Seeking Your Input - The Future of the Beartracks Newsletter for 2026 and Beyond

[jaredyates]

Thank you to everyone who is reading this, and participating in the Bearhawk community. Thank you especially to the many folks who have subscribed to the Beartracks newsletter, whether this is your first year or your 30th! We are at a crucial point where I really need to hear from you.

First, let me start with a list of things that I believe to be true:

• The world is changing in many ways. The Bearhawk community is changing in ways that aren't yet settled, with regard to the Virgil/Bob intersection. The paid-for media landscape continues to change as it has for many years, now even more thanks to language model AI. We need to make some changes to the Beartracks newsletter too.
• As you know, while I help edit and assemble the Beartracks newsletter, it is officially Bob's publication.
• The Bearhawk community is big enough to support the newsletter in its current form, but it is looking quite possible that we are going to see a new divide within the community between the kit builders' supplier and the plans/scratch builders' supplier. I don't know how big this divide will end up being, and I worry that the scratch builder community alone is not big enough to make the Beartracks worthwhile in its current form.
• Regardless of how things are eventually settled between Virgil and Bob, the newsletter will always be better when it includes content from kit builders and scratch builders, and kit builder content will always be welcome. But I'm nervous about depending on kit builders contributing content, especially if the divide deepens between Bob and Virgil.
• The last thing I want to do is collect subscription money from folks for a 2026 newsletter, and then not be able to generate enough content to provide a newsletter that yields clear value for the subscription price. A few months ago I disabled new auto renewals, at least while we have this discussion.
• I think our community needs an actively-distributed information source that people subscribe or opt-in to. Not just a forum that is available for you to visit, but a thing that gets sent to your inbox. The reasons for this include distribution of safety updates and hazards, building community and inspiration, technical knowledge distribution and archiving, and news from Bob (and Virgil at any point he is willing). There is hopefully a minimum standard of quality for information that does make it into the newsletter, with Bob still having an opportunity to comment on the information that is included in the outgoing content.
• As long as I'm alive and there is an internet, I'll be doing everything I can to maintain the availability of the Beartracks archive and the forum archive.
• Most of my effort these days in handling the newsletter is in managing subscriptions (maybe 60%). Who is current, who needs to renew, etc.
• The next most significant effort category is in the formatting of the content into a printable pdf (this is maybe 10%).
• The next source of effort goes to beating the bushes to round up enough content to fill a newsletter each time. Everybody is busy, and for most folks, writing newsletter content conflicts with building or flying time. The most precarious part of my role is hoping that I'll be able to get enough good content each quarter. This and the Bob/Virgil uncertainty are the two main reasons why the status quo is not sustainable.
• I do not pay myself out of the Beartracks income. It is not my livelihood. The current subscription money goes to writers and internet expenses for any of the Bearhawk-related websites that I am involved with. While I thank all subscribers sincerely for their financial support and it greatly helps the community, the newsletter is not a personal revenue source. Losing subscription revenue does not commit me to rice and beans for three meals per day.

Based on the above list of things I believe to be true, here is my proposal for what 2026 should look like for the Beartracks newsletter:

• We should transition away from the current subscription payment model. Maybe it becomes a "pay what you want" model, maybe it becomes totally payment-free. Anybody on an automatic renewal payment plan who feels like their payment occurs too close to the end of 2025 and feels short changed would be eligible for a refund. This would eliminate all of the payment/subscription maintenance work on my end.
• Access to the 1995-2025 archive would still be available for purchase, with the price going down as time passes, maybe settling to something like $50 in the long term. Revenues from archive access could still help pay the internet bills for hosting the archive and forum for a while.
• We should expect the quality, quantity, and exclusivity of Beartracks content to go down. We'll stop sending money to contributors, which I don't think has been a key motivating factor for most of them anyway. For example, you would expect less to see a new, fresh article, neatly formatted, and instead expect to see a link to someone's already-published build log post or forum post. We could still host fresh and original content if anyone wanted to send it, but we would more often be pointing out noteworthy content that has already been published elsewhere.
• There would be no paper edition. As of now, this will severely impact one person for sure, but I can work with him individually to find a solution. He's not reading this.
• The frequency of communication could theoretically increase from quarterly to perhaps monthly, depending on how much content we can find.
• Think more "Avbrief" and less "Kitplanes".

Here's the important part at this stage!

Tell me what you think, if you haven't already! Reply here, email me, call me, send a carrier pigeon.

What do you think of my assumptions? Do any of them feel not true to you?

What do you think of my proposal? Will it be "good enough" as a Bearhawk builder/operator/dreamer, scratch builder, new kit builder, legacy kit builder?

Do you have any ideas that sound better than my proposal, that are also sustainable? Are there any other E-A/B Type communities that have a better model?

You all are some amazingly smart folks and I look forward to hearing from you. I would like to firm up the plan for 2026 soon enough that we can stop renewals if necessary, and make sure everyone is aware.

At this point I welcome any and all feedback. Please be honest and open, you won't hurt my feelings. I want to ensure that we provide the most value, that is also sustainable, to the community.

[Battson]

Hi Jared,

I am confident that AI has largely replaced the need for a lot of paid mainstream "instructional" media already - it's just the pace of change for human habits which is delaying the transition. It will fully replace that need in future. It's only a matter of time.

Right now AI is not great with fine technical details, but they will fix that soon enough.

I suspect the future solution is a specially trained AI chat bot (this is already possible today, and it's not expensive). It would have been trained on everything Bearhawk, from the forum to plans and instructional documents. It would have on-going access to the Bearhawk body of knowledge (good AI tools can already consume all kinds of media). While the builder would always be responsible for checking the facts, the AI tool would save (will save) hundreds of hours of research, simplifying and accelerating the process.

That only leaves a gap in the market for "entertainment" media - and I think the Bearhawk market is too small to support that.

[Dpearson]

Hi Jared,
I'm replying here to keep the thread active and hopefully encourage active discussion.
My $02:
1. I've really appreciated the Beartracks content over the years, including the hard-copy back issues that came with my circa-2006 kit. It's really helped me stay motivated on my build, and provided useful guidance along the way.

2. The content I've found most enjoyable has been builders' tips and tricks, progress reports, "fun things to do with Bearhawks", and some of the "lookback" at build and design guidance (reviewing old articles for guidance on topics such as mounting fuel tanks, the first aux tank designs, seats, etc.). The early issues give a great window into Bob's "design intent", particularly during the periods of active design evolution.

3. Quarterly updates were too infrequent for my tastes. Monthly sounds awesome!

4. Your curation of the content has been great! Thank you for your your past work on this, and I really appreciate your commitment to continuing the publication in a reimagined form.

5. I think the "go forward" publication should serve the entire Bearhawk community of builders and owners of completed airplanes. This would include scratch builders working from a hard-copy of Bob's official plans, to those just starting off on their build journey with a "latest and greatest" kit from Virgil, including build-assist customers. In between those two extremes, there's plenty of folks out there with projects of varying vintages, at varying stages of completeness. Of course we should consider prospective purchasers of completed airplanes, and those pondering whether to jump into the builder's fray. Pragmatically, a "Bob" publication may not be best position to cover this spectrum of readers unless the Virgil/Bob issues are constructively resolved.

6. As Kitplanes/Avweb/etc.. begat Avbrief, maybe there is an opportunity to invent a new publication? My thought on ideal content in a monthly "Bearhawkish" publication would be a balance of:
a. Designer updates - does Bob have any projects underway? How are those going?
b. Builder (scratch and kit-builder) updates - First flights, milestones, tips and tricks, debacles.
c. Updates from Virgil and Avipro team: how are the kits evolving, what improvements are they making as volume ramps, and what benefits might these have for those that have builds in progress? For example: lighting kits, avionics bundles, upholstery, interior kits, FWF kits...
d. Updates from the build assist centers
e. Supplier info (yeah, ads, maybe reviews, taking the last page of the existing Beartracks to the next level)
f. "Adventures with my Bearhawk" articles

Maybe the Virgil/Bob situation precludes some of the above. Or maybe it will be resolved and all the above could be delivered under the "Beartracks" name. Regardless of publication name and IP/trademark rights, I figured I'd just put the "stuff I'd like to have pushed to my inbox" wish list out here!

Comments and TOMATOFLAMES welcome, of course!

Dave

[gregc]

Jared,

Here are some initial thoughts to promote discussion. I reserve the right to completely change my opinions and apologize in advance if any of this is provocative. I encourage others to disagree. I don’t think there is a “right” answer.

The Bearhawk community is now larger and more diverse than in the past. While this is a great thing in principle it also means that it may not be possible for the newsletter to meet everyone’s interests. The range from scratch builders to kit builders to people willing and able to pay >$400K for Bearcraft Aircraft to deliver a completed airplane may simply be too broad a target audience. It was possible in the past when the kit company was a more or less natural extension of the original plans built community and we were all closer to scratch builders philosophically but this is no longer true. Putting aside the FAA’s 51% rule legal fiction, builder assist airplanes are essentially production aircraft and I think this is likely to drive the kit company towards behaviors more typical of legacy manufacturers.

Absent any leadership from Virgil or Bob what what should Beartracks focus on and what can/should change?

- It think it makes sense to eliminate/reduce the administrative work required. Dropping the subscription model and moving toward an Avbrief type email newsletter it a good idea. I support some low friction way for people to pay something. There are always costs in one way or another.

- I would like to have Beartracks focus on curating and distributing the “official” safety, engineering change notice and similar information. The Forum is a wonderful source of information but user forums inevitably includes things that are just plain wrong. The archive and Bearhawk Tips is extremely useful but often overlooked. We need some reasonably authoritative source of best practice information. To that end, I’d like to see Bob continue to ‘own’ the newsletter in that sense.

- I’d like to see Beartracks continue to lean toward the home builder end of the spectrum. Everyone is welcome and I wouldn’t suggest ruling anything out but I’d like to see more EAA and less AOPA if that makes sense.

Greg

[Chewie]

That last sentence nailed it. In fact I'd go a step further and suggest more "Experimenter" and less EAA / AOPA.

[Utah-Jay]

I no longer receive Beartracks, it had entertainment as I liked the articles on new first flights but we seem to get those on the forum.

I became disenchanted when dirty laundry was posted… I thought that was inappropriate, that was pretty much the end for me.

[jaredyates]

Thanks for the feedback so far, all of it is helpful!

[sherrre]

Jared,

I see Beartracks as still having a place in the community. Although I haven’t started my build journey, and thus haven’t subscribed, I would like to see the following:
1. A place for engineering change notices
2. A place where builders who do something unique/innovative to their aircraft can write a more detailed guide than the forum model allows. The forum is great but some things are better in article form.

I would propose the payment structure go to a one time fee for access instead of a subscription model.

Ryan

[Westward_Flyer]

I’ve dreamed of building my bearhawk for many years and am getting closer. I will likely do the builder assist option for a model 5 in 3 years. I think that you bring up some deeper concerns that I have and maybe some other members have about the future of the bear hawk community.

Regardless of whether you built from scratch or a kit or builder assist at the end of the day, this community is not just a social meeting ground but a vital resource to promote safety both in building and flying these planes. I can’t help but feel uneasy about what is going on between old and new ownership. I hope that it can be resolved in a mutually beneficial, respectful, and mature fashion. I think worst case scenario would be a dissociation between kit builders and scratch builders and Bob and Virgil.

[Bcone1381]

I think worst case scenario would be a dissociation between kit builders and scratch builders and Bob and Virgil.

One group exists, not two. We are all Bearhawk Builders. Beartracks and Bob's designs birthed this brotherhood.

We fabricate, we assemble. We gather data. We experiment. We improve. We make our own decisions. We search for industry best practices and share with each other our findings while confident that something better will be discovered by our colleagues in the future. So our builds and ship utility improves as well. Bob and Virgil designs and methods have evolved from the groups discoveries.

Working humbly together as a brotherhood and sisterhood with flexibility and an open mind for constant improvement brings us joy. Hirarchy is absent. Heterarchy rules. It's safe (socially and relationally) to error and we celebrate when we succeed.

Beartracks and bearhawkforums.com has fostered this for me. Facebook not so much for me and I think I know why.

Conflicts that exist outside of our group do not have to infect us. Realizing that "infection is possible" can give protection against it.

[Chris In Milwaukee]

Preach! :-)

[Westward_Flyer]

Thank you for your perspective, it is beautifully articulated and gives me a lot of reassurance. I have visited this site at least weekly for 5 years now and look forward to being a contributor from my build and then adventures based out of Soldotna Alaska.

[Frank]

I suggest making Beartracks a feature of the forum rather than something separate from the forum. Also, make the archives searchable from the forum. I find myself using Google AI more and more to find all kinds of answers to life’s questions. So, I agree that AI should and will be a part of the Bearhawk future. People have varying opinions of the internet and the value of its various options. If I don’t get answers or feedback one way I’ll maybe get it another way.

I would be thrilled if Bob were to become an active presence on the forum. I talked with Bob a couple of times on the phone and count myself lucky to get a couple of email replies to questions. And I can understand he might not want to get inundated with detailed questions and forum chit chat. But I think one way he can protect his brand is to address his audience. So I encourage Bob to publish a little something now and then, right here on the forum. This falls into the category of things I’d like to see in the world but probably won’t. But thought I’d put it out there anyway.

Also wanted to say how thankful I am for the Bearhawk community and the help I often get with the scratch build LSA project. Just imagine the conundrum I’d be in if I had chosen to build something which didn’t have this level of support!

[OhioLSA]

Jared, thanks again for the work you have done and continue to do with Beartracks and for the Bearhawk community. Your assumptions seem accurate, and your proposal is good.

I agree with what Dave and Greg posted, and don't have much else to offer other than to state that I am willing to pay a moderate amount to help support the continuation and improvement of Beartracks. I'd be pleased to see the subscription model replaced by whatever payment model is deemed most useful, including a reasonable one-time "puchase price." So consider me onboard and looking forward to the next iteration of Bearhawk publication, whatever form that might take, and charge me appropriately.

Tom

[noema]

One thing I enjoy most about my journey into aviation, from flying gliders to building a Bearhawk, are the opinions, attitudes, and mind sets. I like the characters, the bias, the preferences. That paired with competence. I have learned so much over the years from people like you. Most importantly, it's not just technical knowledge but more about the courage and will. I know for sure I would have never dared anything close to building an aircraft. I probably would not even have started flying. Yet, here we are, having it for breakfast almost every day.

Jared, wherever you take Beartracks or any other publication, I want to let you know that I value the personal takes the most. AI will make everything perfectly polished with high production value but I think the value will be with the players and their outlooks, systems, and philosophies. These are the interesting bits and pieces, the ones you can imitate and incorporate into your life. Not sure I am explaining this well. What I mean is between all the technical talk is a find your role models quest that has been important to me over the years.

[Untainted123]

I too think the content of Beartracks is good, but it is probably that way because it has been highly curated and (apparently?) vetted and approved by Bob, which was the expectation for any kind of "published" information vs just a "random" forum post. I think there is still an important need for engineering change/safety notices, but already there is a "drift" between 2 different perspectives of what constitutes important notices. Ultimately critical information (safety, regulatory etc) need a way to have a chance to be seen by the most builders AND owners as possible.

I take most of my experience from the Vans forums (VansAirforce.net), but there seem to be some methods that are worth copying from them:
1. Van's the company and Van the designer are effectively one entity. Therefore, engineering notices and things of that importance are propagated via them directly from their website and snail mail to registered owners. We may not have that option here, since it appears R&B Aircraft doesn't have a strong internet presence and I am not sure that R&B Aircraft even knows all the owners of their designs. To me, this is a real gap that Beartracks seeks to fill, but in a way that perhaps more and more people are unaccustomed to (a quarterly newsletter; is it mailed out? email? published only on Bearhawk.tips?). I personally only knew there was a newsletter because a google search took me to Bearhawk.tips site for a question I had, and I realized there was a whole other repository of knowledge. As a new kit owner, I was even more confused by the various communication channels: is Bearhawk.com the company? then who is R&B Aircraft? What is Bearhawk.tips, is that a competitor to bearhawkforums.com? etc. I seem to need to pay for Bearhawk.tips, but is that the same thing as the newsletter? Do I need the newsletter? For me, all that was confusing when first getting into the community. I have figured out most of it out by now, but I would expect we will continue to have more new people facing the same confusion, and maybe even more so now with the current kerfuffle.

2. I am not opposed to paying for good content. I believe the engineering/safety notices should be published far and wide for free. I think the Beartracks newsletter style content can be absorbed into the forums, and include more forum content. I think this could be achieved by just continuing to carefully curate and highlight valuable content and soliciting content, and then posting this somehow into the forums, in a different section perhaps, or a revamped main landing page. VAF has certain features and benefits that require a paid subscription to access or use, for example posting a classified post requires a paid up subscription. We could do similar. Other forums require a subscription to see pictures within posts for example.

3. I believe the forums require a subscription model. Doug, who runs VAF, has existed on a pay-what-you-want model for a long time, but the website suffered in that it wasn't kept up on the tech side, and eventually there was a big expenditure to bring it up to date. I know Jared doesn't put food on the table with this website, but it still costs to upkeep, pay software licenses, server fees etc. I would hate to see this website crash, get hacked, or no longer function with modern browsers for budgetary reasons. So, I support a subscription model for the forums (to include the Beartracks content being put here going forward), and a one time fee for all back issues beyond a certain date. Whether that all stays on a separate website might be a technical, and perhaps legal question I don't have enough insight into (who technically owns the content of Beartracks? Is there a risk of that content being removed or restricted due to the kerfuffle?)

4. It's ok to have respectful disagreements, and different opinions and even business disagreements. This is the natural order of things. There is even a time and place for airing dirty laundry, but I agree with others that official engineering notices or whatever is not the place to do it. I also wish and hope that there wasn't dirty laundry to air, as I believe whatever the kerfuffle is, will end up diminishing the "brand" overall. I don't know (as I stated above it's confusing) where all the delineations are between Bearhawk (Avipro?), Virgil the man, R&B Aircraft, Bob the man, and who owns what and what parts are "he owns it, but I print it", or "he owns it, but I build it", etc. I want the airplane design that we call Bearhawks to succeed, for altruistic and selfish reasons. Too many good designs have fallen by the wayside due to kerfuffles like this, and I want aviation in general to succeed long term. In the short term, as a Bearhawk airplane owner, any confusion or sense of uncertainty about the design, brand, support, etc will lead to people questioning whether they should join the community by buying, building, build assisting, or assembling their own Bearhawk. That can only be bad for all of us if this leads to the Bearhawk family of airplanes being an also-ran. So I share the concern above that "I can’t help but feel uneasy about what is going on between old and new ownership. I hope that it can be resolved in a mutually beneficial, respectful, and mature fashion." I realize you weren't asking us to pontificate on the kerfuffle, but it's the elephant in the room, especially if it starts to overlap into "official" content, and disagreement about what content is "official" (ie Beartracks).

5. I wholeheartedly agree with Brooks that the current kerfuffle doesn't have to affect us here, and as much as a possible, I personally have no intention of taking any sides regarding Virgil/Bob/Bearhawk/Avipro/R&B Aircraft, or supporting any factions vis-a-vis scratch builder, build assist, bought-flying etc. I have loved aviation since I was a child, and to me anything or way that gets you in the air to enjoy the dream with me is valid. We all have something to learn from each other, and from each stage of what it takes to get a Bearhawk flying. Someone who bought a flying airplane is no less a Bearhawker than the guy or gal who mined the iron ore and smelted it into 4130 for 2 decades. I enjoy visiting and listening to the stories, ideas, tips and tricks from all of you.

I have more thoughts, and perhaps these are too many already, and sometimes I communicate poorly, but I look forward to having more discussion about the future of our airplanes community.

[jaredyates]

Thanks, it's not too many words, at least not for me!

[Helidesigner]

The Bearhawk community needs a regular publication for safety related information. Everyone needs that and it needs to come from a definitive source, not forum posts. The next most useful Beartracks subject content is building, modifications, maintenance, and flying tips. Again, something everyone should be interested in. First flight stories and a like are interesting and fun but not as important as the first two subjects mentioned. If Beartracks ended up just having the first two subjects I would still be willing to pay a subscription for it.

[gregc]

I personally have no intention of taking any sides regarding Virgil/Bob/Bearhawk/Avipro/R&B Aircraft, or supporting any factions vis-a-vis scratch builder, build assist, bought-flying etc. community.

While I agree with this, there is one important aspect that I think is worth mentioning. The fact that Bob sells plans for every Bearhawk model protects all of us. While Bearhawk Aircraft seems to be doing quite well, many kit companies have gone out of business and left their aircraft and kit owners without the design and construction information required to finish or maintain their projects. While not open source, as Bob does charge a nominal fee for the plans, the plans contain the needed design data and do not encumber you with any onerous restrictions. To me, this is an important long protection.

[Untainted123]

I have many thoughts on that, but in short I don't think that is any kind of long term protection. In addition, none of the minutiae matters in the sense that if it got to that level of animosity, the Bearhawk "brand" from a community and newcomer standpoint is toast. That's bad for everyone.