News, Credits and Technical Site History

No current news

The Owl's Nest is completely renewed, including full mobile support.

The Owl's Nest is undergoing a complete technical overhaul. Various bugs have been fixed and overall site performance has been significantly increased. All data tables have been migrated to a standardized layout and processing system, specifically affecting the Military Aircraft Reference, MAIW Package Reference, AI Aircraft Reference, and the AI FSX / P3D Model Reference. Furthermore, the Military Airport Search, the Airport ICAO Database, and the Great Circle Distance Calculator now operate on an expanded dataset of approximately 80,000 airports.

To make allowance for the increasing usage of tablets and mobiles The Owl's Nest has been redesigned based on Bootstrap. The Military Aircraft, AI Aircraft and MAIW references have been redesigned using the Datatables jQuery framework. The Feedback Form is based on code by courtesy of Jon Bake's Bootstrap template. The AI World Map has been modified to open links in external tabs. In the Recommended Sites list dead links have been removed. I find it unbelievable how many powerful tools are made freely available. My appreciation to everybody!

While AECNU was an extremely friendly and supportive provider, people from many countries could no longer reach the Owl's Nest because their IP range was blocked. This could not be changed and because of this I moved the Owl's Nest again. It is now with the Swiss hoster Sylon Hosting who guarantees no pro-active IP filtering.

Big time news! Due to the terrible web performance and frequent unavailabilities I moved the web from it old location to a new web hoster and while doing this activated the domain www.owlsnest.eu that I have reserved for quiet some time now. My new provider is AECNU Internet & Computers. These guys are extremely friendly and helpful, know what they are doing and have blazing fast servers. The feedback for the new website is telling the tale - fast like on afterburner....
In order to have the web work well for IE7-IE11, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Android users I replaced the old menu from Stu Nichols with a new one from Stew Nichols. It is unbelievable what Stu is offering on his CSS Play website.
For the same reasons I replaced the web ticker with a new one from Jonathan Mifsud. Check out his jQuery WebTicker website here.

I have replaced the old MAIW World map with a new AI World Map, courtesy of amMap. They offer a free and a paid version of their maps. The paid version does not have that very decent amMap link in it and offers even more resolution and details. The advantage is that the maintenance of the data is far easier, so that the map now includes MAIW and Other AI data and is automatically updated whenever I update a list.

I decided to redesign the website layout so that it could be used with some mobiles browsers. The new design is based on the CSS templates and knowhow made available by courtesy of Stu Nicholls. Check out his countless extremely cool CSS examples at CSS Play. I further decided to get rid of all web previewers. Their policies are not compatible with a free, non-commercial site. Instead of those you will find a much cooler feature: the Shadowbox. See how this technique works in the MAIW section and the Military Aircraft Reference . Shadowbox is by courtesy of Shadowbox.js. Much content has been updated.

The Websnapr thumb preview service was no longer working and has been replaced with ShrinkTheWeb.

Thanks to the courtesy of FlightRadar24 you can view Live Air Traffic here at The Owls Nest.

The popup menu system of the clickable MAIW World Map is by courtesy of Milonic. Check their web site for other cool menu solutions.

The airport view in Google Maps that you know from the airport search since quite a while is now implemented in the ICAO database as well.

You may have noticed that the gallery viewer 'Highslide' had a little glitch when displaying the thumbnail bar within Firefox - the bar was aligned left until the first operation. Have a look now - the great guys at Vevstein Web found a solution.

The Military Aircraft Reference has crossed the 800 mark and now provides details for 811 aircraft.

The Distance Calculator now features Google Maps and shows you the flight route between departure and destination.

The Airport Search now features Google Maps and shows you the satellite picture or map for the selected airport.

You can vote which AI aircraft you are missing most from your virtual skies at the AI aircraft poll page.

The Owl's Nest will offer a number of military AI aircraft starting with the F-104 Starfighter. Read about it on the OwlAI page.

All form elements of The Owl's Nest now default to the first field automatically. Furthermore the active field is highlighted. The great CSS and java script is by courtesy of Alf Magne Kalleland at DHTMLGoodies.

I realized that this page is more a change log than a News page. As of today, the most recent news will be displayed on the Owl's Nest front page. The free java script based web ticker is by courtesy of Mioplanet.

Andrej Urosevic has authorized me to convert his old scenery objects from API to modern libraries and make them available for distribution. The conversion was made possible by Arno Gerretsen's unbelievable ModelConverterX tool. You can find the object library in the download section. You will find a preview of the scenery objects in the new libraries section.
The beautiful picture display is called 'Highslide', a free java script solution by courtesy of Torstein Hønsi, founder of the Vevstein Web.

Over the last days every part of The Owl's Nest has been touched, checked and changed. The java script code has been compressed for faster execution. The whole web has been tested successfully with Opera 8/9, Firefox 2/3 and Internet Explorer 6/7/8.

The layout of The Owl's Nest has been modernized. The menu bar has moved from left to top, allowing more content to be displayed. Menu items are dropping down. The CSS template is made available by courtesy of Stu Nicholls, who's unbelievable skill can be check at CSS Play. The fixed header and menu section is based on his CSS templates as well. IE browser greater version 6 and Firefox display the design correctly. Thanks to funkdaddu for his great code example that now shuffles the content of the recommended site section.

The MAIW section is 'a jour' again. Check out Nellis AFB, NAS Beaufort and the Westcoast ANG package.

The reworked MAIW Texture Replacer is now available in the download section again.

You will no longer be forwarded to the German language 404 page when mistyping an url or being misdirected by an outdated search engine entry or link. Instead you will see a dedicated Owl's Nest page with a search facility so that you can easily find what you are looking for.

Another very cool and free Web service, courtesy of FreeFind, let you find everything on The Owl's Nest directly from the front page.

Fixed a bug causing all downloads from the download section to be corrupted. Sorry for this one!

This can be called a major revamp of The Owl's Nest. New on board are the Owl's Tools page and the download section. For downloading I have adopted Ironclads very cool PHP Easy Downloader. A horrible display bug with IE6 has been corrected - if you have seen it you know what I mean. The MAIW page has seen major improvements. New are the included airports and that you can sort and filter the table. The FSDeveloper page has been updated to describe the tools from Arno. Little improvements and additions on nearly all other pages.

The CSS has been reworked to ferret out some bugs causing a slightly different behavior in Firefox and IE and a smaller font when selecting the sitemap view.

MAIW has released Tyndall AFB. This is their 130th package - applause, applause. See the MAIW section.

The Distance Calculator was a bit hard to use if you did not know the ICAO codes by heart. It now features a popup search where you can select the airports with a click.

MAIW has released NAS Corpus Christi and Version 2 of Langley AFB. Have a look at the MAIW section.

The AI Flight Planner page has seen a major update.

The Airport Design Editor page has seen a major update.

Happy New Year! I have released the MAIW FSX Installation Guide Version 1.2, which now contains an MAIW texture and effect overview and helps you to correct some MAIW installation errors. Likewise I have released a new version of the MAIW Texture Replace Tool. While the last version had only one replacement texture, this version now corrects every propeller texture with the corrected original version. You can find the guide and the tool in the MAIW section.

MAIW gives us a Christmas present. Check out three new Export Hawk packages and a big surprise in the MAIW section.

UKMil has released the Westland WS.61 Sea King as an early XMAS present. Check it out in the UKMil section.

I have introduced a very cool feature, courtesy of websnapr.com. Their service generates preview thumbnails for links. Hover with the mouse over the websnapr link to see the effect. I have implemented the feature in the MAIW section (hover over the title links) and in the UKMil section.

Congratulations !!! MAIW has published their 120th package. Check out Luke AFB in the MAIW section.

Fixed some scripts which caused IE to show an exclamation mark in the status line. Mind you, the scripts always did what they were supposed to.

The freely available AI files from UKMil are now listed in the UKMil section.

The UKMil section has been updated and restructured into sections for Fixed-Wing, Helicopters and Scenery.

If you are interested in supporting a FSX remake of the gorgeous FS9 version of the C-160 Transall, please read the update on the Project Transall section on the referrals page.

You may wonder why there were so few updates of the Owl's Nest during the last two months. This is due to a medical problem which has kept me in hospital and will consume my time most likely until the end of 2008. As of today I am current with the MAIW page and will update the UKMil section next week.

MAIW Galore !!! During my holiday break they have released 18 new packages. Check the MAIW section.

3 new packages in the MAIW section. The Military Aircraft Reference contains now more than 750 entries.

I have linked The Owl's Nest to AVIATION TOP 100. With this and Best Aviation Sites (see below) I feel perfectly represented and have seen a lot new and interesting sites. Thanks' for providing this service.

I have added the description of my web to Best Aviation Sites. Visit their index, they present a great number of impressive aviation related sites.

Added the Great Circle Distance Calculator page.

Added the description of the RF-4 repaints from Michael Pearson to the AG-51 page.

Added the airport search page. Enter a full or partial string for either city, airport, ICAO or IATA.

Added the ICAO database. You can display all airports per country via list box selection.

Added the FSX Installation Guide and the Propeller Texture Replace Tool to the MAIW section.

Added a usage description above the aircraft reference.

Update to the UKMil section, which now includes an UKMil package overview.

Update to the MAIW section due to the release of three new packages.

Major update to the aircraft reference. I realized that an aircraft reference should contain more than wingspan and FSX parking spot size. I have added the year of introduction, the total number built, the crew size, the speed in knots, the range in miles and the ceiling in feet for the 694 aircraft. Your correction of incorrect data is most appreciated.

Update to the Referrals page. Some additions to the aircraft reference.

You now find a link to Air Routing International on the conversion tools page, leading you to a Great Circle Time/Distance Calculator. You may have noticed that the conversion tools were inoperable - this has been fixed. Another update to the Referrals page has been made.

Added To-do list so that you can see what is planned next.

Added Atom News Feed feature to Owl's Nest.

Added speed and distance unit conversion tool.

Update to the Referrals page.

You may have noticed a different behavior of my web in Firefox and IE. With the competent help from the guys at the xHTML Forum this is now a thing of the past.

I have replaced the filter code for the aircraft reference (originally by © Tobi Von Loesch) with a script by © Max Guglielmi. High time to say thank you to all those people sharing such excellent code.

Update to the AG-51 page. I have added the squadron history.

I have added the Referrals page where I describe some sites I rate worth mentioning.

MAIW package overview table design changed to site standard.

Have you noticed the new favicon in the address bar? It is fitting the Owl's Nest much better than the old one.