This is a collection of useful resources for researching aviation related articles. With the exception of those listed in the "Questionable sources" section, these sources should pass WP:RS. If any editor wishes to question the reliability of a particular source, please bring the issue up on the talk page.

Editors can request access to specific articles or books or information on a specific topic at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request.

General aviation topics edit

Country specific edit

  •   Belgian Wings, civil and military aviation in Belgium.
  •   Aeronautical Information Manual - Canada
  •   Aviation Glossary - Canada
  •   Nav Canada Publications, AIP, NOTAM manual, Airport Charts, etc.
  •   Transport Canada Listing of Accepted Advanced Ultralights
  •   Sauter, John. Atlas Historique des terrains d'aviation en France 1919-1947 (CD-ROM) (in French). Direction Générale de l'Aviation Civile. ISBN 2-11-095385-3. - An atlas of French airfields from 1919-47.
  •   Aeronautical Information Manual - USA
  •   EAA List of Experimental Light-Sport Aircraft (E-LSA)
  •   EAA List of Special Light-Sport Aircraft (S-LSA)

Worldwide edit

Aircraft registration databases edit

Current edit

Historic edit

Military edit

Aircrashes edit

Investigating bodies edit

These bodies are responsible for the investigation of accidents and incidents involving civil aircraft.

Other civil aviation authorities edit

Regulations edit

Type certificate data sheets edit

Newspaper sources edit

Questionable sources edit

Many potential sources do not fully meet WP:RS or may breach WP:COPYVIO. They may contain unreliable, false or illegally published information for a variety of reasons. In general, they should not be cited in an article. They should not generally be listed as "External links" either, per WP:ELNO.

On the other hand, some of the material in these sources may have been attributed to a respectable author and the author's own sources cited; such material is usually acceptable, provided Wikipedia takes care to cite the author and individual article.

Some questionable sources may still be useful when researching a topic, where they provide references to further and more reliable information, but should not be trusted or referenced in themselves.

For more about such sources, see WP:QUESTIONABLE.

Common sources to avoid edit

Some questionable sources are frequently cited by inexperienced editors in aviation-related articles, and are listed here for quick reference. The list includes both merely questionable and outright unreliable sources.

  • The Aerodrome, theaerodrome.com - see archived discussion at Reliability of theaerodrome.com.
  • Airframe Dossier or any other sub-site of Aerial Visuals, aerialvisuals.ca - hobby or crowdsourced content, not peer reviewed. See discussion.
  • Airwar.ru, airwar.ru, English-language version Sky Corner, home page airwar.ru/indexe.html - widely reported to be unreliable and/or copyvio. See for example this archived discussion.
  • Aviastar, aviastar.org (not to be confused with the airline Aviastar-TU) - see notes at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Aviastar.
  • Black Sun Redux, greyfalcon.us - fantasy garbage unlimited.
  • GlobalSecurity.org, globalsecurity.org - unreliable and copyright violation news scrapings. See RSN discussion.
  • Kites, Birds and Stuff, by P.D. Stemp - book series, self-published and comprising indiscriminate scrapings from everybody else he could lay his hands on, including Wikipedia. It is ostensibly published by Lulu.com, but that is a print-on-demand online self-publishing service.
  • Luft '46, luft46.com - see discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Resources#Luft'46 and The Aerodrome
  • LuftArchiv.de, luftarchiv.de - apparently self-published, not peer reviewed.
  • Military Factory, militaryfactory.com - see here and here on WP:RSN.
  • Nevington War Museum, nevingtonwarmuseum.com - cites Wikipedia among other online sites.
  • PlaneCrashInfo.com, planecrashinfo.com - Internet scrapings, some copyvio, no editorial oversight, per discussion.
  • Planespotters Net, planespotters.net - See archived discussions at WP:PLANESPOTTERS, also here, here, here and here.
  • Secret Projects, secretprojects.co.uk - discussion forum full of unreviewed user-generated content. A useful pointer to RS, but not an RS in itself.
  • SimpleFlying, simpleflying.com. Useful for information to follow up, but not reliable in itself. See this discussion.
  • Sky Corner - see Airwar.ru above.
  • ww2aircraft.net - discussion forum full of unreviewed user-generated content. A useful pointer to RS, but not an RS in itself.

Suggested text when deleting or tagging a citation edit

Suggested citation tags, where appropriate:

  • {{citation needed|date={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}|reason=unreliable and/or copyvio source removed}}
    Which gives:[citation needed] where an unreliable source is removed.
  • {{Better source needed|date={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}|reason=source is not reliable for the stated claim}}.
    Which gives:[better source needed] where there is concern over a questionable source.

Suggested edit comments, as appropriate:

rm unreliable and/or copyvio source per [[AV/R]]
rm unreliable and/or copyvio source per [[AV/R]], tag
rm unreliable and/or copyvio source and associated data per [[AV/R]]