Mastery of Flight

Case Study: Thomas P. Turner’s Mastery of Flight

Welcome to the new home of Flying Lessons.

Beginning in 2007, Thomas P. Turner has consistently published the free weekly Flying Lessons newsletter. Read by thousands of pilots around the world, these Lessons reach the full spectrum of the aviation community: individual pilots, instructors and aviation education institutions, insurance underwriters, and safety investigators and regulators in several countries.

The Challenge

A nightmare scenario: Tom had been the victim of an unscrupulous design company. He turned to his community for support; Cosmic Designs was there to answer.

The old site was, effectively, offline. He had many documents backed up, but this new website (and its extensive archives) would essentially need to be created from the ground up.

Furthermore, he hoped to have something online in time for an upcoming conference.

Our Solution

Time was of the essence! As the clock ticked, we began an exhaustive sweep of the available material. With a general site structure in mind, each resurrected element would find its new home.

This new site would feature two publications: Flying Lessons Weekly, and the Beech Report. Thus, we ensured all design choices would best serve the editorial readers who would regularly view this new web experience.

Research & Process

We conducted thorough web reconnaissance to recover the missing web content.

For ease of reading, we structured the site so each series has its own navigation. The reader can easily move forward and backward in time within each series of articles.

Given the sheer volume of articles being prepared, Tom emphasized he did not want layouts that required new images. With this directive in mind, we opted for article designs that kept the focus on text.