Regular readers of the defunct New RC Soaring Digest — the predecessor of this humble effort — will remember the distinctly mixed blessing that was my monthly editorial entitled as immediately above. In each article I drew mostly on my only slightly coherent stream-of-conciousness otherwise known as whatever was on my mind at that particular moment. While it did, from time-to-time, address the obvious requirement of foreshadowing what was in store for the new issue, In The Air strayed into coverage of wandering grey partridges, itinerant wasp colonies and bicycle trailers amongst a variety of other subjects. It was nothing if it wasn't — well — all over the map, candidly.

That said, In The Air was fun to write and while I can't yet say I'm fully committed to a revival of the series, I am at least thinking about it. Don't tell anybody but I actually miss the monthly ‘chore’ — it was a challenge to routinely come up with something every month which readers would find mildly entertaining at some level. If I somehow managed to also accomplish the goal of enlightening that same readership in some way that was a bonus — and very satisfying, I must say.

A good place to start, this time, will be to address the eight-hundred pound elephant in the room: "is this now a monthly publication kind of like the New RC Soaring Digest?" The answer to that is an unequivocal no, it is not, for two significant reasons:

• First, it's starting in a vastly different place with regard to content. Our tag line is something along the lines of “anything made by humans flying somewhere between the surface of the earth and the Kármán Line”. So, radio-controlled gliders, sure. However that's just one aspect of a very, very  broad subject captured by said tag line. But, yes, you will find RC gliders here, too, and this month's cover photo is an homage to that.
• At the outset and for the forseeable future, BluFly is primarily a creature of social media. For now, the new social platform Bluesky is our primary channel. BluFly is also on Threads and Instagram.4 If there's a more traditional monthly publication anywhere in the future you can count on BluFly backing into that slowly — if at all.

For the record, my definition of a ‘publication’ is a place where new, original content shows up for the first time. Based on that, BluFly is already a publication given it has kicked off the original series entitled BACKSTORY.5 This is where I'm atttempting to tell the very long and very detailed story of how BluFly came into existence and — perhaps — where it is going in the future. However I realise that's a long way from the satisfying thump of a new issue arriving on you doorstep each month. All I can say for now is stay tuned — you never quite know where things will wind up.

Another important lesson I learned in my tenure with the New RCSD was to be brief. I think I may have already failed at that with this article so without further ado, I will wrap up and turn you loose on the social feed for this month's issue. The most recent item at the top and this will have items added to it over the course of May. Also, by all means, please let me know what you think.6

Until next time, whenever that is, fair winds and blue skies.

Terence C. Gannon
Managing Editor

Until such time we have our Table of Contents pages up and running, we are providing the most recent posts from the feed7:

Note that the embedded posts above are from the Bluesky Custom Feed7 which is the ‘reference’ feed for BluFly. Check out said feed if you want to see what else we posted about this month.