What's New
Updates from 1999 - 2007
By Stephen Sherman, June, 1999. Updated July 4, 2011.
Most recent items first:
2007
June, 2007
Ships of World War Two, a major new
section begun, starting with the U.S. Navy
Optimized the Google ads, blending them in with the site
April, 2007, added -
Aircraft photos from 1936-38
Breguet 19
Boeing 247
Curtiss Falcon O-1
Fokker Trimotor
Cradle of Aviation Museum,
in Nassau County, Long Island, NY
Ju-87 Stuka dive bomber
March, 2007, added -
Hall of Fame of the Air (HFA) - a
collection
of
1930's newspaper features about noted aviators and airplanes and some
pages for airplanes featured on the HFA
Ansaldo SVA biplane
Avro 504
Voisin bomber
March, 2007 - Added Howard Hughes page
February, 2007 - Updated copyright dates, did miscellaneous maintenance, and added Amazon Omakase ads. The site is now getting about 20,000 visits per day.
March, 2005 - Added James Howard
article
2004
Fall/Winter - added several articles on Korean War aces written by
Diego Zampini
- Yevgeny
Pepelyayev
- Russian
Aces over Korea
- George Davis
- Winton
Marshall
- Dick Becker
August - Edited out defunct Ebay ads
2003
October, 2003 - Began my blog, The Politburo Diktat, a satirical, faux-Commie look at news and politics
October, 2003 - Added Frank Hawks
page
- Added Alexander
de Seversky article
- Added Charles
Kingsford Smith profile
- Added several images of 1935 "Hall of Fame of
the Air" cartoon features to World War One Aces
articles
September, 2003 - Added Lothar von
Richthofen page
- Added Cradle of Aviation Museum
trip report
Added the Shakespeare Dictionary
August, 2003 - Added Erich
Löwenhardt page
- Added Fokker
D VII article
- Added Focke-Wulf
190 article
July, 2003 - Added Google Adsense links
- 5,500 page views per day
- updated the P-40
Warhawk page
- Added Messerschmitt
Bf 109 article
March, 2003 - Added original blog (see October 2003)
2002
December, 2002 - Added:
Boyd "Buzz" Wagner page
Robert Latshaw page
James Kasler page
Added Iven Kincheloe page
- Added Robin Olds in WWII page
- Added Chuck Older page
- Added Tom
Lanphier article
- Added Walter
Beckham page
- Added Glenn T.
Eagleston page
- Added Glenn Duncan
article
- Added Fred
Christensen page
- Added David Lee
"Tex" Hill - article on a Flying Tiger
November, 2002 - Why Did You Build
This Website? essay
- Vietnamese
MiG Aces by Diego Zampini
- The Search
for Manuel "Pete" Fernandez
- Added Russian
MiG-15 Aces of the Korean War, by Diego Zampini
- Added Soviet P-39 Aces
- Added Robin
Olds article, by Diego Zampini
- 5,000 page views per day
October, 2002 - Added Randy Cunningham article
September, 2002 - Added P-61
Black Widow article
- Added F-86
Sabre article
- Added B-29
Superfortress page
- Added Site Map
- Incorporated CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
into site
- Added Walter
Nowotny page
August, 2002 - Added B-24 Liberator
article article
- Added Steve
Ritchie page
- Added WW2
Aircraft Nose Art page
- Added Japanese
Fighter Planes page
- Added German
Luftwaffe Aces page
- Added U.S.
World War II Medals page
- Added James
McCudden page
- Added links to Ebay
- Added B-25 Mitchell
page
- Added Adolph
Galland page
July, 2002 - Expanded Frank Luke
article
- Added B-17 Flying
Fortress page
April, 2002 - Added pages on U.S. Fighter Planes: F4F Grumman Wildcat, F4U Vought Corsair, F6F Grumman Hellcat, F8F Grumman Bearcat, P-38 Lockheed Lightning, P-39 Bell Airacobra, P-40 Curtis Warhawk, P-47 Republic Thunderbolt, P-51 Mustang
February, 2002 - Shut down parallel site on westnet.com (the
original URL)
- 3500 page hits per day
2001
August, 2001 - Added the World War One Aces section: Richthofen, Rickenbacker, Fonck, Mannock, Bishop, Goering, Boelcke, etc.
May, 2001 - Added the Ed Shaw article
- 3000 page hits per day (nice bump when movie
"Pearl Harbor" released)
- removed most of Altavista links when program
cancelled
- added new "Amazon Recommends" dynamic links
April, 2001 - Expanded the Jabara
and Fischer articles, to reflect info
from Soviet records.
- Added TBF/TBM
Avenger page page
- Added 1944
Aircraft Plants page
- 2000+ page hits per day
March, 2001 - Added X-15 page
- Added Pappy
Boyington's Corsair page
- Added Baa Baa
Black Sheep TV show page
February, 2001 - Added VMF-323, "Death Rattlers" page
January, 2001 - Added Thomas Lynch
page
- Added John Bolt
page
January, 2001 - Added a lot on Pappy Boyington:
- Expanded the Pappy
Boyington article into two pages
- Added a VMF-214
Squadron History
- Added Black Sheep
Aces page
January, 2001 - Added section on Aviation
Pioneers
- Charles Lindbergh
- Amelia Earhart
- Wiley Post
500+ visitors per day, over 1500 individual page hits
2000
October, 2000 - Added page on Fighter Aircraft Manufacturers
August - Added John Glenn article and moved site to acepilots.com
April 18 - Added Erich Hartmann and Flying Tigers pages
March 25 - added Korean War Aces
section
added "Search This Site" feature
March 11 - reformatted many pages with headlines, removed background images (too distracting), added more white space; about 150 visitors per day
March 4 - added Robert Goebel page
February 24 - added Tuskegee Airmen
article,
added Navy Squadron
Summary Table (only for data junkies!)
added Table of
Aerial Victories for Naval Fighter Planes - Hellcats, Wildcats,
Corsairs (only for data junkies!)
February 17, 2000 - added Ensign
Tillar's story to VF-2 article,
made separate page for VF-2,
updated McCampbell
article,
added image banner to main page
February 14, 2000 -
- revised Robert S. Johnson page
- added Bud Anderson page
- added Navy Squadrons page
- added Alta Vista Image and general search capability
February 9, 2000 - about 120 visitors per day, added Amazon.com search boxes to pilot pages
January 5, 2000 - expanded Tommy McGuire article. Number of visitors dropped to 100 per day over the holidays.
1999
December 23, 1999 - expanded VF-31: Nooy, Hawkins, & Wirth article, made new page
December 12 - expanded Ham McWhorter article, made new page
December 8 - expanded Don Strait and John Loisel articles, made new pages
December 5 - added Bruce Porter page, averaging about 140 visitors per day
November 9 - added John Mitchell/Yamamoto Raid page
November 4 - website featured on Netscape's "What's New" - 750 visitors that day
October 23 - added Chuck Yeager page
October 13-20 - split out many pilot pages, as the main pages were getting too big to load quickly. Also began offering books thru Amazon.com Associates program
October - about 90 visitors per day
October - added Bill Dean and VF-2 page
September - added Tommy Blackburn & Roger Hedrick articles, based on reading The Jolly Rogers
August - about 50 visitors per day
July 20 - Split out USAAF MTO pilots.
July - expanded articles on the USMC fliers, based on reading The Cactus Air Force
June 16, 1999 - Launched website, originally a word document that I had created from surfing through many other websites
MY THANKS TO:
I started this website as a purely individual effort, "flying solo" if you will. But I have received so much help from so many people, that I would like to recognize them.My wife, Elaine, for putting up with this, and all my other hobbies
My Dad, for his service in the US Navy in WW2 and for sharing with me his love of history
Joe Clark, who shared photos from his family's collection, seen on the Clark Gallery
Bill Cline, who shared his fathers' WW2 photos, seen on the Nose Art page
Charlotte Maloney Davidson, who generously donated to this website her first edition of Robert Sherrod's History of Marine Corps Aviation in World War II, so that others could find out more about those men and those events
Bruce Gamble, author of a couple books on Pappy Boyington, who was equally generous. Thanks to Mr. Gamble, the site now has a lot on the famous Pappy Boyington.
Bob Goebel and Ham McWhorter, two aces featured on this site, who "made my day" by communicating with me
Eric Hammel, author of military history, who generously let me have a number of review copies of his books and a lot of his time and insight
Dan McAnarney, who provided me with a lot of good feedback on the Ed Shaw article.
Diego Zampini, who has added lots of good info on the Korean War and jet age aces: Russian, Vietnamese, and Americans.