Air Cache re-launched after nearly 10 years in June 2012. We are adding news every day and database entries 3-5 times a week! We need your help! Are you an aviation buff? Join us!
In 1997, I was a kid with a few Geocities websites. My first digital homepage was nothing more than a Microsoft Frontpage-designed ode to military aviation called “The Cache.” It was picture-heavy, featuring low resolution photos put into the public domain by military forces all around the world. Of course, that was the dawn of the World Wide Web, so the photos were grainy and the technology for making a website wasn’t there yet. WordPress didn’t exist in the 90s.
The Cache went through several iterations, some of which may survive on Archive.org. It eventually moved to HyperMart and then to the now-defunct Xoom.com web hosting service (where they suggested changing the name to Air Cache) before I shut it down more than 10 years ago.
Aviation has always been more of a hobby than a business interest. As a 90s kid, “Top Gun” and similar movies are still kept in my regular rotation.
When sites like Geocities closed down — actually, YEARS before they closed down — the Internet started to homogenize. Quirky little fan and hobby sites disappeared. When I launched my first website, there were literally hundreds of people with Geocities space/aviation websites and dozens of similar communities tailed to all kinds of interests from television to crafts. It was how I’d imagine the 1950s, only on a CRT monitor.
But it was really special in the aviation and military communities. On Geocities, you had soldiers deployed overseas that could, for the first time ever, communicate with people back home en masse. Real pilots could talk about what it was like to fly F-14s and F-18s off carriers and F-15J’s in Japan.
I know that this kind of Internet community isn’t coming back anytime soon, but I’ve always had an itch to re-launch some kind of aviation-related website. I hope you’ll enjoy the photos, facts, and discussion. I’ll leave the comments open on each article, as I write them. I’m also linking to some websites that are still around and recommending great books about the planes, helicopters, ships, and weapons discussed on the site.
The articles will be originally-written by me or any guest writers that want to come in and sound off on aviation. I will stick to the facts, but these aren’t encyclopedia entries. There will be some analysis, as best as I can do given that I am a journalist and not a pilot…
Thanks for visiting! Feel free to contact me guilfoil.j@blastmagazine.com if you want to contribute, suggest stories, or just reach out!
–John Guilfoil