Something New On The Horizon

Long ago a reader sent me a photograph of a workbench. On it sat a half-finished rudder, a coffee can of Clecos, and a copy of KITPLANES folded open to a builder article, the pages gone soft at the corners from being handled with shop hands. He wrote that one issue or another of the magazine had been on the bench since the late 1980s.

Letters like that one are reminders that KITPLANES is not just a magazine. Since 1984 it has been a shop reference, a shared logbook, and a standing conversation among designers, builders, and pilots of experimental aircraft.

Which brings me to a change I want you to hear from me first. 

KITPLANES will publish a combined November/December 2026 issue that will be delivered exclusively in digital form. Subscribers will be able to read it in the KITPLANES digital library and through our iOS app, using the email address tied to your subscription. Print will resume with the January 2027 issue.

Nothing about the content will change. The features, the builder reports, the flight reviews, our regular columns — all of it is in the Nov-Dec  issue. There may be even more. A digital page has no signature count and no postage weight, which means we can run the full photo sequence on a build step instead of the three frames that fit, and we can put video, links, and full-resolution drawings where a printed page could only give you a caption.

There is a practical side to this. Paper, printing, and postage have all climbed sharply in cost. The increases are hardest on smaller, specialized titles like ours. Consolidating two issues into one digital edition lets us protect the budget for the writers, the builders, and the photographers who produce this magazine, and the quality of the printed issues you will receive the rest of the year.

I know a good many of you keep every issue. I’ve seen the shelves in shops, homes, and in offices. Our commitment to print hasn’t changed. This is one combined digital issue in a publishing year, made so the printed magazine stays strong.

If you are not already set up for digital access, take five minutes before November and do it now. Visit kitplanes.com/FAQ for step-by-step instructions or contact our subscriber services team at AviationCS@Firecrown.com or (423) 888-9810 and they will get your account squared away. If you have a change of address, an expired email on file, or a subscription question you have been meaning to deal with, this is the time. Two important URLS: For the digital issue library: kitplanes.com/mylibrary and for the iOS app: kitplanes.com/iOSapp.

Homebuilders, of all people, understand this. Our entire community is built on the willingness to try a better method—wood to tube-and-fabric, rivets to composites, steam gauges to glass. We keep the airplane; we change the process. Same principle here.

Thank you for reading, for building, and for keeping this magazine on the bench. I will see you in November — on a screen, this once — and back in print in January.

This article first appeared in the 2026 September Issue of KITPLANES magazine.