Jazajia
Well-known member
I have never done any sort of official announcement about my site YankeeVictor400.com. Instead, I just started to inconspicuously post links to its content on different social media platforms and forums.
Part of the reason for this is that it has been a continuously evolving project rather than a creation with a defined inception date. However, I feel it is appropriate to publicly acknowledge its existence, tell you where it all came from, what it has become, and why I do it.
To give you a little bit of background, I first got the idea of creating an airplane model website around 2014. I had collected all the Viasa models that had been released up until then in 1:400 scale (well, almost all, 12 out of 13) and wanted to show them to the world. That first site was called Viasa400, and it was a static gallery showing pictures of the models and a short overview of the operational history of the aircraft. That site remained largely abandoned for about 5 years since it was launched in 2015 until I started collecting models again in 2020.
When I decided to rescue and update Viasa400, one of the first things I did was change the name to YankeeVictor400. YV is the registration prefix for Venezuelan-registered aircraft and 400 represents the 1:400 scale. As my collection expanded beyond Viasa, I thought it was appropriate to change the name to reflect this. However, my collection also quickly expanded beyond Venezuelan subjects, and as I will explain below, the content of the site has also expanded beyond 1:400 scale models. So, today the name largely remains as a nod to my roots, and the origins of the site. But hey, there are props on JetPhotos.com, and military aircraft on Airliners.net, you get the idea…
While the whole thing started as a “fun little project,” and it still is just that, its creation became very time-consuming and at times it was not fun at all, but luckily those days are behind and now my headaches can be attributed to other projects that are also meant to be fun in principle. At any rate, given the effort that it took to create the site, I decided to take the opportunity and add sections for different categories of memorabilia, and also added a section to publish some of the early aviation photos that I took during my last years in Venezuela (where I am originally from). I have to admit that these are mainly poor photos, but time has given them historical relevance, especially among the Venezuelan aviation enthusiast community, which I’d say is the second largest audience I keep in mind when producing content after the 1:400 scale collecting community. Since free time can be an elusive commodity for young adults, adding content to the site has been a slow process. Because of this, many sections of the site, other than the 1:400 scale collection, are still pretty empty. But I have a decent amount of material that I plan to add to those sections over time.
Then there is the blog of course. I love to go on about stuff that I feel passionate about, so I thought a blog would be a good place to let the words flow. I have tons of ideas for future articles, some might materialize, some might fade away, but the topics range from scale model collecting, to modern aviation history, to pure nostalgia, to photography. It is difficult to find the time to write, as one also needs to be inspired, but right now I think I’m averaging about an article a month.
If it seems to you that a personal website is an overly complicated way to share content in a time when there are countless social media platforms available to do so, I’d say you are probably right, but in the following paragraph I will mention some of the benefits I see of having a personal website:
In a website content doesn’t get lost in the mix so easily. As you can probably tell, I do get carried away just by writing a simple social post. I also like photography, and most of the photos I share go through some sort of editing process. So, it is nice to use a personal website to preserve all the effort and time that takes me to produce content. Otherwise, it would just be left to the mercy of the social media algorithms, competing against pretty much any human being that owns a smartphone. Now, I know there are also a gazillion websites online, and information can also get buried inside a single site, but I still think website content doesn’t lose its prestige as quickly as social media content can. Don’t get me wrong, there are tons of great content producers that I eagerly follow via social media (Akira Hiraco and @woohoomymodels come to mind), and I personally use those platforms to share content that I post on YankeVictor400.com, as well as to participate in personal conversations and discussions. But again, it is nice to have a personal space in the world wide web to preserve one’s work in a more permanent way.
I have learned that there is a fine line between getting carried away in producing online content and enjoying the process. I am always trying to spread my content so that it can reach anyone that could potentially find it relevant and entertaining. I mean, if I go through all the hassle of producing it, I might as well let people know that it is there. But at the end of the day the main requirement is that I enjoy the process of creating content. To that end, some of you might have noticed that I have tried to post on a regular basis, but to do so has become impractical. So, any posting pattern that you might have seen from YV400, or might see again in the future, is likely part of a larger random pattern.
Finally, I like to send my greetings to those that have also taken the hobby to the next level and created personal websites for the rest of us to enjoy. Some of the ones that come to mind are:
www.reiffer.com (German)
www.noticiasdeaviones.com (Spanish)
www.diecastcurio.com
And of course, the one that needs no introduction, but can’t be left unmentioned if we are talking about die-cast aircraft collecting websites: www.yesterdaysairlines.com
A special mention to a couple of sites that used to visit on occasion but are no longer online: www.tcsimages.com (his pictures can still be found at DA.C) and www.brinkley.cc (still online, but its 1:400 content seems to be all gone)
Part of the reason for this is that it has been a continuously evolving project rather than a creation with a defined inception date. However, I feel it is appropriate to publicly acknowledge its existence, tell you where it all came from, what it has become, and why I do it.
To give you a little bit of background, I first got the idea of creating an airplane model website around 2014. I had collected all the Viasa models that had been released up until then in 1:400 scale (well, almost all, 12 out of 13) and wanted to show them to the world. That first site was called Viasa400, and it was a static gallery showing pictures of the models and a short overview of the operational history of the aircraft. That site remained largely abandoned for about 5 years since it was launched in 2015 until I started collecting models again in 2020.
When I decided to rescue and update Viasa400, one of the first things I did was change the name to YankeeVictor400. YV is the registration prefix for Venezuelan-registered aircraft and 400 represents the 1:400 scale. As my collection expanded beyond Viasa, I thought it was appropriate to change the name to reflect this. However, my collection also quickly expanded beyond Venezuelan subjects, and as I will explain below, the content of the site has also expanded beyond 1:400 scale models. So, today the name largely remains as a nod to my roots, and the origins of the site. But hey, there are props on JetPhotos.com, and military aircraft on Airliners.net, you get the idea…
While the whole thing started as a “fun little project,” and it still is just that, its creation became very time-consuming and at times it was not fun at all, but luckily those days are behind and now my headaches can be attributed to other projects that are also meant to be fun in principle. At any rate, given the effort that it took to create the site, I decided to take the opportunity and add sections for different categories of memorabilia, and also added a section to publish some of the early aviation photos that I took during my last years in Venezuela (where I am originally from). I have to admit that these are mainly poor photos, but time has given them historical relevance, especially among the Venezuelan aviation enthusiast community, which I’d say is the second largest audience I keep in mind when producing content after the 1:400 scale collecting community. Since free time can be an elusive commodity for young adults, adding content to the site has been a slow process. Because of this, many sections of the site, other than the 1:400 scale collection, are still pretty empty. But I have a decent amount of material that I plan to add to those sections over time.
Then there is the blog of course. I love to go on about stuff that I feel passionate about, so I thought a blog would be a good place to let the words flow. I have tons of ideas for future articles, some might materialize, some might fade away, but the topics range from scale model collecting, to modern aviation history, to pure nostalgia, to photography. It is difficult to find the time to write, as one also needs to be inspired, but right now I think I’m averaging about an article a month.
If it seems to you that a personal website is an overly complicated way to share content in a time when there are countless social media platforms available to do so, I’d say you are probably right, but in the following paragraph I will mention some of the benefits I see of having a personal website:
In a website content doesn’t get lost in the mix so easily. As you can probably tell, I do get carried away just by writing a simple social post. I also like photography, and most of the photos I share go through some sort of editing process. So, it is nice to use a personal website to preserve all the effort and time that takes me to produce content. Otherwise, it would just be left to the mercy of the social media algorithms, competing against pretty much any human being that owns a smartphone. Now, I know there are also a gazillion websites online, and information can also get buried inside a single site, but I still think website content doesn’t lose its prestige as quickly as social media content can. Don’t get me wrong, there are tons of great content producers that I eagerly follow via social media (Akira Hiraco and @woohoomymodels come to mind), and I personally use those platforms to share content that I post on YankeVictor400.com, as well as to participate in personal conversations and discussions. But again, it is nice to have a personal space in the world wide web to preserve one’s work in a more permanent way.
I have learned that there is a fine line between getting carried away in producing online content and enjoying the process. I am always trying to spread my content so that it can reach anyone that could potentially find it relevant and entertaining. I mean, if I go through all the hassle of producing it, I might as well let people know that it is there. But at the end of the day the main requirement is that I enjoy the process of creating content. To that end, some of you might have noticed that I have tried to post on a regular basis, but to do so has become impractical. So, any posting pattern that you might have seen from YV400, or might see again in the future, is likely part of a larger random pattern.
Finally, I like to send my greetings to those that have also taken the hobby to the next level and created personal websites for the rest of us to enjoy. Some of the ones that come to mind are:
www.reiffer.com (German)
www.noticiasdeaviones.com (Spanish)
www.diecastcurio.com
And of course, the one that needs no introduction, but can’t be left unmentioned if we are talking about die-cast aircraft collecting websites: www.yesterdaysairlines.com
A special mention to a couple of sites that used to visit on occasion but are no longer online: www.tcsimages.com (his pictures can still be found at DA.C) and www.brinkley.cc (still online, but its 1:400 content seems to be all gone)
