Wherefort Art Thou, Experimenter?

[Kyle Boatright]

With today's "renew your membership before rates go up" e-mail*, I went down the wormhole of the EAA's website and started reading back issues of various publications.

I read through several Experimenters, which I remembered fondly. I also remembered the comittment was made when The Experimenter went away for the content to be retained in (or added to) Sport Aviation.

Short version: Didn't happen.

Longer version: Seven years later and that content has essentially disappeared. What started as a print magazine, then transitioned to a 30ish page digital magazine with about 20 pages of unique content is gone. In the latest edition of SA, Charlie Becker's tig welding article (spanning an entire page) was the only content that would have been an obvious fit for The Experimenter. You might also argue for Bud Davisson's landing gear article, but um.. well anyway.

There's nothing in the current version of SA to make a 20, 30, 40, or 75 year old say "You know what, building an airplane seems like a really neat thing. I think I'll give it a shot, and here's a good place to start."

Are we forever saddled with million dollar Turbine Geese, safety columns, plus some recycled content**? Is that it? It is baffling to me. None of that does a good job of promoting what EAA is about even with today's "larger tent".


*I signed up for 5 more years.

**PM me for my gripe about recycled content. ;-)