faces from: of course, from the magazine “Modell Flugsport”! It seems to me that this magazine is what connects all these people here.

For me, MFS is a very special magazine: It’s not written by paid professionals who write what they’re told to write. Nor is it purely an association publication filled only with articles that reflect the

association. Here, an editorial is allowed to be sharp and critical at times, as long as the writer isn’t afraid of receiving a corresponding response from the association president via email. (I still remember well the email from the Aero-Club regarding a critical comment about Skyguide.) Letters to the editor are also allowed to criticize an editorial—they are printed uncensored—I’ve experienced that myself.

May the magazine continue to be a platform for free expression in the model aviation community, with critical editorials and bold letters to the editor.

And should the Swiss Model Aviation Association ever disagree with a published opinion, I look forward to a factual response in “Modell Flugsport”!

Ruedi Schmid