Airliners.net is a
Canadian
Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...
-owned,
Australian-based global
aviation
Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' include fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air aircraft such as h ...
website that includes an extensive photo database of aircraft and airports, as well as a
forum catering to aviation enthusiasts. Inititally
Swedish-based, created by Swede Johan Lundgren, Jr., the site originated in 1996 as ''Pictures of Modern Airliners''. It was acquired by the
US company
Demand Media (now known as Leaf Group) in 2007, and underwent a major redesign in 2016.
History
Johan Lundgren, Jr., an
IT student/aviation enthusiast attending
Luleå University of Technology in
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
, created the site ''Pictures of Modern Airliners'' in 1996.
[Rothfischer, Brigitte (February 2005)]
"Best of Airliners.net"
(in German). '' Aero International'': 6–13. Retrieved 3 January 2016. Lundgren had been working on the site during his military service. It initially hosted only his own aircraft photos before a new section was created for other photographers to upload their photos.
In 1997, Lundgren transitioned to a new site entitled ''Airliners.net'' and established a
web server
A web server is computer software and underlying Computer hardware, hardware that accepts requests via Hypertext Transfer Protocol, HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, co ...
in his dormitory room. Three more servers were added, and eventually all servers were relocated to the computer rooms at the university. Lundgren started investing all of his time into the site, although he received help from a growing number of volunteers.
On 27 July 2007, Lundgren announced that the site would be acquired by
Demand Media. It was sold to the company for US$8.2 million. Reasons behind the decision included the difficulty of managing the rapidly growing site, which was by that point supported by 25 servers.
[Lundgren, Johan (27 July 2007)]
"Big News On The Future Of Airliners.net"
. ''Airliners.net''. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
A revamped site was launched on 14 June 2016.
In February 2017, the site was acquired by VerticalScope, majority-owned by
Torstar.
Membership
The site offers free membership, using
online advertising
Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising that uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. ...
instead as a source of revenue. Before the June 2016 redesign, Airliners.net provided three levels of membership: the Photographer Account, Premium Membership and First Class Membership. The latter two required payment, while a Photographer Account could be created for free.
Features
The site has two main features: the photo database and the forum. The database contains over 2.7 million photos with over 8.6 billion total views as of June 2016. All photos undergo screening prior to being admitted to the database, which can be searched by various factors including aircraft type, the airport at which the photo was taken and the
aircraft registration
An aircraft registration is a code unique to a single aircraft, required by international convention to be marked on the exterior of every civil aircraft. The registration indicates the aircraft's country of registration, and functions much li ...
. The forum is divided into ten subforums:
Civil Aviation
Civil aviation is one of two major categories of flying, representing all non-military and non-state aviation, which can be both private and commercial. Most countries in the world are members of the International Civil Aviation Organization and ...
; Travel, Polls & Preferences; Technical/Operations; Aviation Hobby;
Aviation Photography; Photography Feedback; Trip Reports;
Military Aviation
Military aviation is the design, development and use of military aircraft and other flying machines for the purposes of conducting or enabling aerial warfare, including national airlift (air cargo) capacity to provide military logistics, logist ...
&
Space Flight
Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly objects, usually spacecraft, into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such a ...
; Non-Aviation; and Site Related. Airliners.net also offers a complimentary newsletter service and a database of information on aircraft types developed with the help of Aerospace Publications.
See also
*
List of Internet forums
References
External links
Airliners.net
{{DEFAULTSORT:Airliners.Net
Internet properties established in 1997
Online databases
Aviation websites
Aviation Internet forums