About - Warbird Philosophy

Webmaster

I owe much of my interest in military and aviation history to video games. Games like Pearl Harbor: Zero Hour, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, and the Ace Combat series were very influential on me while I was growing up. The television show Dogfights on the History Channel also deserves a lot of credit. Even earlier, my first encounter with World War II came as a result of my interest in the RMS Titanic. The man who discovered the Titanic, Robert Ballard, also discovered the German battleship Bismarck. It was his book on the search and exploration of the wreck that I first learned about the war.^[a]

In the interest of full disclosure, I would like to point out that I am not a pilot or a mechanic – I am a historian. Any knowledge I have of practical aeronautics and aircraft maintenance comes from spending time around, and asking questions of, others who are professional practitioners of those arts.

Accounts

Website

Why does this website look like Wikipedia?

It is running MediaWiki, the same software that Wikipedia uses.

Can I edit this website?

No. Although it looks like a wiki, it is a personal website. Therefore, account creation and editing have been restricted.

Why use MediaWiki if you're not going to allow multiple users?

A few reasons:

Adding references is easy
It focuses on content over appearance
It allows more direct control over formatting
Revision history is built in
It is a format I am very comfortable with

What tools did you use to create this website?

A number of tools were useful. These include Wikipedia's export function, a corresponding import function on this website, a pair of BBCode to HTML and HTML to Wikitext converters, and a similar Excel to Wikitext converter.

References

Footnotes

↑ A quick aside, the hunt for the Bismarck is a terrible starting point for learning about the war. You will be very confused by the fact that outdated biplanes were responsible for crippling the ship.