History
Planet Aviator started as simple blog for website owner and webmaster, Herb Benton in early 2007. The blog was a simple tool for Mr. Benton to communicate his flying adventures to family and friends as he earned his private pilots endorsement.
As most begining general aviation pilots soon learn, flying a general aviation aircraft is not cheap, and soon Mr. Benton gave up on his dream to fly an airplane. This decision left Mr. Benton with the domain name PlanetAviator.com and no experiences to blog about. However, like most aviation enthusiasts, the dream of flying burned inside Mr. Benton and he looked for other, more economical ways, to satisfy his hunger for flight. As fate would have it, Mr. Benton came across a DVD containing homemade video footage of a man flying a powered harness.
This DVD convinced Mr. Benton that he could fly, and on his budget! He [Mr. Benton], scoured the internet for more information on what it would require of him to fly a powered harness. He spent many hours doing research, and as a result, realized the need for an online community that was dedicated to flying foot launchable aircraft!
Late in 2007, Mr. Benton decided that he would use the domain name PlanetAviator.com and create a website that would act as an online social community for aviation enthusiasts, more specifically hang gliding and paragliding. Therefore, work began. By December 2007, a site that mimicked a popular online community emerged. However, that site was developed by an extremely technical person and as a result required any would be users of the site to be technically knowledgeable too.
Having seen the errors of his development, Mr. Benton started to rework his development and look at other popular online communities. Mr. Benton finished assembled of a new working site by January 2010.
The site you see before you is the result of hundreds of hours of work by web engineers around the world! Mr. Benton has invested his own money, time, and resources to bring his vision of an online community for hang gliding and paragliding pilots a reality.
In January of 2010, Mr. Benton created the following services to fulfill the Planet Aviator mission statement:
- Web Hosting for flight clubs, schools, and instructors
- Web Development for flight clubs, schools, and instructors
- Online lead generation tool for flight schools and instructors
- Online eZine /magazine
In addition, the following Planet Aviator awards were added to also fulfill the Planet Aviator mission statement:
- The Planet Aviator Website Giveaway for certified flight schools and clubs
- The Planet Aviator Website Giveaway for certified instructors
Besides the Website Giveaways, that Planet Aviator offers its members, Mr. Benton has pledged 20% of all profits, from any and all revenue generated by Planet Aviator be donated/awarded to a non-profit organization that promotes and supports the growth of sport flying in foot-launchable soaring aircraft, of his choosing, at the end of each calendar year.