Talk:Epps 1907 Monoplane

Discussion

Copied from User:FieldMarine's talk page at user's reqest:

Hi FieldMarine and thanks for the article on Epps' first aircraft -- I was really interested to learn about this one; I hadn't heard of Epps before, and am always impressed by the pioneers who did it all from scratch "the hard way".

I've moved this particular aircraft back to Epps 1907 Monoplane — as you might know, Epps actually built five completely unrelated monoplane designs between 1907 and 1924. While "1907 Monoplane" is no doubt a name applied retroactively to this particular design, builder-year-description is how aviation histories designate otherwise unnamed designs from this early period. In this specific case, "1907 Monoplane" is the name assigned in The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Directory of Airplanes: their Designers and Manufacturers; however, if you've got another source with a different name for this specific design, then we should include that in the article too.

Thanks again for finding this one! Cheers --Rlandmann (talk) 12:09, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to understand what you mean by "article should be kept in a series". Why move the disambiguation page to the 1909 aircraft? --Rlandmann (talk) 12:25, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to discuss this with you; but you won't answer. Join me over at WikiProject Aviation. --Rlandmann (talk) 12:36, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Please place this discussion on the article talk page. Thanks! FieldMarine (talk) 12:39, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Sure. I've also invited comment here --Rlandmann (talk) 12:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Epps Monoplane series & variants

The designs of these airplanes are similar enough that they can all be covered in one article & certainly not different enough for each one to have its own article. There are many aircraft articles were variants of a design are covered in one article, see TBF Avenger as an example. This fits that category. Thanks! FieldMarine (talk) 12:55, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

There's a nice gallery of Epps' designs here — you can see that they're not similar at all. We do indeed group different variants of the same design into the same article (as is the case with the Avenger), but that's not the case here, at least not with the 1907 design. The 1910 and 1911 monoplanes both share the layout of the Blériot IX and the 1911 and 1912 monoplanes both share their layout with the Antoinette VII. Based on the way that WP:AIR divides its content, that's still (at least) 6 different designs, not variants. --Rlandmann (talk) 12:59, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I have reverted the addition of text to this article as it is an illegal cut and paste from Epps 1907 Monoplane. Please use correct move procedure. Thank you. MilborneOne (talk) 13:20, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

As an aside, the talk page doesn't seem to have made the jump -- I got to this talk page from the Epps 1907 Monoplane article. _SidewinderX (talk) 13:22, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

MilborneOne, as a show of good faith, I'd be happy for you to delete the disambiguation page for now and actually move the article on the 1907 aircraft here while FieldMarine has his say. --Rlandmann (talk) 13:25, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

OK no problem, I was just trying to sort out the talk pages as they got mangled by not being moved properly. MilborneOne (talk) 13:28, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! --Rlandmann (talk) 13:37, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

The two example articles Blériot IX and the Antoinette VII seem to be planes by two different designers & as such, would not work as a combined article. This series by Ben T. Epps could easily work as one article with each model having its own section in the article. Perhaps a second article could cover the Epps Biplane. Thanks! FieldMarine (talk) 13:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't seem to have explained that clearly. This is the Epps 1910 Monoplane, which is a completely different design (nothing in common) with the Epps 1907 Monoplane that you can see depicted here; it looks like it was inspired by the Blériot IX.

Similarly, this is the Epps 1912 Monoplane, which again is a completely different design from the 1907 Monoplane, and from the 1910 Monoplane and looks a lot like an Antoinette VII.

Finally, this is the Epps 1924 Monoplane, which once again is a completely different design. It reminds me a lot of British and French sport aircraft of the day, but I can't put my finger on a specific design. In any case, it's clearly a completely different aircraft from Epps' monoplanes of 1907, 1910, and 1912.

Epps' two biplane designs are again completely unrelated to each other. This does not equal this!

If you'll pardon the analogy, this is not a case of grouping the TBF-1 and TBF-3 together as variants of the one aircraft; this is putting the TBF Avenger into the same article as the F6F Hellcat because they were both monoplanes built by Grumman. --Rlandmann (talk) 14:06, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

In changing to a Disamb, you proposed separate articles for the 1909, 1910, 1911 & 1912 Monoplanes. Please describe how each is notably different to warrant separate articles for each? Thanks! FieldMarine (talk) 14:27, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

So far, I've focussed on the 1907, 1910, 1912, and 1924 aircraft because it's immediately obvious that these are completely different designs, and because the immediately available illustrations show them at angles that make this easy to see. Now let's look a little closer at the other two that I haven't talked about so far -- the 1909 and 1911 Monoplanes. Basically, I'm not too concerned one way or the other in differentiating these from the 1910 and 1912 respectively. Here's why:

The 1909 Monoplane depicted here is broadly similar to the 1910 Monoplane [1]. The most important differences are the undercarriage structure and the tailplane structure. The 1909 Monoplane's main undercarriage consists of two skids with closely-spaced mainwheels. The 1910 Monoplane has a single skid and very widely-spaced mainwheels. More importantly, the 1909 monoplane has a single horizontal tailplane to serve as both stabilizer and elevator, while the 1910 Monoplane has two separate tailplanes in tandem. This is characteristic of some Blériot designs that had a separate stabilizer and elevator. The difference, however, is not so great that I would object to both these designs being grouped together under Epps 1909 Monoplane.

The main difference between the 1911 Monoplane depicted here and the 1912 Monoplane depicted here is their control systems (again, there are differences in the undercarriage construction as well). The 1912 monoplane is fitted with ailerons, while the 1911 Monoplane (like the 1909 and 1910 Monoplanes) has no ailerons and appears to have relied on wing warping for control. This was a common technique in the period, and was a feature of the Blériot and Antoinette aircraft from which Epps seems to have drawn inspiration. Switching to ailerons was a step into the future for Epps — wing warping turned out to be a dead end. Again, however, the airframes seem similar enough that I wouldn't object to both these designs being grouped together under Epps 1911 Monoplane.

Therefore, depending how you count, there are at least six different Epps designs (1907, 1909, 1911, 1916, 1924, 1930) and possibly up to eight (1907, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1912, 1916, 1924, 1930).

Hope this helps --Rlandmann (talk) 15:06, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Would you agree to the following articles?

• Epps Monoplane – short article describing the series with links to detailed articles on the designs with separate articles as follows:

• Epps 1907 Monoplane
• Epps 1909 Monoplane
• Epps 1910 Monoplane
• Epps 1911 Monoplane
• Epps 1912 Monoplane
• Epps 1924 Monoplane

• Epps Biplane - short article describing the series with links to detailed articles on the designs with separate articles as follows:

• Epps 1916 Biplane
• Epps 1930 Biplane

FieldMarine (talk) 16:04, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Now we're getting closer. The problem here is that there is no "series" as such; they're still six (or eight) completely different designs. The only thing that they have in common is their designer. Therefore, what we do with other designers and manufacturers is build a list into the manufacturer's article. Sometimes, this is just a flat list linked to individual designs (like in, say, Grumman). Other times, the list contains a bit more detail — see the table in the Airbus article. The brief, annotated list in the Lancair article is probably most typical. What we don't have is lists of otherwise unrelated designs under Cessna Monoplane or Grumman Biplane. I suggest:

1. Include a list of Epps' designs in the article about him, either with annotations or without.

2. Place detailed articles about the (6 or 8, I don't mine which) individual designs on their own pages (as you suggest)

3. Either place a disambiguation page at Epps Monoplane and, when it becomes necessary, at Epps Biplane or redirect these pages to Ben T. Epps or just leave nothing there; I don't think it's particularly likely that someone will come along again to create articles under those names anytime soon.

Per your last message, we seem to already agree on (2); if we also agree on (1), would it make one of the three options under (3) acceptable to you? That way we can avoid treating Epps' designs differently from the approximately 5,000 different aircraft designs from approximately 500 different manufacturers that we already cover here! :) --Rlandmann (talk) 16:38, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Would you agree to placing a section under the Ben T. Epps article with links to the mono & biplanes models instead of a disamb? The disamb could be a redirect as you mentioned. FieldMarine (talk) 17:09, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Deal! --Rlandmann (talk) 17:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

The local museum has a picture of the 1907...I should be able to get a picture. FieldMarine (talk) 17:47, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Careful... a photo of a photo is still not free of the copyright of the original. The Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum has a replica on display which would probably be our best bet for an illustration of this aircraft. The FAA registry lists John D Pruett as the builder and the date of registration as 2007. There's no doubt a story there too! --Rlandmann (talk) 20:52, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

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