Private aviation, on your schedule.
True North Airways
Context
True North Airways has flown executives, work crews and anglers across northern Ontario since 1956, with a sister helicopter company, True North Helicorp, and an operation in El Salvador. Its website was an ageing WordPress build that no longer reflected the business. We rebuilt it from scratch around what the company does now: private charter, helicopters and fly-in camps.
Challenge
Lead with today's business, PC-12 charter, helicopters and fly-in outposts, and drop flight training. And let the family update seasonal camps, rates and job postings themselves, without a developer.
Approach
A new site in plain PHP and SQLite with its own admin. An aircraft-window video hero, a bento home page, a page for every fly-in camp, fleet, charter, Helicorp and TNA South pages, careers with CV upload, a 284-photo gallery, reviews with approval and a step-by-step quote form. Every old WordPress URL redirects to its new page.
Status
Built and reviewed page by page on staging. Launch follows client sign-off. Results to follow.
Black
#161616
Forest
#194121
Navy
#002159
Sage
#becfc5
Sand
#ecdfc4
Cream
#FFF8ED
In Image
The Build
Hero
An aircraft window
Video plays through the opening of a custom window frame, in a dark and a cream version. It drifts on scroll, plays only while on screen and respects reduced motion.
Admin
Run by the family
Camps on or off for the season, rates and photos, careers, enquiries with CV download, review approval and the gallery, all without a developer.
Stack
Plain PHP and SQLite
No framework. One stylesheet, vanilla JavaScript and a database kept outside the web root.
Forms
Quotes that adapt
A step form whose fields change with the service, CV upload on careers, and a booking panel that slides up from any camp page.
Pages
Sections that slide over
Each page holds its hero while the next section rises over it with rounded corners.
Migration
Nothing lost
Every old WordPress URL redirects with a 301. A full cleanup followed, checked against a crawl of over a thousand links and files.
Deliverables
Pages
Home, about, fleet, charter, Helicorp, TNA South, services, careers, quote, reviews, gallery and more.
Camp Pages
One page per fly-in camp: a photo mosaic, icon cards, a sticky booking card and reviews.
Custom Admin
Camps, rates, careers, enquiries, reviews, gallery and users in one place.
Gallery Photos
Filters and a lightbox, managed from the admin.
Quote and Booking
A step form whose fields change by service, plus a slide-up booking panel.
Redirects
Every old WordPress URL maps to its new page.
Typography
Aa
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