Talk:Friedrichshafen FF.29/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk · contribs) 16:17, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

I'll take a look at this shortly. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 16:17, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Prelim

• Netherlands is a duplicated link
• File:German submarine U-12.jpg needs US PD
• No edit wars
• Earwig reports copyvio unlikely

Lede and infobox

• Interesting that the Naval Air Service doesn't have an article. I suppose I've been spoiled by British coverage!
• As the name of a company I'm not sure it's worth italicising Flugzeugbau Friedrichshafen? (you don't do so in the infobox)
• An FF.29?
• Link Maritime reconnaissance floatplane in infobox

Background and description

• Link floatplane
• Surprised to see that "maritime reconnaissance" isn't mentioned once in this section? Would be useful to tell the reader the aircraft's intended role before the beginning of the operational history
• Link World War I
• Possible to say why the greater wingspan/wing was meant to be an improvement?
  • Sadly, no
• Link Imperial German Army
• "was able to place an order with Friedrichshafen" you haven't actually introduced the company in main text
• "forced to substitute"
• The Imperial German Navy is not fully mentioned in main text, which would be useful at some point considering there's no link for the Air Service in particular
  • That strikes me as very redundant since I already told the reader that in the lede.
    • If I link it in the lede, I generally don't link it again unless it's a really long article.

Operational history

• Link Zeebrugge
• "on the island of Heligoland as well"
• "This would not be the last FF.29 to taxi back to friendly territory" too much of an air of trivia and mystery around this; either make the fact that other FF.29s had to taxi home more obvious or just remove the sentence
  • Rephrased
• Raid on Cuxhaven not specifically mentioned/linked in main text
  • see earlier
• An FF.19?
  • This I couldn't find
• "before the airship could attack" not really sure what this means in reference to the aircraft failing to damage Empress
  • Good point
• "an unarmed"
  • Good catch
• Link carbine
• "Lieutenant (Kapitänleutnant)" not sure your translation is right here; this is captain lieutenant in English. If we were translating a German rank to "Lieutenant" Leutnant zur See would be more appropriate
  • This is kinda tricky as many navies have two grades of lieutenant, the Germans called them LtzS and ObltzS and they're both NATO grades OF-1. Kaptänleutenant is modern OF-2 which is Lieutenant in the Royal and US Navies as they're OF-1 ranks are Ensign/Midshipman and Lt (jg)/Sublieutenant. And the Lieutenant (navy) article doesn't do a good job distinguishing between them.
• Link U-Boat
• "after an hour's steaming" does a submarine steam? I've never come across the phrasing before
  • They could! Both the Brits and the French had steam-powered submarines during the war. I just wanted something different than the "sailed" in the previous sentence.
• "Lieutenant (Oberleutnant zur See)" Ibid previous comment on ranks; not sure the translation is useful if you're giving them all the same rank despite the German words being obviously different. I doubt they'd be happy to know they've all been lumped together!
• "control the gunfire of coast-defense guns" would be interesting to know what they were aiming at
  • Clarified
• Is SM U-28 the submarine being hunted by the destroyers? Not totally clear on that
  • The first sentence references a German sub and the reader already knows that SM U-whatever is a German sub from the example of U-12 earlier
• Action off Noordhinder Bank not mentioned/linked in main text
  • I'd think that the mention of Nordhinder Bank would trigger the association.
• Suggest rewording the beginnings of some of these paragraphs. Three in a row start with "On [date]..."
  • I see only two out of six starting with a date
• "a pair of destroyers" of what nationality?
• "to the rescue the remaining survivors"
  • Rephrased
• "the last FF.29 based at Zeebrugge crashed on 23 May." so is this the end of FF.29 service for the Germans? Could be clarified if so, and if not would be nice to know when this did actually occur
  • I would love to know that as well. Sadly the existing sources focus on design and production stuff, there's very little stuff about operations available aside from Schmeelke's books.
• Do we know the circumstances behind the interning by the Dutch?
  • Probably ran out of fuel or had a mechanical problem, but nothing is known specifically since the Dutch Naval Air Service wasn't formed until '24, IIRC, and there's very little info available on the naval aircraft used prior to that date
• Is there any information on what service the Dutch/Danish aircraft had, or when they were last in service?
  • There might be something out there in those languages covering the early history of both services, but nothing I could find in English, German or French.

Variants

• Is Curtiss the correct link here?
  • Indeed! And thanks for catching that.

Operators

• Suggest adding references to this section; you've already used them above!

Specifications

• The performance section is empty here. Either add something to it or get rid of it, either works
  • Agreed, but the template won't let me
• I'm not an expert on our aircraft articles in any way so there may be a procedure behind having this, but to me it seems like this entire section would be better off in the description section as prose
  • I don't disagree for these early aircraft, but the amount of text required for more modern aircraft would be much longer. Besides, it's required by WP:AIRCRAFT to do things this way.

References

• References look generally fine. What makes ref. #13 reliable?
  • The author is a prolific writer on aviation topics and has published multiple books on aircraft. Shorten the URL to get to his home page where he lists his books on the "about" page, IIRC.
• A brief check for sources suggests coverage is good, however this records the first bomb dropped on English soil being done so by an FF.29 on 24 December 1914, and the first air attack on London a day later.
  • Schmeelke says that the FF.29s didn't even approach the English coast until the 25th and even then didn't get past Gravesend or Chatham with the actual bomb dropped over Sheerness. There seems to be some significant confusion about which aircraft/unit dropped the first bombs on the UK, but I chose to go with the most modern German source I could find.

@Sturmvogel 66: That's all I've got for now, will await your responses. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 17:50, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Even if I haven't replied to your points specifically, I think that I've covered all of your comments. Thanks for your very thorough review; I hope that my changes are satisfactory.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:17, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

@Sturmvogel 66: Happy with your changes. While we have a difference of opinion over when and where to add links it's not a problem at GA. Passing the article as satisfying the GA criteria. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 15:58, 17 April 2023 (UTC)