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Join airodyssey.net's mailing list! And be advised when airodyssey.net updates its content. Simply enter your e-mail address below. more...	history Read below how airodyssey.net went from being a very small personal homepage to a larger, more popular site visited by over 10,000 people from around the world, every month. March 1998 - It used to be Sergio Ortega's Hangar... April 1998 At 15 years old, Sergio Ortega, from Montreal, Canada, creates his very first homepage, hosted by GeoCities, before it was swallowed up by Yahoo! The website, "Sergio Ortega's Hangar" (named in part by the suburb CapeCanaveral/Hangar in GeoCities), is meant to review air disaster movies every 2 weeks (!) and offer Non Flight Shop aircraft for Microsoft Flight Simulator 5, as well as some non-aviation material. The first movie reviewed was Final Descent. This author had just gotten his first Internet connection at the time, and barely any knowledge of HTML or website promotion. The number of visitors per day was sometimes only one. In the middle of an exam period in the last year of High School, the website is closed, with a reopening date scheduled to be April 12, 1998. "Sergio Ortega's Hangar" would then be known as simply "The Hangar". April 1998 - The Hangar opens its doors September 1998 The Hangar becomes an "aviation e-zine", offering 4 articles monthly, plus one air disaster movie. Interactive quizzes are also offered, just like today, but much less. The layout at the time allowed barely any space for eventual banner exchange programs, so it was soon to be dropped. August 1998 - It is spelled airOdyssey In August 1998, The Hangar becomes airOdyssey. The reasons? Well first of all, it was noticed that there are many, MANY websites about aviation with the same name. At the time, no reference was found about any site named "airOdyssey" or "Air Odyssey". The second reason is simple: the new change of name was meant to signify a new cooperation, as the website leadership passes from one person to... two. In the meantime, airOdyssey moves to Altern.Org, a free independant French hosting service with no advertising banners at all! December 1998 - airOdyssey becomes AIRodyssey Aviation Internet Resources suggests an association. AIR used to be an excellent website, the Yahoo! of aviation. The association included change of logo and colors, in exchange of top exposure at AIR's website, which instantly brought many visitors per day. February 1999 - Move to XOOM January 1999 In February 1999, Altern's servers shut down, since the webmaster has problems with the law. Why? Because one of the members published forbidden pictures, and foolishly, the webmaster of the HOST is held responsible. This brought us to move to XOOM.com. That was before it merged with other sites to become NBCi. There is also a switch of co-authors in the meantime. October 1999 - The dark month The co-author at the time suddenly resigns. AIR vanishes from the Internet, therefore our major sponsor, our major visitor gateway is gone. Immediately, the daily number of visitors freefalls. Under the sudden turn of events, the initial decision is taken to shut down the website, the first phase being the interruption of the monthly five articles. Fortunately, the second or third phase never came up. It was instead decided that the website is "too young to die, but old enough for a facelift", to quote the newsletter distributed to the members of our mailing list at the time. December 1999 - The NEW AIRodyssey December 1999 On December 1st, 1999, AIRodyssey moved to Tripod and unveils its brand-new look, very similar to the one you are seeing right now. Among the new features: an easier navigation, more quizzes, including our famous "Guess The Airline", a brief reference section, and free e-mail service. The results of the makeover were dramatic. The number of visitors went back to its pre-AIR (Aviation Internet Resources) levels, and beyond. Compare for yourself: the counter was in the 3,000's in December 1999, as AIRodyssey was more than one-and-a-half year old. One year later, in December 2000, it reaches 10,000 and more. The positive comments increased. This is also when the website started promoting other sections using a series of advertising banners. April 2001 - AIRodyssey becomes airodyssey.net On April 12, 2001, on its 3rd anniversary, a history page is turned: AIRodyssey becomes airodyssey.net, as it inaugurates its website on its new domain, with a brand-new logo. Easier access, better visibility, and... goodbye pop-up banners! The number of visitors increased steadily. Since then, we have switched web hosting companies two times! September 2001 - Grieving with the United States On the date known nowadays as "9/11", airodyssey.net was updated very frequently. The intention was to inform the people, particularly aviation enthusiasts, unable to access the major news websites due to an overflow of traffic. The first headline on airodyssey.net simply said "Breaking news", with a short description of the very vague collision with the World Trade Center. It would soon become "Multiple attacks on the United States". The visitors count for that single day was not beaten until the summer of 2005. Following the attacks, airodyssey.net published an FAQ about air terrorism and displayed for months the famous "We Remember" ribbon. July 2002 - Another facelift July 2002 It has been said by many visitors that the "color tab" system was easy to use and simply brilliant. Still, a better organization, plus a larger space (considering that the people with a screen resolution of 640 x 480 is now very minimal) were necessary. So, on July 1st, 2002, airodyssey.net unveiled its improved version, with easier and more convenient navigation. April 2003 - Five years The website's content didn't have much change when it celebrated its fifth anniversary. However, the year 2003 was an occasion to test a new technology which allowed the popular Guess The Airline game to update itself automatically, as the author left for a 2 1/2-month trip to Europe. It was an extremely important step. With the exception of some user-submitted quizzes, "Guess The Airline" became virtually the only section regularly updated on airodyssey.net. August-December 2005 - Seven years already! November 2005 airodyssey.net seemed to have remained in an updating hiatus for quite some time, even as it celebrated its seventh anniversary with a special logotype. But lately, the articles and especially movie reviews are being reviewed or are subject to a major clean-up. Quizzes are being prepared, and Guess The Airline continues to attract a lot of visitors. A feature inaugurated the year before, "Help Wanted", finally gave results when the famous United Airlines "Speech" commercial was found, as well as several others. The dull shop section was revamped. A little link logotype is added next to external links. The Birdcast script ("Send this page to a friend!") and several other forms are improved. All little touches designed to help visitors and let them know that airodyssey.net is still alive! January-May 2008 - Ten years, and commercials galore October 2008 The TV commercials section reached 90 commercials in 2008. The videos come from many countries and many years (the 1980s to nowadays). Some of the improvements at the time were better resolution and the suppression of bilingual subtitles when applicable. Another type of commercial collection was also expanded: Guess The Airline! Its 100th commercial was published on May 1, 2008, just in time for... The website's 10th anniversary! Once again, a special logotype was unveiled, mimicking the previous two other anniversary logotypes. Over the years the website evolved, expanded, and adapted itself. One thing that never changed from day one (except during the holidays): our front page always greets our visitors with a friendly airline-like "Welcome aboard"! Not there anymore! Looking back over the years: some features were tested, and later abandoned: Non FSFS Aircraft (2001) Non Flight Simulator Flight Shop Aircraft to download (who still flies Microsoft Flight Simulator 5 in 2006?) a chatroom and a forum (introduced too early in the website's life, causing lack of participation) an aviation postcards service (same as above, plus Airliners.Net started offering a superior postcard service) a flight tracking system and live support (both abandoned by their respective service providers) a very popular airline logotype gallery (taken over by AeroSite following a friendly agreement) a listing of air disaster movies on US television for the week (too complex to update, and useful only to a portion of the visitors) the "Read on the Plane" reviews of inflight magazines (lack of interest from visitors) a guestbook (filled with true visitor comments, and later spammed to death), replaced by a GuestMap in 2006 French-language version (less than 400 visitors during its two-year life, from 1999 to 2000) History of URLs A link indicates an active URL. Warning: they may cause annoying pop-up advertisements to appear! http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/9284 http://fly.to/thehangar http://fly.to/airodyssey http://altern.org/airodyssey http://members.xoom.com/airodyssey http://www.bigfoot.com/~airodyssey http://airodyssey.cjb.net http://airodyssey.tripod.com http://www.airodyssey.net Back to "About us" start page View next page (The Author)
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