About this site

For those of you who may be curious about what goes into making this site, or the history behind it:

This started out as a subsection of a personal site back in the mid-1990s. There were, perhaps, 5 aircraft reviews (the Monogram P-38, X/YB-35, P-51A, deHavilland Vampire, and some of the rockets.) I did this for the same reason I do it now - it's a hobby, and I enjoy it. Back then, I had an early Kodak digital camera which could only get 320x240 resolution pictures, didn't have a lot of control, and ate up batteries like a kid eats candy.

Since then, I've dumped that digital camera for a more flexible Polaroid PDC-640, which can get multiple resolutions and adjust itself better to the environment. It also has removable memory cards, which is a nice touch. PIctures are scanned in via an Info systems flatbed scanner (which will likely be replaced when I can do it with a newer, USB-compliant model.)

The site was originally written with Netscape Composer from the Netscape Gold package. I've gone through multiple HTML editors since then (and found I enjoy hand-coding the site, as it gives me more control.) I've dumped the frames (which were getting to be a pain) for a simpler, cleaner layout. My preferred editors are either the Coffecup Software 8.0 editor, or LiquidFX 3.1 when I'm updating the site in Windows. When running BeOS (which is a wonderful operating system that deals natively with things like digital cameras,) I use CoolCat - a nice, fast, text based HTML editor with syntax color coding.

The site is still a personal project, always evolving, though - since I'll admit I'd like it to get more attention - I've opened it up to model review submissions. I can't build fast enough to keep a site updated constantly, and the artificial deadline takes away some of the enjoyment of the hobby. I've recently signed up with WebTrends Live to keep track of who's interested in what on the site, as well as added a guestbook and forum (at the time of writing, not used as much as I'd hope.)

The thing that's suprised me most is that people seem... awed... by my models. I think everyone goes through this - I think they're rather rough, and can point out all the flaws. It's a common malady among modellers, at least from what I've seen - but it seems to be what keeps people from submitting THEIR models (I can never believe it when people say their models aren't "good enough" for the site! Believe me... they are.) I keep learning, and want to help others do better as well. It's a hobby, it's here to be enjoyed.

So... enjoy.