What happened to the PRA website????

[skyguynca]

Just wondering if anyone knows what happened to the PRA website. Its been down a long time now.

David

 

[Sv.grainne]

John is still "upgrading" it.

 

[Martin W.]

They killed the magazine and now the website is also dead.
I gave up long ago.

 

[Sv.grainne]

Pretty sad.

 

[VWPower]

Did the PRA sponsor a Fly In this year? If so why no photos?

 

[j bird]

They killed the magazine and now the website is also dead.
I gave up long ago.

Me to !!!!!!!!!!.

 

[Brian Jackson]

That's a shame. This forum and Gyropedia seem to be the only places where new/prospective gyro pilots can be introduced to our sport. Are there any others I'm not aware of, not counting Facebook? I know there's the Wolverines board but it's not really somewhere I'd send a new guy... seemed a bit adolescent last time I peeked in. ASRA was pretty sparse if I recall.

 

[GyrOZprey]

I've just extracted all my photos from my new camera - taken at Mentone 2021. I'll try & upload some ... but as Facebook uploads are more user friendly ...most of them I will post on the PRA FB page!
The hard core of gyro-enthusiasts who were informed & attended enjoyed the WET week ...anyway!

Some early-bird tent campers ...decamped early on Thursday ...due to the big wet day predicted for Friday ...which also scared off the FRIDAY expected arrivals!

On Friday the substantial group of pilots on field ..attended the ONLY forum ...a wonderful impromptu 2-session ..."open forum" - lead by Greg Greminger with productive general discussion and exchange of gyro-flight experiences ...from a great depth of experience among those present!

Personally I really enjoyed the relaxed pace of a poorly attended event ...because I got to enjoy slow quality time with many friends, and I flew a total of 8 hours between a few demo flights and as many "thank-you" flights to volunteer workers ..who put in many hours to serve the cause! - as I could manage!
Wet Weather ,lack of website for event promotion, and the terrible choice of event week -in relationship to Oshkosh week - which this year took up ALL or the last week of July ...traditionally OUR MENTONE WEEK! .....all added up to a financially dismal event!

NEXT YEAR is the BIG 60th ...we expect it to rival the attendance & scope of the fun-50th ...a decade ago!
The date is set & PUBLISHED ....AUGUST 3-6th ...... there ...everyone take NOTE!
We are negotiating for Friday eve fireworks again.
BANQUET is on Saturday ...as are the flying skills event!

All we need is a blessing from the weathergods!

Mark your calendars. 2022 The website is promised to be functioning by September ...so you can book you favorite campsite.

Your PRA board is doing the best we can in trying times. Let us know if you can contribute needed skills to make things better.

 

[Vance]

The PRA is a volunteer organization and for most volunteers; life comes first and sometimes that gets in the way of PRA business.

John Rountree has had some serious health challenges and made some mistakes.

I consider him a friend.

I own a software company that licenses business software; I have struggled with computers and computer people.

I understand how easy it is to make mistakes.

I have no desire to fix the website so I am happy to wait for John to do it and I help when and where I can.

I admit to asking why don’t we just do ______?

I feel the PRA has value and I had a great time at the Convention at the Mentone Airport in July of this year.

I missed seeing John at the convention and understood his health kept him in California.

I miss the magazine and yet I do not regret the decision to stop publishing it because it was not viable from a business or volunteer perspective.

Times are changing and it might be nice to have a monthly magazine on our website if we could find the volunteers to make that happen.

 

[JEFF TIPTON]

As to the magazine; it is and aviation related magazine and is one the only ones dedicated to small aircraft. I hate put it this way, you get the idea, with all of the Covid restrictions for the last year and a half, there is not a lot to report on.

Hoembuilt tips has resorted a video on building and Affordaplane to pass on ideas and suggestions related to home building.

I will be back in the trenches myself again next year Mentone!

 

[Mac]

I went to the PRA website about late june or the first week of July, and it appeared visually as "Up and Running".
I believe John Roundtree is working on the website as an unpaid volunteer, he has my respect.

 

[Sv.grainne]

The front end was up briefly then, I was asked to attempt to login. But went back down again

 

[All_In]

The front end was up briefly then, I was asked to attempt to login. But went back down again

Yes on 3 of the shared hosting providers IT WAS RUNNING for a few days each time.

I learned how to hack a patch. By compiling the Core .Net5 libraries into my actual website.
On all 3 they finally found out it was me that was shutting down 100's of others who used that server running the old ASP.NET websites.
The old and the new cannot run on the same server.
On the other two, that I hacked, I KNEW it would shut all the other uses down but needed it running during the convention. I may go to hell for choosing PRA over the many non-rotorcraft community.

Now that I finally found the product I needed (a Virtual PRIVATE SERVER). I had only rented servers and had to learn how to become an IT administrator, hosting provider, and what ports to open for what and where and what dlls .net core needed.
Programmers are not going to rewrite their old ASP.NET websites until they die in 3 to 5 years like windows 7 did when Microsoft announced they are not supporting it anymore. For 30 years ASP.NET has been the one to use. There are thousands of step-by-step videos and you can go to any forum and even I can tell you how easy it to publish for the last 10 years for me.

It is so new non of the hosting providers have a clue of what it is or what is required. The forums say not tried it yet or worse BS that take 3 days to a week to set up and test only to fail for the 10,000th time.
There are no videos yet.

I have never failed so badly at meeting my 12/31 deadline where it is/was running GREAT on my LOCAL machine where I had full control.

It took almost 8 months to learn what was NEEDED to publish!!!

Next time anyone tells me I'm a genius. I will dispel them of that notion with just how stupid I was adapting to this new technology.

I cannot express how sorry I am that I let the PRA member community down with no website for so long.

 

[skyguynca]

John, you should be commended. You voluntarily chose to take on this task, to give of yourself freely. This is not your field so being overwhelmed is not a bad thing. You put in alot of overtime to make it happen.

Thank you John, I do appreciated it alot.

David

 

[Martin W.]

The world is full of websites that have no problems.
How do they do it ????

 

[All_In]

The world is full of websites that have no problems.
How do they do it ????

I've must have written and published dozens of soon-to-be-not-supported ASP.NET websites over the last 10 years for charities and friends. For 30 years hosting providers and programmers have known how and can easily tell you how to publish an ASP.NET webstie.

I have a new PRA version in ASP.NET I was almost finished with. When Microsoft announced they are not supporting ASP.NET anymore. This means in 3 to 5 years they will all start to die as Windows 7 did. Someone else would have to rewrite it in the new only long-term supported Core .Net5 code.
Or worse they would have to pay to have to rewrite it all.

So, I started over back in June of 2020 learned how to write new code quickly and had a much better website than the 1st ASP.NET website done ready to publish on 12/31/2020. Thought the hard part was done. WRONG again oh foolish one.
It was a nightmare to be one of the first adapters. Few have rewritten a running site and won't until it dies in 5 years give or take 2 years.

None of the 5 hosting providers knew what it was. What product I needed or how to publish it. It is so new there are no videos and the forums they said we have not rewritten ours yet. Or worse they gave me advice that took 3 days to a week to test and did not work = BSers who read the book but did not publish yet for real is my suspicion now that I've learned how.

 

[All_In]

The world is full of websites that have no problems.
How do they do it ????

The real answer =

I'm an idiot!

That is the truth of it.

 

[All_In]

The power of this new code is incredible. I can compile it to Linux or most processors.
Linux is cheaper packages and the set up automatically.
I got a Linux version working. It took over 30 days to learn how with testing taking the longest time.
But there is always a BUT.

The database is not a Linux MySQL database it's was written IIRC back in 2010 in Microsoft SQL and I could copy all of it over to the new database with many more tables in it now.

The BUT was none of the 5 so-called converters from MsSQL to MySQL worked. Because I have artificial intelligence built into functions and indexed so complex none of the converters could recreate them all correctly so data was lost and not displayed correctly anymore in Linux and MySQL.

There are over 400 tables and more functions. I would have to rewrite the entire database and that would take months and months just to test it all.
That was workaround # 7000 I do not really know anymore.

 

[Steve_UK]

The current website situation is beyond belief in 2021.

The BOD need to make a decision as to the way forward.

Every business large and small has a web presence, same with every charity and local clubs. If you have no web presence in 2021 you don't exist.

Most websites are essentially very similar in what they offer to the visitor.

Small businesses and local clubs will be able to meet most of their needs from one of the many starting templates that exist to get you up and running in a matter of days. Some bespoke work may be needed for add-ons.

The PRA is essentially a small club, a niche club with a small number of members, it wants to offer information about the sport, information about upcoming events, news, where to find local Chapters and CFI etc add ons could be a membership renewal area etc etc

None of this is unique to the PRA - there are hundreds/thousands of similar small clubs and organisations that will have similar structural needs.

Start afresh - don't worry about the legacy data from decades ago - focus on your current membership and attracting new membership.

In the US there will be thousands and thousands of web design companies that will be able to offer a solution. The PRA is a small organisation, so seek a simple solution - you are not Amazon.

I attach a link to a small organisation that I am a member off - it's a club for aviation enthusiasts and historians - it has about 4,000 members, it is run by volunteers, it copes with membership renewals online, it sells books online, it's informative, it has news and upcoming events, etc etc etc. I know it's not the PRA but it's not a million miles off either.

Have a quick look at Air Britain here

https://air-britain.com/web/

This club is well run, the board lead. It publishes its account to members - membership fees keep it going, so it has to inform and attract and offer items appropriate to members. It's been going over 70 years. It's very niche but it's a success.

It moved "online" about 15 years ago.

If you look at the bottom of the home page you will see that the website is designed and hosted by a web design firm - they are the experts and they provide the service to Air Britain - there will be thousands of similar companies in the US who can provide similar services to the PRA.

https://rescomp.net/web/


True services cost money, but members expect and potential members will seek out the PRA online. No online presence will see you dwindle and expire quickly. If Air Britain can afford this surely the PRA can. I suspect such services will be cheaper in the USA than in the UK.

I've no idea of the health of the PRA accounts - I am assuming the PRA can afford to pay for such services. Has membership taken a hit over the past 12 months - plenty of renewals - plenty of new members.

Plan B - talk with the EAA and try and become their gyro wing and enjoy their existing structure.

The current situation is untenable.

 

[Sv.grainne]

John: in another post/thread you stated that the service provider you are using is Ionos. About 2 years ago I took over a website for a non profit where the site was hosted on1&1 IONOS. The site was hard coded in html and I wanted to convert to a CMS but the Tech support was so poor I gave up and moved the Domain and Hosting to GoDaddy. Have had no issues with the site or GoDaddy at all.