Launch Magazine History of Rockets and Model Rockets Book
 

I have had this book in my Wish List on Amazon since it was announced in 2009.

Today I get an Email from Amazon that it is now available, so I go to the Amazon listing and of course it still says Temporarily Out of Stock.

I have a feeling that the system just hiccupped and coughed out this notice to me, unless it may really finally be going to print??????

Was wondering if anybody knows.

Thanks,

Pure Vaporware.
Less likely than a relaunch of 18mm Cox D8 or AVI Gold Composite motors.

Don,

While I don't have an "insider's" connection to Mark Mayfield, the publisher of Launch Magazine, I don't think that this book ever went to print.

--That I know of. Which isn't much.


Best wishes,

I'd be fairly certain it never did if getting it into print didn't happen on someone else's dime... IOW if there wasn't money they could get ahold of ahead of time to pay to get it in print then I doubt it ever happened. Just like they did with Launch magazine itself-- take the money and RUN like the crooks they are... Later! OL J R :)

I think what happened (getting the message that it was available) was that Amazon Great Britain listed the book, which for whatever reason, kicked me a message that it was available.

Mark hasn't mentioned anything on Facebook. His posts are mainly about teaching at Alabama, and crowing about the football team. He did mention Launch Magazine in a post about the Apollo 8 launch anniversary.

I emailed Mark about a month ago and he never responded. My email ay have gone to the spam folder for all I know.

Anyway I have a request:

anybody that has a complete collection of Launch Magazine, I am willing to pay postage from and to me, so that I can scan all the issues. PM if interested. I used to have the complete collection, but they now lay with the fishes in some landfill....

Timing sucks, I purged my copies just a month ago.

Luke,

Please just stop. Enough is enough. You and a couple others have been fixated on this for years. Any time Launch magazine comes up you cry "crook, crook, crook!"

The people who brought us Launch are really nice, honest fellow rocketeers who got wiped out in the economic meltdown of 2008. They lost their business, their homes, their rocketry collections, everything. Subscribers to Launch, who lost totally inconsequential amounts, are at the very bottom of the list of real Launch creditors. You'll get repaid after all the others, which won't ever happen, because it can't.

Honestly, Luke, it's like you loaned a neighbor your hedge trimmer, their house got wiped out in a tornado, and you go on and on for years about how they're a crook because they didn't replace your trimmer. You act as though they engineered their own destruction to take advantage of you.

Nobody defrauded you, Luke. It's time to stop calling people crooks, who aren't.

Steve

If the book does come out, I would order it in an instant.
That is why it is still on my wish list after all these years.

And as I think I pointed out at the time, that was standard operating procedure in the magazine business. If you have something to offer to replace, do so, but otherwise you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip. Sometimes another publisher might pay for the subscriber list and offer something of theirs as a loss-leader.

I gotta say I lean toward Luke here on this.
If I pay for something I don't get, their name is forever "MUD" unless I'm made whole.
There are small "cottage companies" in rocketry that only produce by "pre order" funds, which I never support.
I don't provide short term financing to businesses that should secure "normal" financing to be in business.
Wayyyyyy to easy to get burned and I don't care if it is for $20 or $20 GRAND.
If you don't have product to ship me immediately upon order, I don't order.... Short of a car built to my order...

No, I won't shut up about it... Your comparing apples to oranges.

There's a lot of things they could have done to "make it right" and they didn't do ANYTHING but "CUT AND RUN". That is not "good people" that's the actions of a thieving scumbag. If you don't like that, well, that's your OPINION and you're welcome to it just as I am. We've all had downturns in life but it's HOW WE HANDLE IT, how we respond to people who were DOING BUSINESS with us *in good faith* by attempting to *make it right* rather than simply taking off and leaving people screwed to the wall that makes the difference.

You have repeatedly portrayed them as "innocent victims" when in fact they were collecting money for projects they could not afford, blowing money on all sorts of things except ensuring they could deliver the product they had promised to deliver to those (like me) foolish enough to think them honorable and actually intending to deliver said product and wanting to support their efforts, solely to cultivate as much income as they possibly could and improve their own image, and then the whole house of cards collapsed due to their mismanagement, and they walked away from it all and left everybody hanging and screwed with little more than a "sorry it didn't work out, poor us!"

THAT is the FACTS of the situation. Sorry that's not to your liking, but oh well. I will say the same about ANY business that does their customers that way. I'm sure someone would like to blame the customers who got screwed out of hundreds of bucks on kits that Sheri's Hot Rockets never delivered after gladly TAKING their money, and some of the last ones who actually DID get product got a box full of junk that was missing parts, rejects or otherwise damaged, incomplete, or unusable parts. OR some of the folks that got ripped off when Red Arrow folded, etc. At least he had actual life issues from what I understand, not just lacking in business skills and ETHICS like that crook Mark Mayfield...

Later! OL J R :)

Exactly, GH...

I know a lot of businesses went through hard times... that is ALWAYS happening to some degree or other. That doesn't excuse unethical behavior, PERIOD.

While they were putting out a glossy and high quality magazine with great contributors, making it attractive and worthy of supporting since I and many others wanted to see more of that sort of thing, MM was throwing huge expensive parties for the crew of Apollo 7 (since Walt Cunningham was one of those great contributors he was working to shmooze along with a lot of other "big names" in aerospace, etc) and making fatcat donations to the Internats team to shmooze his way into and ingratiate himself with the NAR leadership and bigwigs, while his business was "failing" and ultimately collapsed and "couldn't continue" so they just pulled up stakes and moved on... blew a little warm smoke up people's butts about doing an E-zine and other stuff that never happened that would have at least attempted to recompense the people HE SHAFTED out of money (including me).

Those are the antics of a no class used car salesman trying to shmooze his way into a country club he can't afford, on someone else's dime, not "good people". That's the sort of crap a first class scumbag does. If you're gonna go in business, and get people to back your efforts, you tend to BUSINESS first, and make sure they get the product they PAID FOR... *THAT* is what "good people" do and thieving scumbags DO NOT DO.

Later! OL J R :)

Spotted this on Amazon today:

https://www.amazon.com/Launch-Magaz...t=Mark+Mayfield

I added this to my wish list; just have to wait a year for it to be published.....

LOL, not me! :eek:

Vaporware.

Cool! :cool:

I will buy a copy when it comes out.

I will buy several copies if any of the articles I wrote for LAUNCH are included. :D

Vaporware

Not if it ever ships. ;)

Avalon Hill, customer service or lack thereof.
 

Hi all,

Back around 1998 Avalon Hill (board war games, etc.) went out of business.
I'd subscribed to their bi-monthly magazine for years. However, instead of a
refund for the non published issues, I received monthly copies of a P/C game mag.
for the duration of my sub.

Good on them. Flying Models Magazine (Carstens Pub.) just hosed us back in 2014;
nothing, nada, not even a btw, sorry...

Bob
p.s. a year or so ago I received the parts and decals to build a SPEV. The balsa transition, and
Agena (?) part looked as if they were turned with a dull blade on a wobbly lathe. Was offered
a $10 credit on my next order...they'll take hours to sand, level, fill.

Yeah I see the crook is at it again... LOL:) OL J R :)

Yep, difference between class act and a CROOK. At least Avalon Hill did the RIGHT THING and either substituted equivalent product for what you paid for... or they could have offered a refund.

CROOKS AND THIEVES do like Flying Models Magazine (Carsten) and Mark Mayfield (LAUNCH magazine) did, which is just CUT AND RUN WITH THE MONEY and screw everybody who had subscribed for product IN GOOD FAITH that they NEVER DELIVERED, and made NO EFFORT WHATSOEVER to make right, which is the very definition of THEFT.

I don't purchase from THIEVES and CROOKS! OL J R : )

Well, just got notice that the publishing date has now been pushed out to May 1, 2024.
I am not holding my breath.

still stringing the suckers along........

The only way I'd consider buying one is if it comes directly from Amazon, not just brokered by them. I absolutely will not pre-order. I renewed my magazine subscription for 2 years right before they went under. If Mayfield is an upstanding individual, he should send out copies at no cost to those of us who were screwed.

THAT post needs a great big “Like” button. AGREED!

Pure VAPORWARE.

YUP!!! When will people learn those jokers have ZERO reliability and deserve ZERO trust or business...

ABSO-FRIGGIN-LUTELY!!!! Well said!

That dead horse needs to be beaten into submission .
No mercy for scamulators.

That guy's name will FOREVER be MUD as far as I'm concerned.

Agree completely!!!

Ding Ding Ding Ding !!!

Anyone that falls for anything from these 'publishers' now is at fault on their own.