Sad news for Aerofiles.com

[Pat Carry]

For those of you that have checked out the site www.aerofiles.com know that there is a ton of info to be seen there. I have some sad news to report. The owner/webmaster of the site K.O. Eckland passed away in early May. Although I did not personally know Mr Eckland I did get to "know" him as I managed the Aerofiles museum page for many years. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family.

[old iron]

Yes, a superbly attractive and informative website (thanks in part to Pat). Which brings up the question: how will this web page be continued. So much work to build such a site, yet so easily lost. We need to be reminded how ephemeral the internet is - it is not the same as a book, yet it can also be kept current the way a book never could.

Is there an organization or society that might take up the aerofiles page? Or is someone in the family willing to continue the projects? These are important questions that need to be asked and answered!

[Ztex]

Sorry to hear this news.

I too would bemoan the loss of the site. The information collected there is amazing. I surf that site regularly.

[Rajay]

I had recently (a month or so ago - having not heard about his death) tried to contact Mr. Eckland regarding some corrections to his info about McKinnon Gooses and this is the reply I got:

"K.O. Eckland's family are very sad to have to inform you that our father recently passed away quite unexpectedly.

Aerofiles.com was Dad's creation and will remain as it is for the time being; we are not in a position to update the site at present. We have not made any decisions yet as to the future of the website, we do know that it was a labor of love and therefore are considering all options available.

We will be keeping this email address active for the indefinite future.

Sincerely,

Dan Eckland
Nancy Eckland Berkley
Taina Eckland Klaus"

[fritzthefox]

This is the very thing I feel threatens the undeniable utility of digital media in general, and the internet in particular, which everyone seem to be largely in denial about to this day: storing information digitally is like writing your name in the sand.

We are not building a library of universal human knowledge: we are building a sandcastle.

I'll wait for the book.

[Roger Cain]

Scroll down to my posting for more info: http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/p ... ht=eckland

[RobertWC]

This is very sad indeed.

However, I wonder if the site might live on via the Internet archives?

http://web.archive.org/web/200712041746 ... /home.html

[Roger Cain]

Thanks, hadn't seen that before, I hope it does, way too much historical information to lose......

[paulmcmillan]

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