Plans an Scratch Builders
The problem is that there aren't many plans or scratch builders anymore. Both Sport Aviation and Kitplanes used to have more articles geared to those builders when that was the most common way of building a plane. Today most amateur builders start with some sort of kit, thus the magazines simply follow the readers. Magazine publishers need to sell magazines, so they want to know how many people are going to be interested in a particular story or series before they give a writer the green light. With fewer people scratch or plans building it is harder to sell them on buying those articles. Another problem with scratch or plans built projects from a magazine writer's point of view is that most of these projects come together over many years, so it is hard to put something together within the time frame a magazine editor can live with.
With all of that said, there is still interest in plans built, or especially scratch built, airplane projects if they represent something unique and interesting. If you have or know someone who has such a project please let me know. I am always looking for good story ideas.
Dave Prizio