Most "failed" pilots don't demonstrate that an approach is fundamentally and irredeemably flawed, which could be an interesting paper. Instead, they demonstrat

Most "failed" pilots don't demonstrate that an approach is fundamentally and irredeemably flawed, which could be an interesting paper. Instead, they demonstrate that doing something this specific way is too much of a hassle, too unreliable, or too expensive to answer a particular question in a particular context: skills, budget, timeline, resources, alternative ideas, etc. I don't see how you could write pilot results up ("Trust me, I'm usually pretty good at these sorts of things but this didn't work well"?). Meanwhile, disentangling these factors in a rigorous, generalizable way would turn it into an entirely different project.