Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft/Archive 27

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Westwind VA

I'm not quite sure how to classify Westwind VA, but I'm certain it's not suitable for WP as written. I'm not really certain wht it's supposed to be about! Given this edit on the 737 page (his only other edit), I'm not inclined to extend good faith too far. Thoughts? Speedy time? - BilCat (talk) 03:33, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Looks like it has been deleted, twice so far! Might be worth keeping an eye on the user and the page anyway. - BilCat (talk) 03:35, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Transponder (aviation)

Every now and then this article gets assaulted by well-meaning but uninformed pilots who think that the article should be censored to not state the emergency transponder codes, particularly the hijack code, 7500. This issue was solved almost a year ago on the article talk page, but has lately once again come under attack by a series of Australian IP editors (probably one person with a dynamic IP, judging by the bad spelling and grammar) hellbent on censoring this information based on their own opinions, even if they have to vandalize the article to do so. The talk page section provides a good review of the issues, including a threat to keep vandalizing the article to get his/her own way. I just wanted to request a few more project members watch the page. - Ahunt (talk) 23:49, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Ahunt; watching --Rlandmann (talk) 00:37, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! - Ahunt (talk) 00:51, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Never really understood why the codes are in the Transponder article as in my simple mind it is a bit of hardware on the aircraft. I would think the codes and operational related stuff would be more suited to one of the articles on secondary radar or ATC! MilborneOne (talk) 09:02, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't the editor who put them in there originally, but it seems a logical place for this information since they are selected in the cockpit by the pilot. - Ahunt (talk) 10:46, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Bonanza incident-creep

The Beechcraft Bonanza's incident section is getting a bit long. At first glance, most seem non-notable. I'm headed to bad, so I thought I'd mention it, and get more eyes on the issue too. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 08:43, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I only see four incidents in there, and all the persons involved are people with Wikipedia pages. I don't see a problem with it as is. -SidewinderX (talk) 11:44, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Check the page history, User:MilborneOne already cleaned it up! - Ahunt (talk) 11:51, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Template merger

I'm thinking that Template:USN transport single-engined and Template: USN transports should probably be consolidated into the latter, given the low number of "G-" designated aircraft. Thoughts? - The Bushranger (talk) 03:16, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd keep them separate, as the other template has alot of entries, and I don't really like the 2 columns there. If you have an idea of how to do it, though, I'd be willing to look at a sandbox of it. - BilCat (talk) 03:39, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah; the pre-1962 USN codes are confusing enough for people as it is. As things stand, we map the templates to the designations in the hope that the 1-to-1 relationship makes things clearer. I strongly suggest keeping G and R apart. --Rlandmann (talk) 01:56, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I've also removed the column breaks from the R template. Thanks BilCat! --Rlandmann (talk) 01:59, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

On to another template...should the "post-1962" and "pre-1962" trainer sequences be on seperate templates? Since the "old" sequence seems to be the "primary" one still... of course, the whole system has become a confusing mess. *looks at the "C" designations* So maybe not. - The Bushranger (talk) 07:46, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Now I look at these templates, why are they listed against manufacturer and not in the style of eg Template:USAF attack aircraft with just a sequence.? GraemeLeggett (talk) 08:55, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

It is the way the Navy allocated the codes to each manufacturer better shown in one like Template:USN attack aircraft.

Yeah; separate code sequences were allocated to each manufacturer, so F3B isn't followed by F3C (as people familiar with the USAF/tri-service system tend to expect), but by F4B. As for the trainer sequences, we probably do need to come up with some consistent way of coping with designations like C- and T- where numbers are being added to both the original and "rebooted" sequences (not to mention the F-117). The approach we took with helicopters might make sense, although with trainers we now have some numbers that have been allocated three times, not just twice :) --Rlandmann (talk) 13:18, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Short Empire

An IP user has replaced most of the content of Short Empire with a what looks like a dump of unreferenced text. It looks like a copyvio but on assuming good faith rather than just reverting I would appreciate other views on it, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 14:22, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

It does look very suspicious. I ran several phrases from the added text though a number of search engines and didn't find it, so it wasn't copied from the internet that I can find. It does look like it was copied from a book, however. I am going to revert it as an unsourced massive text dump. - Ahunt (talk) 15:10, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

It loks like a mixture of book phrasing and some less able writing, given the use of "Imperial tons" at one instance and sentences starting with "But"... GraemeLeggett (talk) 15:17, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

CH-47 Chinook - clean up and citation needed

I could use a hand from US helicopter buffs and other aviation enthusiasts to get this article up to scratch. Right now, I see problems and imbalances throughout. Referencing is scant throughout, but especially in the Development and Operations sections towards the top; despite the quite bold declarations of Army preferences and planning, there's no evidence offered that this is much more than fiction, and has been this way for a considerable amount of time. I am hoping that others with knowledge and hopefully a few good books at their disposal will be able to help renovate this article to a better level of quality. Thanks in advance for looking into this in. Kyteto (talk) 09:29, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Is a bit better now. The first paragraph in the Development section and text elsewhere came from Army report "Vietnam Studies, Airmobility 1961-1971", chapter 5 (public domain). But not put there by me.. -Fnlayson (talk) 00:22, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Requested articles?

Are we looking after the aircraft in this list folks? Just came across it by accident. I assume we can pull any blue links out, some of the redlinks can be solved with redirects I would have thought. Maybe have a bit of a 'push' to shorten it if we can, cheers. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 23:09, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Certainly within our purview; I created a couple of redirects, but I doubt that we've actually covered more than a few of these redlinks. Two of them — X-hawk and Atlantica (aircraft) — appear to be non-notable projects only. --Rlandmann (talk) 10:19, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

It seems to say at Wikipedia:Requested articles just to get on with it (removing blue links etc.). Hope someone knows something about all the Grigoroviches!! Wonder if we should link to it somewhere so that we pop in occasionally, perhaps the first page of our missing article list? Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 10:52, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Project template?

Just spotted this: Template:WikiProject Aircraft, does not appear to have been discussed anywhere? Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 10:02, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Seems to be an unnecessary duplicate of Template:WPAVIATION. Seem a good candidate for TfD.Nigel Ish (talk) 10:10, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking, there are multiple problems with it. Looks like the creator is going to add it to articles with a bot, could be messy. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 10:34, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Nigel -- unnecessary duplication. --Rlandmann (talk) 10:41, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

It could be 'speedied' under 'T3' (duplication) at Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 10:54, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree on the speedy. It seems odd that the template creator is someone who has hardly ever worked on any aircraft articles. - Ahunt (talk) 11:17, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Surely a redirect would be more useful than a deletion? It may well be a duplicate, but it's a reasonable title for someone to use - and god knows, trying to guess wikiproject template names can be confusing :-) Shimgray | talk | 11:20, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Might be the easier answer, in the meantime I have removed it from Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Templates while it is under discussion. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 11:27, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

A redirect might indeed be a better solution, thanks User:Shimgray! - Ahunt (talk) 11:33, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Good thinking Shimgray! :) I've redirected the template and left a note for its designer. Thanks everyone!! --Rlandmann (talk) 11:34, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

List of military aircraft of the United States

A bit of a discussion about reorganising the List of military aircraft of the United States list is going on here, if anybody wishes to make comments or suggestions, it'd be appreciated. - The Bushranger (talk) 16:11, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Shuttleworth Collection web links

Looks like the Shuttleworth Collection has revamped their website, by adding an extra page in the link it is stopping all our reference links and 'external links' from working, hey ho!!! Looks better though. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 11:13, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

'Tis so: shuttleworth-collection/aircraft-details replaces shuttleworth_aircraft_details. Done the Southern Martlet; certainly their site better.TSRL (talk) 11:37, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Fixed most of them now, I think they've made it more difficult to find the aircraft entries now, click on 'Collection' on the left and you get one page, have to click on 'Shuttleworth Collection' top left for the aircraft, silly me!!! Noticed that this excellent source for the survivors sections is hardly being used. While we are at it the British Aircraft Directory website is long dead (couple of years now I think), been removing that link when it appears. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 11:51, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Seems to be a feature of many museum/collection sites, that it is hard to get to a full list of exhibits. Should say "Anoraks, this way!"TSRL (talk) 11:58, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

And don't forgot your notebooks!!! Definition of Anorak for those on the other side of the pond that might be lost. We have a term for people who turn up at our factory gates to take pictures (of what exactly I don't know), tis 'Bobble Hatter' as in Bobble hat. Anyway the top tip is not to go plane spotting at civil airports in India with a radio scanner coz you will get locked up as a spy!!! Off to play with some "toy planes". Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 13:09, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Musical articles

User:Petebutt is playing musical chairs with aricraft articles again.

First, He's moved Dassault Mirage G to Dassault Mirage G-8, and replaced the original with a new article on a different aircraft. I don't have any sources on either variant, and the only soure, in the now G-8 article, is from Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation. Can someone with access to good sources double check these two articles?

Second, he's moved moved Breguet Bre.5 to Breguet-Michelin Type V, with the summary: "a distinctly different aeroplane to the Breguet Type V. and the Bre. prefix was not introduced until the Bre.XIV / 14" Again, I have no clue on this one.

Finally, can someone with more tact than I have respectfully suggest he run these types of moves ny WT:AIR first? Most of use do that, and we aren't reverted half as much as he is! Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 08:18, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I did find a source in one of my books. The Great Book of Fighters lists all thet Mirage Gs under one entry. It makes no mention of the G being a carrier-based fighter, though the G-8s were a lightened version with different engines. While the original article does need to be expanded (it did not even have a Variants section), it should be able to cover all the incarnations in one article. If approved, we should probably do a hist-merge back to Dassault Mirage G. - BilCat (talk) 08:33, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Mirage G

I actually did a history merge, based on the principle that we don't generally create separate articles for subtypes and however different the G, G-4, and G-8 truly were, Dassault lumped them together -- see also their website here. I note that the RAF Museum Aircraft Thesaurus also lumps them this way, as does whichever source aviastar plagiarised at www.aviastar.org/air/france/dassault_mirage-g8.php To split the G and G-4/G-8, I'd say we either need to grow the article to the point where this is necessary (the reason why we usually create articles on subtypes) or find some reliable sources that cover them as separate types and then weigh them against the sources that do not. --Rlandmann (talk) 14:31, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I've had a go at tidying that article up, even promoted it to C class. I note that all the foreign language articles are titled 'Dassault Mirage G' (except for the Japanese one as I can't tell!). The two G4s never flew, they were converted to G8 spec (one single-seat, one two-seat) before they were completed. I can't cite the specs section as the dimensions are not given in the 1972 'Observer's book of aircraft', the Mirage G specs are in the 1971 edition (which I don't have). Don't see any need to split or rename this article, it's similar to the Fiat G.91 article which deals with the G.91R and Y variants nicely. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:45, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Since the G4s were upgraded to G8s, there can't be enough difference to need separate articles. Will see what I can find on Mirage G specs.. -Fnlayson (talk) 23:23, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Breguet Bre.5

Petebutt left the following comment on the Breguet Bre.5 talk page:

Surely naming of aircraft articles should reflect the actual name/designation used by the manufacturer/customer!
Breguet did not use the French government inposed designation prefix Bre. until the Bre.14, and this should 
probably be in roman numerals as the Bre.XIV.
So please can we have the correct names for these aircraft
;-
* Breguet Type I
* Breguet Type II
* Breguet Type III
* Breguet Type IV
* Breguet Type V
* Breguet Type VI
* Breguet Type VII
* Breguet Type VIII
* Breguet Type IX
* Breguet Type X
* Breguet Type XI
* Breguet Type XII
* Breguet Type XIII

* Breguet-Michelin BM / BUM
** Breguet-Michelin Type V
** Breguet-Michelin Type VI

then

* Breguet Bre.14  (Bre.XIV) etc.etc.

Since the issue actually relates to a whole range of articles (how we title early Breguet aircraft), I've referred discussion here and moved Breguet-Michelin Type V back to Breguet Bre.5 for the time being.

It would be nice if "the actual name/designation used by the manufacturer/customer" was always consistent and unambiguous, but I think that anyone here who's worked on the various obscure types that we cover knows that this is not the case, and perhaps especially so with French aircraft! :)

The relevant policy here is WP:TITLE that (in short) requires us to use titles "recognizable to readers, unambiguous, and consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources." Sometimes the most recognizable and unambiguous name might indeed be a retronym of some kind, and when choosing titles for a group of aircraft from a particular manufacturer or within a particular designation sequence, we also need to weigh up how the designations are presented across the entire series in order to minimise confusion.

That said, I have problems with Breguet-Michelin Type V as a title, because most of the reliable sources available to me call this a Breguet type, not a Breguet-Michelin type. Most of them also use the Hindu-Arabic numeral 5 instead of the Roman numeral V for this type; part of the reason being perhaps because there was indeed an earlier, unrelated Breguet Type V (part of the Breguet Type III lineage). Besides, for the sake of clarity to most readers most of the time, if various reliable sources use both a Hindu-Arabic version and a Roman version of a designation numeral, we should choose the Hindu-Arabic version whenever we can justify doing so.

It could well be that the Bre.5 designation is anachronistic, although the most detailed source I have on this family — The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft — uses it, as does the unreliable-by-Wikipedia-standards-but-otherwise-excellent Aviafrance website (for example, here). Petebutt, do you have a source to verify that Breguet did not use the Bre prefix until the Bre.14"? If so, we could consider moving this article to Breguet 5 (which actually looks like it might be the most frequently-used permutation in reliable sources in English). --Rlandmann (talk) 15:14, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Owen Thetford in British Naval Aircraft since 1912 refers to the Breguet Type V, which appears to be the type referred to in the article.Nigel Ish (talk) 15:48, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

And here in a roughly contemporary (1919) Flight there is a reference to a Bre.5Ca2 (which presumably is a French Army designation).Nigel Ish (talk) 15:57, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Blast, I was just going to mention that. A hunt through the appropriate period tends to find Breguet but not many references to designations. However the text recognition is not always perfect so the search on the proper spelling may miss others. GraemeLeggett (talk) 16:15, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Defunct categories?

I remember a while ago that we decided to tidy up some categories, they still remain in the articles but do not show. I am thinking of Category:Propeller aircraft, Category:Low wing aircraft and Category:Single engine aircraft as examples. I can't remember quite what the discussion was about now, just wondering if these hidden categories still serve a purpose? Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 07:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

They're still available if you drill downwards from Category:Aircraft, just not sideways from the articles. They survived the Categories for Discussion process in 2008; I think we're still hoping that one day some kind of user-friendly category intersection system might make them useful. As is sometimes unfortunately the case, the discussion was characterised by plenty of people saying "keep them, they're useful!" but not many people saying how or why they were useful or could be made useful (in the absence of a category intersection system anyway). In the two years since then, category intersection is no closer, and I'm not holding my breath. However, as long as they're not cluttering up articles, they're not really doing any harm. --Rlandmann (talk) 09:12, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I won't remove them then!! FWIW I don't think these categories are particularly useful either. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 09:20, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I can see the possibility for usefulness of these, but at the same time , to me, they're bordering on "catcruft". I guess this falls in the category of "if they weren't there already, I wouldn't see the point of creating them, but, since they're already there..." for me. - The Bushranger (talk) 17:01, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Not to mention that the categories are inaccurate/incomplete as they had not been added to all the articles. I wonder who uses categories in general, a passing reader would probably not know what they are or even notice the links at the very bottom of a page. They are useful for editors though, makes adding navboxes easy. Will discuss again in another two years!! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:10, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Reporting names

It occured to me that a lot of the Russian and Chinese aircraft articles make mention of their "NATO Reporting Name"s. And rightfully so. Just one problem - the reporting names have nothing to do with NATO, but are rather AISC (formerly ASCC) reporting names...perhaps we should see about fixing this in the articles? And the NATO Reporting Name article even mentiones the ASCC, which includes Australia and New Zealand, neither part of NATO... - The Bushranger (talk) 21:32, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be excessive detail to mention it in every article even if it is technically correct, never heard of these organisations during my NATO Cold War service, you learn something every day. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 07:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I have no real objection to changing mentions to "ASCC reporting name", as long as they're linked to the NATO reporting name article. However, isn't it true to say that "Fishbed" is the NATO reporting name for the MiG-21, even if the name was actually coined and assigned by AISC/ASCC? If so, I think that the more recognisable "NATO" would be the better one to use; a comparison on Google shows the phrase "NATO reporting name" outranking "ASCC reporting name" by something like 20 to 1 (42,900 vs 2,620). Even Jane's All the World's Aircraft calls them "NATO reporting names". --Rlandmann (talk) 09:23, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Whover actually allocated the names by far the most common name is to refer to them as NATO names, I understand that Australia and New Zealand use a lot of NATO standard things they dont have to be a member to use the terminology. MilborneOne (talk) 11:26, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I suppose that's true. There's just a part of my brain that argues for strict technical correctness sometimes. But I guess what people will actually be looking for is sometimes the better criterion. *goes back to pondering what will be assigned to the J-10* - The Bushranger (talk) 17:01, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The NATO reporting name article is probably the place to cover how the ASCC is related (or not related) to NATO. -Fnlayson (talk) 00:06, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Related Aircraft as OR

Editors are standing up as the first people in the world to cross-connect aircraft X with aircraft Y.

If we cannot point to some reliable source that mentions how these two aircraft are in some way related then we are adding data (or noise) out of thin air. (Pun connection to topic intended.)

So can we please either ref-up related aircraft or simply delete these sections?

Hcobb (talk) 15:52, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Do you have any examples? Most of the time in my experience, the link is already made in that article or the related aircraft stating that it was developed from the other aircraft.GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:03, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I second the request for examples. I, myself, only specify "Related" aircraft - either in the 'see also' section or infobox - when the sources say X was developed into Y then into Z. If there isn't a ref, 'Comparable aircraft' is where it goes. ...as a somewhat related aside, one thing that is becoming a pet peeve of mine is types going into the 'Variants' section of infoboxes that should actually be listed as 'developed into'. - The Bushranger (talk) 18:30, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree - in most examples I am familiar with "related development" aircraft are sourced as related. - Ahunt (talk) 18:50, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

"Related aircraft is generally not a problem area, unlike "Comparble/similar aircraft". The only palce I've seen a problem with the relateds is on the Sukhoi PAK FA page, whic is a problem article itself for many reasons, mostly due to biases for and against the aircraft. It seems some users are wanting to add te MiG 1.44 and Su-47 in as related, which is strict sense they are not. However, they were both technology demonstrators, and the PAK FA is based on their datta to some degree. Rather than throw out 5000 babies because one has the runs, let's just address that article, or any oyhers having problems, individually. Their have been suggestions to disable the Comparable field, which is a couase for controversy on many more articles than the Related field has been.

To B-ranger: The "Developed into" field is less than a year old on Aircraft infoboxes. Most of the articles where an aircraft is listed under "Variants" instead have just not been updated yet. There was no effort to update them either, we just update them as we find them. Many users are still unaware that we have the field, and it's not in any of the older infoboxes, or those copied from them, unless someone has added it in. Just update them as you find them, and don't let it peeve you off too much! - BilCat (talk) 19:15, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Aha, that makes sense, thanks for clearing that up. Peeve de-peeved! - The Bushranger (talk) 19:25, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

No problem! - BilCat (talk) 19:36, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

(EC) On duplication of variant links in the infobox and 'See also' related aircraft I don't see any harm in repeating the link as different readers jump into articles in different places. The chances are that a related design link will be repeated three times in an article, infobox, 'variants' section and 'see also'. Could be linked even more if it is mentioned in the development text and linked in image captions (recommended). I don't think that would be considered overlinking. Don't see that adding a link to a related design is original research assuming that the relationship is clearly mentioned and referenced in one or the other (preferably both) articles. 'Comparable aircraft' maybe but it is only a link that is being provided, that can get out of hand at times but it's much the same as an editor adding a hat note because they think that there could be confusion between similarly named articles or indeed that there is a relationship between articles that readers may want to explore further. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 19:39, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Can somebody please provide one ref for this?

JAS 39 Gripen Comparable aircraft: JF-17 Thunder and Mitsubishi F-2

Because I have never read an article that draws that relation. Hcobb (talk) 21:33, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Well they are all under the 'comparable' heading (which is subject to judgement, granted). The question being asked here seems to be about the 'related' sub-header, there are currently no entries at the Gripen article. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:49, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Comparable - maybe, related - no. That is a very different subject than "related development" - Ahunt (talk) 22:11, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Template:Aircontent

Added a sub-header for an edit break. It might be worth looking at the documentation at Template:Aircontent. This is a template that is used for the 'see also' sections, the no-wiki notes show the distinction between related and comparable and how the sections are intended to be used. Noting that the code 'similar' actually generates 'comparable', this was changed some time ago after a discussion over what exactly are the definitions of similar and comparable (if I remember correctly). Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 22:00, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll also add that this has been an effort both to limit what editors place in "see also" sections and to make explicit why other aircraft are linked in "see also" sections. Now that we have the "developed from" and "developed into" fields in the article infobox, we could deprecate "related aircraft" in the "see also" section.

As it is, the system has worked very well for many years. The only time it breaks down is around aircraft that have attracted "fan followings with nationalist interests" shall we say? (which are thankfully a really tiny minority -- maybe a dozen or so amongst around 6,000 aircraft types that we cover).

I've never seen citations required to justify placing a link in a "see also" section; yet many (most?) links in "see also" sections are placed there because they are topics that are somehow similar or comparable to the subject of the article. All we've done here is make that explicit. --Rlandmann (talk) 22:52, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Admin help requested at J-XX

For the last few weeks, a series of anonymous editors have been removing the same section of text from the J-XX article; specifically, the section relating to US DoD statements in 2009 about China's fighter programme. This has happened ten times since 22 March.

All the various IPs (in at least three separate ranges) all point back to a Cox Communications user in Norman, Oklahoma, which suggests to me that it's the same person. The same IPs also removed the "concerns and controversies" section from the article on the 2008 Olympics and an image from the Hainan Island incident, which suggests a nationalist agenda.

Could an admin please review the J-XX edit history and decide if semi-protection is warranted? I've been involved in editing the article so therefore should not take admin action over it. --Rlandmann (talk) 00:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protected pending a consensus or otherwise on removal of content. MilborneOne (talk) 09:15, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

UH-72

I just noticed that a UH-72 image File:UH-72 Helicopter.JPG in the UH-72 article has returned again uploaded by User:Skyfox265 as self created. This has previously been deleted more than once as File:UH-72A Lakato Heli.jpg which was also claimed as the work of banned copyright violator User:ANigg and also claimed by a sock User:AQMD. Busy with real world stuff at the moment if somebody can have a look at it or I will come back to it later, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 12:03, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

It might be noted that his 'image of a US pilot's license' happens to have flying saucers added to it, as well. "I think I begin to smell a rat". >_> - The Bushranger (talk) 13:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The camera metadata does not seem right, exposure of 1/125 second would not freeze the blade motion and an aperture of F4 is too low for the light conditions (given the shutter speed), I suspect that it is a camera photocopy of a hard copy image, print grain is also visible. Slightly bends the 'I created this myself' statement even if it is technically true! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:17, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I looked at it as well and I agree with Nimbus - it looks like a photograph of a magazine page. I did an extensive image search online and couldn't find the original, which is really needed to label it a solid copyright vio. - Ahunt (talk) 20:28, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Unless it's the world's shittiest digital camera, there is no way that a file of that size would produce an image that grainy, plus the date in the camera metadata does not match the alleged date of the image in the file summary (and the time is displayed as 2045 at night, and I know date and time are set by the user, but why would you input the wrong date and time into your camera?), and the lens focal length is 17mm! YSSYguy (talk) 02:20, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Given that the user also uploaded File:UH-72A Lakato Heli.jpg, I think we can make a case for an indef block. This user, and perhaps a few others, seem to have an odd obsession with uploading copyvios of UH-72! It's not like we don't have free images available of the Lakota, but they keep doing it. Very odd! - BilCat (talk) 02:39, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks all. Per WP:COPYVIO, "If contributors have been shown to have a history of extensive copyright violation, it may be assumed without further evidence that all of their major contributions are copyright violations, and they may be removed indiscriminately" and this contributor appears to be a sock of a particularly egregious infringer. I've therefore deleted this very strange image. --Rlandmann (talk) 10:50, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the help, sorry not been available to look at it myself. If I remember the original uploads were a better quality and the user even reversed the image at one point to get it into the article. The only thing I can think of for the persistance is it must be a vanity issue and the uploader may one of the crew in the image! MilborneOne (talk) 11:46, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, you are probably right! - BilCat (talk) 18:01, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

List of military aircraft by era

I have just proposed List of military aircraft by era for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of military aircraft by era comments welcome. MilborneOne (talk) 12:09, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Potential problem user

Adam and I have both reverted a user's additions on Transponder (aviation), but he keeps readding the info. (See [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Transponder_(aviation)&curid=7376767&diff=357242845&oldid=357242256 my revert here.) Per the user's talk page (User talk:Sdruvss), he has been involved in edit warring and sockpuppetry before. Any assistance or admin oversight on the matter before it get's out of hand would be appreciated. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 18:01, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Hey, all you military aircraft people, look at this

Scroll down on this page for online books on B-52s and some other aircraft (also Air Warfare - An International Encyclopedia and Modern Fighter Aircraft Technology and Tactics) [1] —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 05:51, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

A lot of those books appear to be recent publications. For example, Air Warfare - An International Encyclopedia was published in 2002. There is no information from stating that the publisher has allowed this, o it is likely they have not. I'd be wary of using the site. - BilCat (talk) 06:36, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that they are copyvios, but we may as well take advantage of resources when we can. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 06:57, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry but we can't use sources that are copyright violations. - Ahunt (talk) 12:39, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

So you can't read the books on there and cite information from them? I'm confused as to what your apprehensions are. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 16:24, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

The problem is explained at WP:COPYLINK which says: "...if you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work. An example would be linking to a site hosting the lyrics of many popular songs without permission from their copyright holders. Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright has been considered a form of contributory infringement in the United States (Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry]). Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors." We can't link to or use suspected copyright violations as refs. - Ahunt (talk) 16:53, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

It is unfortunate that these links are suspect, but I must agree that in order to sustain Wikipedia credibility and veracity such material must be avoided. Mark Sublette (talk) 16:56, 22 April 2010 (UTC)Mark SubletteMark Sublette (talk) 16:56, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I think what Ed is saying is that someone could read a book on the site, and then cite the book itself, not the host site. We would have no way of knowing they read it on the website unles the person said so. Anyway, I've sent an email to the publisher of Air Warfare - An International Encyclopedia, and we'll see if they do anything about their book. If they do, it might be enough to make this site to check the rest of the user's contributions. - BilCat (talk) 17:09, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Bil, that's what I was thinking. It's not very ethical, but I rationalize that the increased attention the book has for being cited here will benefit them in return. Good idea on the email, I didn't even think of that (silly me...) —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 05:33, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

A-10 GA update

A-10 Thunderbolt II was nominated for Good Article in early March. It needed a good bit of referencing, but that seems to be done now. I could probably use some help cleaning it up and assistance addressing GA review comments. Thanks. -Fnlayson (talk) 17:33, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, it passed today. It's taken a while to get it full referenced with several editors contributing. Thanks to all who helped. -Fnlayson (talk) 00:01, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Another user has an issue with a footnote there. -Fnlayson (talk) 22:02, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Infobox images

The Ships wikiproject just made a tweak to their infobox, discussed here, that makes things so that when an infobox is used without a photograph, it adds the article to a hidden category so that editors have the article flagged as needing an image. It seems this might be a useful addition to Infobox Aircraft, perhaps? - The Bushranger (talk) 05:45, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Great idea! Would anyone object if I implemented something similar for us? --Rlandmann (talk) 23:45, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

A hidden category sounds like a good idea. - BilCat (talk) 00:07, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Template bug?

Hm, I seem to have found a bug in the "(country) (type) aircraft yyyy-yyyy" template, specifically as it relates to Yugoslavia & Co. Creating the category Category:Yugoslavian and Serbian fighter aircraft 1990-1999 is called for by the template as opposed to merely "Yugoslav...(etc.)". Which is logical. However, the template automatically places that category in Category:Yugoslav military aircraft 1990-1999 and Category:Yugoslav aircraft 1990-1999...while the links in the same template - and, thus, on the "Yugoslavian and Serbian Fighter..." category page - link to Category:Yugoslavian and Serbian military aircraft 1990-1999 and Category:Yugoslavian and Serbian aircraft 1990-1999. Oh dear. - The Bushranger (talk) 06:09, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Bushranger; there are a few problems with this family of templates when it comes to successor states. I'm planning an overhaul in the near future. Please note any others that you come across on this page. Cheers --Rlandmann (talk) 23:42, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Will do. The Soviet/Russian transition looks to work fine, BTW. - The Bushranger (talk) 00:36, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Hidden categories

It seems many of the categories, including Category:Jet aircraft, Category:High wing aircraft, Category:Multiple engine aircraft and others, are marked as Category:Hidden categories. This does not seem appropriate as per Wikipedia:Categorization,

"the categories that should appear here are the maintenance categories, that is, categories reflecting the present status of the encyclopedia article, rather than classifying the article subject."

These kinds of categories actually _are_ classifying the article subject and should be removed from hidden status. However, categories such as Category:Aircraft without specifications do represent the status of the article and should remain hidden. — MrDolomite • Talk 19:36, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

• Found previous 2009 discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aircraft/Archive_23#Twin-boom_category. — MrDolomite • Talk 19:48, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

See the discussion above. If you want to unhide these categories, then I propose we start depopulating them and sending them to deletion. So far, nobody has been able to make a compelling argument that a category of several thousand aircraft whose only point of commonality is that they are propeller-driven, jet-powered, have a low wing or a high wing is can be in any way useful. What purpose do you see such categories serving? --Rlandmann (talk) 21:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree, if we are going to go back to unhiding these categories then let's delete them as they will clutter up the articles excessively. - Ahunt (talk) 21:16, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the idea behind these categories are legitimate and do not have a problem with them remaining, however I would yield consensus to the WikiProject. But I can see an argument towards Wikipedia:Overcategorization. My only issue was that if Category:Jet aircraft was a legit cat, and that someone had gone through the trouble of adding articles, then it should be visible for all readers of WP to use. — MrDolomite • Talk 04:22, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

If these categories are going to continue to cause problems then perhaps we should revisit the deletion discussion, get a solid consensus to delete them and use a bot to remove them from articles (assuming the consensus goes this way). I can understand why editors are questioning their hidden nature. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 07:44, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree - the problem is that many of the categories are too wide and result in lists with many thousands of aircraft types on them, making them pretty useless to readers. The other issue is that most aircraft end up with dozens of categories: "low wing aircraft", "tricycle gear aircraft", "single engined aircraft", "aircraft with wings", aircraft painted blue"... it was out of control when we opted to hide them instead. - Ahunt (talk) 12:49, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree in principle. However, I suspect that a CfD today would meet with the same result, because on face value, a category for "jet aircraft" does not seem unreasonable. It's only when you grasp just how many articles we're really talking about that the uselessness should become apparent, but even then, people seem reluctant to change their minds. You can read the discussion here.

I'll also point out that hiding the categories was a compromise between people who felt that the categories should remain and those who felt that displaying them in articles was redundant clutter.

Further, the text cited by MrDolomite above ("the categories that should appear here are the maintenance categories") only appears on the Category:Hidden categories page and is not a Wikipedia guideline or policy. WP:CAT says nothing of the kind — it says that maintenance categories should be hidden, but is silent on what other kinds of categories may or may not be hidden (if any).

Finally, I think it's important to note that at the time (8 May 2008), the wording on the Category:Hidden categories page was subtly but importantly different: "...categories which should appear here are primarily maintenance categories..."[2] (emphasis added). The word "primarly" was removed on 11 June. The same editor left me a note about "Category:Jet aircraft". I replied and IIRC heard no more about it. --Rlandmann (talk) 13:38, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

That is a good summary of how we got to here! I would add that this essentially means that we have three choices: 1. Delete the categories (and put up with people recreating them every now and then), 2. show all categories and put up with the clutter or 3. hide the categories and render them of little use to readers as they can't see them, as we have now. My question is: which is the least worst solution? - Ahunt (talk) 13:46, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

(EC) A sort of a way round the problem would be to make some of these hidden cats parent categories. We have subdivided many aircraft types into nationalities and decades and we recently did the same thing with the engines, Category:Turbojet engines for instance had all the turbojets listed which wasn't very useful so we split them into decades which made more sense (I hope!). Some of the cats though I think are just not worth the effort of doing this Category:Propeller aircraft 1910-1919? Would be all of them!! Looking back at the last previous discussion it was only about one category in particular being unhidden which brings us to the 'what should be hidden and what should not' question! We should make an effort to fix it either way. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 13:50, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

On the first point Adam (deletion/re-creation) I think that you get a warning that the category/article you are about to create has been previously deleted which would hopefully deter re-creation (assuming the exact same title is used). Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 13:54, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, Ahunt has basically summed up the options available to us. I still remain strongly in favour of option 1 (delete), but I'm not optimistic about our chances. I'm happy to stick with 3 until and unless policy ever comes down against us.

Subcategorising was indeed discussed, but Nimbus has the right of it; subdividing by decade is still going to result in vast (although much more usable) categories, but perhaps increases the clutter further: imagine at the foot of an article: "Category:British fighter aircraft 1910-1919 Category:Propeller aircraft 1910-1919 Category:Biplane aircraft 1910-1919 Category:Tractor-engined aircraft 1910-1919 Category:Single-engine aircraft 1910-1919". Yuk :) And as I pointed out elsewhere, intersecting only these "unremarkable features" categories still leaves us with things like "Category:Single-engine, propeller-driven, tractor-engined biplanes". The previous CfD was actually for a whole batch of them; the discussion I had around Jet aircraft was indeed only one category, but I suspect that if I hadn't pushed back over this, the other hidden categories would soon have followed. I'll also point out that these categories were populated (and in most cases created) by two energetic individuals against the consensus of this project. When the pushback grew strong enough, they ceased adding to these categories, and so there they remain! --Rlandmann (talk) 14:07, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

As a related aside, while Category:Jet aircraft may indeed be too broad to merit retention (or not, I'm neutral on the issue), I can see a case for categories such as Category:Pulsejet-powered aircraft and Category:Ramjet-powered aircraft, for instance. (and Category:Nuclear aircraft should definitly be kept, but perhaps renamed to Category:Nuclear powered aircraft let somebody think it means "aircraft that can carry nukes"...) I may go though the "configuration" and "engine" categories and ponder what seems desirable to keep (visibly) and what's dead wood. - The Bushranger (talk) 15:40, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Aaaaaand here's my take on the issue. Thoughts? - The Bushranger (talk) 15:58, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I had a look at your page - it is kind of a "mixed solution", but it makes sense to me. The only difficulty I can see with that solution is dealing with new editors randomly creating new categories, but I am not sure what can be done about that. - Ahunt (talk) 16:09, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Shows the extent of the problem. What makes it harder is that editors can not move or rename a category (no tab for it) which makes it doubly important to get it right in the first place, i.e. creating a required category (vice an unrequired one) and naming it correctly (usually following convention of other similar categories). I created a couple of categories by mistake (for Commons images but creating them on the Wikipedia page instead) but they were easily deleted on request as the sole author. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 16:38, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

If some categories are to be kept, but remain hidden, adding the templates {{tracking category}} and {{hiddencat}} will help convey that information to future editors. — MrDolomite • Talk 16:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Bushranger is right — no-one is proposing deleting or hiding categories that describe a distinguishing or remarkable feature of the aircraft; only unremarkable ones. Pulsejets or ramjets are unusual and these are indeed distinguishing or remarkable features.

Hmmm — if we create those categories, then maybe we could clean the aircraft articles out of "Jet aircraft", unhide it, and turn it into a holding category for those and any other unusual methods of air-breathing, reaction power? That would solve one of the problems. If we did this, however, it would require "eternal vigilance" to ensure that people didn't go adding aircraft articles there again. "Propeller aircraft" is a little more problematic. Does anyone have any ideas of other ways we could slice this category to hold stuff other than aircraft articles themselves?

Finally, yeah, the "nuclear" and "steam" categories need renaming urgently. --Rlandmann (talk) 23:24, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I created a new Category:Hydrogen-powered aircraft and moved the entries from Category:Hydrogen planes - then discovered WP:CFDS, whoops. The Nuclear and Steam categories have been proposed for speedy renaming there now. Next, ramjets and pulsejets. - The Bushranger (talk) 06:43, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Hm. Would Category:Aircraft with contra-rotating propellers be useful, or catcruft? - The Bushranger (talk) 07:18, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Borderline, but I'd say that this is a distinctive and remarkable feature of the design and therefore useful. --Rlandmann (talk) 07:35, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Aha, gotcha, thanks. Also, Category:Ramjet-powered aircraft, Category:Scramjet-powered aircraft, and Category:Pulsejet-powered aircraft have all been created as subcategories of Category:Jet aircraft. (Which I've cleaned the crufty subcategories out of.) Cleaning out all the "nomal" jet-powered aircraft will probably take a bit longer - ouch... But I fully concur with the comment about about unhiding it and using it as a "holding category" for these and others like them (Pulse-detonation? LACES?) once that's done. I've also updated User:The_Bushranger/Air_Categories#Category:Aircraft_by_propulsion with how I think things should logically go... - The Bushranger (talk) 19:33, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Category organisation

Since this seems to be a bit of an aside yet related, subheading added...anyway, I've finished looking through the various categories under Category:Aircraft by propulsion and Category:Aircraft configurations. Quite a bit of work needs to be done, but, for starters, I believe this sequence (which has been updated/changed this morning) might be workable for the cat/subcat organisation in these two hierarchies. Any objections or rotten tomatoes? (especially re: Category:Delta-wing aircraft, which I can't decide if it's distinctive enough to suggest proposing keeping of, or not...) - The Bushranger (talk) 20:32, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Looking good! I would also suggest losing "Pusher aircraft" -- this might be unusual today, but used to be quite a common configuration. As you can see, even the short-lived campaign to populate these categories already managed to find over 200 of them. On the other hand, I tend to favour keeping "Delta-winged aircraft", "Gull-winged aircraft" and "Inverted gull winged aircraft". Each of these does indeed seem to be a distinctive and unusual feature of the design.

Speaking pragmatically, although "biplane aircraft" is hopelessly broad (and huge!) it's another one that I suspect would be difficult to "sell" at CfD because again, on face value it's quite a reasonable category. However, given that it was the dominant configuration for roughly the first third of the history of powered flight, our coverage probably extends to a few thousand otherwise unrelated types. Is there any way we can turn this into a holding category too? --Rlandmann (talk) 21:02, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

You also seem to have missed Category:Single engine aircraft and Category:Multiple engine aircraft, neither of which I think we need. --Rlandmann (talk) 21:12, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Delta si, pusher no - gotcha. 'Gull-wing' was one I debated on - distinctive, yes, but what about Category:Parasol-winged aircraft then? Hm. On the subject of the biplane category...the only one that comes to mind off the top of my head would be as a holding category for Category:Biplane aircraft with reverse staggered wings (which would need a much less awkward title!) - or, possibly, Category:Sesquiplane aircraft. - The Bushranger (talk) 21:13, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

As for those last two there, my brain had already deleted them. =P - The Bushranger (talk) 21:14, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Also found one other worthwhile engine-related, distinctive category: Category:Propfan-powered aircraft. Also, would Category:Trimotor aircraft be considered useful? - The Bushranger (talk) 04:08, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

When I think of "trimotor", I think of the popular configuration of the 20s and 30s -- three tractor-mounted engines, one in the nose, one on or under each wing. Limited to this, I think it could be a useful category. OTOH, our article on trimotor includes anything with three propeller engines, including the Short S.8 Calcutta and Britten-Norman Trislander, which I think would make for a less useful category. A definition of "trimotor" from a reliable source would shed some more light here. --Rlandmann (talk) 10:59, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. I can see your point there - although I'm sure nobody will describe the Trislander as anything but distinctive! Found a few other worthwhile cats while flailiing though the jets, this is a big project but satisfying - and, perhaps surprisingly, quite enjoyable. - The Bushranger (talk) 17:52, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

And I believe I have the solution to 'what to put in Category:Biplane aircraft as a holding category' - to wit, Category:Biplanes with negative stagger and Category:Tandem-wing aircraft. Ta-da! - The Bushranger (talk) 01:01, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

• Category:Jet aircraft is now depopulated (aside from Jet aircraft itself), and has been designated a holding category. On to the next one! - The Bushranger (talk) 09:18, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Wow! Awesome work! Thanks for rolling up your sleeves and achieving so much in so little time! :) And for finding such creative solutions to these long-standing problems. As for Category:Parasol-winged aircraft, I think that's again not such an unusual configuration for the first half of the 20th Century -- it would be worth trying to gauge the potential size of such a category before creating it Ditto for Category:Sesquiplane aircraft, but in that case, we might also need to find a hard, formal definition for a sesquiplane. --Rlandmann (talk) 22:49, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome! It's not a problem at all - and I've been learning quite a bit from the various articles as I pass through them, too, which makes it all the more enjoyable. - The Bushranger (talk) 00:44, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

More category fun

User:דוד55 has started adding Category:Light aircrafts - note the spelling to articles - given the above discussions on overcategorisation, this seems a little redundant. Comments?Nigel Ish (talk) 13:12, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Redundant indeed - far too broad a scope... - The Bushranger (talk) 17:39, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Once again, a category that appears perfectly reasonable at face value -- until you realise the sheer scope of what it encompasses. A category to hold several thousand completely unrelated aircraft based only on their MTOW? Completely useless as far as I can see. Thanks for the heads-up, Nigel, and for notifying the creator of this discussion. --Rlandmann (talk) 22:36, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I have to also point out that in English there is no such word as "aircrafts". As in the case of "moose", the plural of "aircraft" is "aircraft" Can we get this embarrassment deleted? - Ahunt (talk) 22:53, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Since there is no such thing as an "aircrafts" I have depopulated the category. It still needs deleting however. - Ahunt (talk) 01:00, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Template move discussion

See Template talk:Infobox Aircraft occurrence#Requested move. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 12:49, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Aviastar

Hey all -- just a heads-up that I've started delinking aviastar.org from articles. This site is problematic because of their wholesale copyright infringement; those of you who've worked on rotorcraft articles are probably aware that they thoughtfully tell us whose work they're pirating, but I've positively identified fixed-wing articles that are plagiarised word-for-word as well. In other cases, the formal (even slightly archaic) British English that the articles are written in leaves me with no doubt that they're pirating an unknown source. It's a big problem -- we have something like 500 links to this site. WP:EL disallows links that could constitute contributory copyright infringement, but even without going that far, it's profoundly unethical treatment of the work of some of the most respected authors in the field. So far, I've identified material that they've pirated from Michael J.H. Taylor, Bill Gunston, William Green, Kenneth Munson, Robert Jackson, and R.W. Simpson. We seriously don't want to be directing readers to these creeps. --Rlandmann (talk) 21:20, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the original source should be cited directly. There are a couple of us here that have some of the helicopter books that site uses. So some should be able to check the source text. -Fnlayson (talk) 23:48, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I've just created a notice at WP:AVIASTAR that explains the problem and to which we can direct other editors when we discover links or references to the site. I think it would be nice to link to this subpage from somewhere in this project space, but I'm not sure where! Any suggestions welcome :) --Rlandmann (talk) 08:06, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. Mark Sublette (talk) 18:29, 17 April 2010 (UTC)Mark SubletteMark Sublette (talk) 18:29, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I started working on cleaning up this yesterday. -Fnlayson (talk) 13:09, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Commonscat

I've noticed that Template:Commonscat is usually placed in the External Links section of aircraft articles. Is this a style guide thing or just where it gets put? Because it can look awkward if it's the only thing in External Links, and, other EL's or not, it seems to me it would be more properly placed in the "See also" section...? Technically I guess it's an external link, but just to Commons. - The Bushranger (talk) 14:23, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Since Commons is a sister project, the link is placed in the Ext. links section per the MoS. Can't remember for sure which page that is specified. Maybe the Layout guide. -Fnlayson (talk) 14:28, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

The statement is here Wikipedia:Layout#External_links. GraemeLeggett (talk) 14:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. Still think it looks awkward, but... *shrug* - The Bushranger (talk) 14:48, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Agree, I've been tempted to put it into See also before now as well since that makes sense, but them's the rules. I don't know where one would advocate a change - this wiki and commons?GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:58, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I had cause to look at this guideline closely recently for some reason (can't remember why though!), I always thought that the Commons link had to go in an 'External links' section even if there were no other links (which is what Wikipedia:Layout#External_links currently says). What I read at the time (which may well have changed!) was that the link should go at the top of the last section in an article (which may well be 'References') and did not need an 'External links' header which is indicated here: Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects#Where to place links. Some contradiction between the two guidelines, the MoS is in a state of flux due to an ongoing overhaul, I would not do anything until they've made their minds up!! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:00, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Passenger aircraft

I just stumbled across this odd article. At the very least, it's misnamed as it's not an article about passenger aircraft at all. Either we should rename this to List of passenger aircraft with more than nine seats produced after 2005 (which appears to be its true scope) or just cover it with a redirect to airliner. Does anyone see any value in it as it stands? --Rlandmann (talk) 21:18, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree - redirect to Airliner. - Ahunt (talk) 21:22, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Concur with redirect, which it was it was from Jan 07 to Dec 08 when an IP created the current incarnation. - BilCat (talk) 21:26, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Redirect back to Airliner (which the article was at one stage seems sensible. While its better done than some articles I've seen, the scope seems very strangely limited and it (yet again) seems to duplicate stuff we already have.Nigel Ish (talk) 21:28, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I see what they were trying to do - group passenger aircraft by capacity and date excluding the light aircraft. It could just be reconfigured as list of passenger aircraft and then section by capacity or decade. But a redir would be simpler. GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:39, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I concur as well, redirect to Airliner (which I'll head off and do). I have however moved the list to userspace as it is a bit nifty and has potential, feel free to fiddle!. - The Bushranger (talk) 23:14, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

There are actually a whole bunch of these messy 'articles' that I think have largely been edited by the same person. They include short haul, List of regional airliners, Regional jet, Regional jets, Regional airliner, Mainline (flight) and List of short haul aircraft. IMO there is a large amount of duplication; I tried to do something about it over a year ago and received a great deal of hostility from the IP editor for my troubles. YSSYguy (talk) 00:26, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Very prudent information, but messy and unsourced. The lists can go as that's more of a template but the rest just need a major copyedit and addition of sources. --N419BH (talk) 00:36, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Wow that is quite a list! Yes those all need some serious clean up, converting to redirects, etc. Anyone want to propose a plan? Perhaps if we come up with a general plan we can divide up the work. - Ahunt (talk) 13:35, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I've merged the best parts of short haul, which was actually a list!, into list of short haul aircraft and redirected the former to "flight length". The list of... is still a mess but at least its down to one article.GraemeLeggett (talk) 14:57, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion for Comparable Aircraft

If we make aircraft comparisions out of thin air then that is OR. Instead let's rely on real-world factors like aircraft purchase choices or deliberate marketing please. Hcobb (talk) 15:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not intended to be a sourced comparision section, but a "See also" list of other articles about similar aircraft. We'd be better of just removing the list entirely from the Aircontent template. - BilCat (talk) 15:50, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd oppose both of those. It's no more OR than a print encyclopedia saying "see also: foo1, foo2" at the end of an article. It's not "out of thin air", it's using common sense. I agree we'd be better off removing it then applying that standard though (as I mentioned the reasoning behind on the PAK-FA talk page). - The Bushranger (talk) 16:11, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't want to remove the list, but I see that we're running out of other options. It can be done for a short time if necessary, as it's simple to turn the section off in the {{Aircontent}} template. What has also been discussed is changing the list title output from "Comparable" back to "Similar". The wordsmiths would still try to make it stand on all fours, but probably to a lesser degree. I still think the definition given in the template, "aircraft that are of similar role, era, and capability as this design", can be easily applied using the info in each article, without appealing to outside sources that may not be judging the aircraft by those criteria. - BilCat (talk) 16:27, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

We could title the list "Aircraft of similar role, era, and capability". That is a bit long, but not extremely so, and the output should fit on most screens in one line. This would make it totally clear exactly what is being compared. I'd aslo like to see desing and size added to the criteria, but that would probably make the output too long for the list title. - BilCat (talk) 16:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Our (aircraft project) use of the 'See also' section is entirely within the guideline of WP:SEEALSO, the grouping of comparable aircraft articles is encouraged by the spirit of that guideline. If the list gets 'out of hand' in a particular article then it should be dealt with there. We may need to narrow down what exactly is comparable to what as Bill suggests, shame that we might need yet another guideline though. I wrote some hopefully common sense advice for dealing with 'comparable engines' at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Engines/page content#See also section. This works very well for the engines and we have no problems to my knowledge. I would not be in favour of changing 'aircontent' without good reason or majority consensus. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 18:22, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Me either (and Bill's suggestions make sense if it has to be done), but the Russian fanboys seem to be nearly as bad as the Chinese ones sometimes with regard to the "you can't compare foo to fooski, ours is clearly better!" department. - The Bushranger (talk) 23:16, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

And now for something completely different

Than the above, at least - more similar to the one above that though... Loss of structural integrity on an aircraft. Eyebrow-raising name, and the format of the page is... *shudder*. Should it be renamed to List of aircraft accidents caused by structural failure, something else, or is it unsalvagable? - The Bushranger (talk) 23:21, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Nasty - I've had a go at the table reformatting.GraemeLeggett (talk) 23:36, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Chinese fighter aircraft cat

While browing cats and cleaning up further, I came across Category:Chinese fighter aircraft...which has a list as part of the category page. I commented it out - I would have deleted the listcruft outright, but it had some interesting information I hadn't seen before. Perhaps somebody could try and salvage it for articlespace...? - The Bushranger (talk) 06:39, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Very old photographs

These are periodically attacked by the "Copyright Purity Brigade".

In particular I have noticed a number of WWI British aircraft photographs with a "British Government/Crown Copyright expired" template have been attacked in this way. I replied with the following - which will hopefully enable the graphic in question to remain:

• This photograph is over ninety years old

• It is of a service aircraft, and was taken during the 1914-1918 war - at a time when all photography of service aircraft except by service personnel on official duty was strictly forbidden. There is therefore a strong legal presumption that any original copyright belonged to the British Crown - which copyright has long expired.

• It has been published many times in various source during the past ninety years.

Does this need to made into a template which can be added whenever such a picture is uploaded??

--Soundofmusicals (talk) 23:03, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I think it should be! It may hold the copyrighter Nazis at bay for a bit! - Ahunt (talk) 01:17, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I've been noticing that as well. And not just old photographs - a pic on Commons that I edited to remove a border, that had been there for a long time, that was a PD-FAA photograph and noted as such, got tagged! I'd make the template myself if I knew how. - The Bushranger (talk) 02:01, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I think you have to be careful about the assumption that all military aircraft images from the great war are official unless you can find a reliable reference. Adding that into a template would probably bring more attention to dubiuous provenance. For example a lot of second world war images are tagged crown copyright when clearly some have been taken by company staff photographers. It is the assumptions that atract attention so you must use a clear provenance or reasoned argument for each image. MilborneOne (talk) 09:42, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

You should also note that - just because private photography at the front was illegal at the time doesn't mean people didn't do it. Copyright in those cases of "illegal" photos would (as far as I know) have remained with the person who took the photo. In addition many well known photos may be press photos or taken by the manufacturer. It may be better to try and use something like PD-EU-no author disclosure for images where we don't have any sort of credit.Nigel Ish (talk) 09:56, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

UAV list

List of unmanned aerial vehicles looks like it could use some attention. I'm not sure if the IP-editor edits today are kosher or not, and the whole thing could use cleaning up by somebody with more time and knowledge of the subject, I think. - The Bushranger (talk) 14:24, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

A lot better than it was! i did a big clean up in January! could do with some reliable ref sources. MilborneOne (talk) 18:09, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Duplicate articles

We appear to have two articles on the Yak-1000, Yakovlev Yak-1000 and Yakolev Yak-1000, the first seems to be the better article and is correctly spelt. Merge/redirect? Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 12:58, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd support that! - Ahunt (talk) 13:04, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Lordy, there are more!! Yakolev Yak-140 and Yakovlev Yak-140, looks like some have been redirected already looking at other Yaks. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 13:49, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Interestingly, both article were created by the same users at about the same time (the misspelled ones in 4/09, the corrects in 11/09). Having had interactions with the first user before, none of this surprises me. We might make the second user aware of the situation so hae can better check for mis-spelled duplicated in the future, for whatever aircraft he's working on. There has got to be a better way of catching these articles in an earlier timeframe! - BilCat (talk) 14:03, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Bill that there should be a better way for checking to see if an article exists before you write a new one. I know I always do a pretty extensive search for an article before I start one. The best tool, other than searching, is often the manufacturer's nav box. If a search doesn't turn up anything then I go to one type by the same manufacturer and see what the nav box offers. Finding articles where the manufacturer's name is spelled wrong and there is no nav box (or worse where the article isn't listed in the nav box - far too common) can be hard, though!! I am not sure there is a totally fool-proof way of preventing this. - Ahunt (talk) 14:15, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) A quick wiki-search on "Yakolev Yak" shows that these were the last two such articles. (Yes, there were others. Sigh.) - BilCat (talk) 14:17, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

The only text under the search window on clicking 'Go' is You may create the page "Yakovlev Foo Fighter", but consider checking the search results below to see whether it is already covered. Seems clear enough to me. Of course if you spell it incorrectly then it won't show up, doh!!! Just two duplicates left to fix is not so bad. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 15:06, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

T-52 designation

Per [http://www.af.mil/photos/mediagallery.asp?galleryID=6 this search on the USAF site, The T-52 designation has been assigned. It's only called the "Diamond T-52A" in the photo captions. I assume this is a Diamond Aircraft Industries product, but can anyone tell which one? (They do appear to carry US N-numbers.) We need to capture the redirects before someone tries to create anonther duplicate article! Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 14:22, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Looks like they might be Diamond DA20s, from this now-uncited section in that article. - BilCat (talk) 14:25, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

The DA20 article section mentions Doss Aviation, which has 45 DA20s and 20 DA40s registered to it at an address in Colorado Springs. The DA20s are registered N9xxDA, the DA40s are registered N3xxAF. YSSYguy (talk) 15:11, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I fixed the cites. Ahunt (talk) 15:42, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I was wondering if the Diamonds would get a T-# designation! Good find Bill! Of course, this means that once again we have the MDS series being abused (they really should have been designated T-7)...sigh... - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 16:15, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

More info here (after the T-41 and T-51, first pics I've seen of the latter!). - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 16:33, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

*Of course, the question now is, are the DA-40s T-52B or T-53? - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 16:23, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Still confused, the official photo linked above of a T-52A is N301AF which is a DA40 although the info and links on the T-52A point to the DA20 article! MilborneOne (talk) 17:37, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Bill and I have fixed the DA20 and 40 articles. The refs clearly show that the USAF bought DA40s and designated them as T-52A. - Ahunt (talk) 17:58, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Oops. Sorry about that, I saw the comments above and, not being at all familar with the distinctions between Diamonds, jumped to a conclusion in the limited time I had left online... - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 20:32, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

No sweat at all - that is the power of collaboration here in the WikiProject - together we are all smarter than any one of us! - Ahunt (talk) 20:49, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

So, I heard you like scouts in your scouts...

There's a discussion at Talk:Scout_(aircraft)#Merger_proposal that has concluded a merger of Scout (aircraft) and Scout plane would be inadvisable, but further disambiguation may be necessary. But we're a bit stymied as to how to do it. Further comments on how to deal with this would be appreciated. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 03:36, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Competitor information

There is a heated debate on the Boeing 737 article regarding whether or not information on the competing Airbus A320 should be included in the introduction. A quick look of other Boeing and Airbus articles revealed that half mention competitors in the introduction while the others do not. I feel this should be standardized. Any ideas? --N419BH (talk) 16:28, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Rought rule, is it mentioned in adequate (verified) detail in the article - if not then it doesn't go in the lede. GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:04, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The stuff in the lead para of the 737 article about the airbus outselling the 737 in the last few years doesn't seem to be discussed in any great detail in the main body of the report so probably doesn't belong in the lead - discussion of sales relative to its competiors might fit into the main body of the article as long as it was more comprehensive - i.e don't just talk about the last few years, and don't just talk about Airbuses - in the Early years of the 737 major competitors included things like BAC 1-11s and DC-9s.Nigel Ish (talk) 18:18, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed as above, competitor information should typically go in the body, and not the lead. Most other airplane articles, such as fighter aircraft, focus the lead on the aircraft that the article is about, and place rival discussion in the body. On some airliner articles, competitor press releases have been posted to add rivals to the lead (primary sources, not reliable third-party ones), with argumentative claims, e.g. "rival is more fuel efficient", "rival has sold faster", "rival has more orders this year", etc. These competitive comparisons typically belong in the body discussion, if backed by reliable sources. SynergyStar (talk) 18:32, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

That's kind of what I was thinking. For example, the intro for the A350 talks about it being "8% more fuel efficient than the 787". Similarly, the intro to the A380 talks about it having "49% more floor space than the 747". Now the big question: do we leave the intros as is or modify them? --N419BH (talk) 18:42, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Checking those statements, the "8% more fuel efficient" claim is listed using projected targets in a press presentation. Given that the aircraft hasn't even been built, that seems to be a bit speculative and WP:CRYSTALBALL, moreover, on Wiki it's encouraged to avoid using press releases whenever possible. If included, it probably belongs in the body. As for the floor space question, it could simply be stated that the aircraft has the most floor space of any airliner. SynergyStar (talk) 18:56, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

• On the Boeing 737 article, I moved the sales comparison info from the Lead to the body of the article. The Lead should summarize the rest of article, not introduce new things. -Fnlayson (talk) 16:06, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

More Operator-spam?

See these contributions which have been adding the Dominican Air Force to several Cessna light aircraft airticles. I somehow doubt these are all correct, if any. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 18:48, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

They did operate four T-41Ds but he/she only added retired, not sure about the others, I have removed the addition to the Skymaster page but the Skymaster has O-2 operators which should be in O-2. MilborneOne (talk) 19:16, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

According to Skymaster.org, the DR did, indeed, operate five O-2As. A far cry from their previous Beaufighters! - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 00:15, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The Flight International 1994 World's Air Forces directory lists Aero Commander 680s, Queen Airs, Navajos, a Cessna 210, O-2s and T-41s. The 1989 Directory lists many of these plus a Ralleye. No mention of Senecas in any of the directories that I have looked at. YSSYguy (talk) 02:46, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for List of X-planes now open

The peer review for List of X-planes is now open; any and all comments and suggestions would be great, thanks! - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 14:59, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Aircraft specs template

Created a new article on the Dornier 428JET but for some reason, even though I have the met argument in for primary units, the specifications do not show. How do I fix that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by N419BH (talk • contribs)

Looks like User:Jarkeld got it working! - Ahunt (talk) 12:53, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

X-47 Phantom Ray

A user has created X-47 Phantom Ray. The problem is, we already have 2 X-47 articles: X-47A Pegasus, and Northrop Grumman X-47B, neither of which use the name "Phantom Ray". I'm not sure which article it ought to be redirected to. Also, someone more diplomatic might want to talk to the user about checking thoroughly for other articles before creating one. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 21:16, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I was forgetting the X-47 is Northrop Grumman's. Boeing's Phantom Ray has been covered at Boeing X-45. Not sure it needs a new article yet. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:24, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I just noticed that! It should be X-45. I look there and see if it should be merged. - BilCat (talk) 21:35, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I was about to say that Boeing has been discussing the Phantom Ray as seperate from the X-45, but it appears that another user has taken care of that and made a Phantom Ray article! It's going to be an interesting race to see if the Navy-funded N-UCAS can reach first flight before the company funded Phantom Ray! -SidewinderX (talk) 11:52, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Probable unfree image

I found another PAK FA image that's a probable copyvio. File:Pak Fa T50.JPG is posted on Commons under CCA 3.0, but the Premissions line states: "The footage is published from the Sukhoi company itself." More than likely that means the image is copyrighted. Can someone double-check this? Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 23:28, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Technology Demonstrator

From the user who brought us the F/A-XX articel comes the Technology Demonstrator page. As writtne, it's not worth keeping, but could be rewritten from scratch. The subject may well be better covered in other existing articles, but I don't know. PROD/AFD this one too? - BilCat (talk) 23:44, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Seems like something that would be more useful as a dictionary entry rather than a wikipedia article, at least IMO. -SidewinderX (talk) 01:46, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Ditto. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 04:08, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Another would-be article...

List of wide-body aircraft. Ouch. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 05:01, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Canadian article moves

Did I miss something? any reason why some of the Canadian military articles are being moved to the non-standard US format like Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow to CF-105 Arrow contrary to the agreed naming convention. MilborneOne (talk) 10:31, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

You got me there? FWiW Bzuk (talk) 12:19, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Most of the Canadian military aircraft articles under the post-1968 designation system use the US military-style format. These include CH-113 Labrador, CH-124 Sea King, CH-124 Sea King, CT-134 Musketeer, CH-146 Griffon, and CH-148 Cyclone. This has been by general consensus/usage, if not strictly specified in the Naming Conventions. Technically, however, the CF-100 and CF-105 are pre-1968 desingations, possibly company designations, though they could have been the inspirations for the post-1968 system. - BilCat (talk) 13:08, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

This was me. *slightly embarassed look* Since three of the later types (the Argus, Cosmopolitan and Tutor, to be precise) had been proposed for renaming - admittedly from their Canadair designations to CF designations, although all using the manufacturer's-nameless format - and all three of them sailed through without any objection, I decided to be bold with the rest of the lot. Sorry if I stepped on any toes there. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 14:00, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Article title proposal

With the sophistication of the current WP article title setup, I think "manufacturer-designation-name" is feasible not just for US military aircraft (and CF aircraft too), but across the board (where applicable). I say this because we seem to have many article now that use the "manufacturer-designation-name" format, especially newer ones, and the format's usage on those pages does not seem to have caused any major problems. More than likely, it would have to be grandfathered in over time, with many pages to be moved, but at the least it would allow the "manufacturer-designation-name" to be used without much restiction, rather than being frowned upon as in the current conventions. - BilCat (talk) 13:08, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with that - it would give the military aircraft the same titling as most of the civil aircraft and thus be more consistent. - Ahunt (talk) 13:24, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm proposing this for all aircraft with both designations and names, no matter what nationality, military and civil. We could restrict it to just US/CF military aircraft to begin with, while still allowing it on new articles across the board. - BilCat (talk) 13:40, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I was actually musing on this a bit yesterday afternoon, and with the comments here, I think this is probably a good idea. Although the (designation-name) format is a bit 'slick', it does introduce an inconsistency where you have types without common names, that have to use the (manufacturer-designation) format. My moves yesterday afternoon notwithstanding, I think I can Support this. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 14:02, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I would support Bills idea of a standard format and as he suggested it would help us be more consistent across all articles. Just one comment some types have multiple designations which may cause problems with a manufacturer-designation-name format and these may have to be manufacturer-name but this would need to be looked at on a case by case basis. MilborneOne (talk) 14:47, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this proposal eliminates a lot of ambiguity about the aircraft and a standard format of anything would be useful. FWiW, I had a time figuring out what to name the "CF-103" project and ended up with "Avro Canada CF-103" as the most logical nomenclature. FWiW, for fun, look at how this article is shaping up. Bzuk (talk) 14:52, 15 May 2010 (UTC).

(edit conflict) I agree that could be a problem, which is one reason I'd recommend grandfathering in the proposal, besides that fact we now have about 6000 articles to consider. In most cases, the non-US military articles will already be at the best titles. In other cases, it may get a bit confusing. The Piper aircraft in particular often have a range of both designations and/or names applied to the same airframe. As Michael said, these are best handled case-by-case. On the US military aircraft, we'll have to deal with changes in manufacturer names, such as with the F-16 and F-18, but this is not new: The British aircraft in particular have the same problems, and the same soulution should apply. If we continue to get support here for the proposal over the next few days, I'll start a formal discussion at WT:AIR/NC. - BilCat (talk) 15:02, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

One thing we'll probably need to make clear is that the "manufacturer-designation-name" should not be mandatory for all aircraft, and in many cases, no changes will need to be made. This will primarily affect US military and Canadian aircraft that have both a name and designation. We don't need to contrive a designation or name to fit the format in an artificial way. Also, we probably should not try to include British role/mark designations, unless they are for a specific variant where DABbing is needed. However, many new aircraft are now being assigned both names and designationes where thei manufacturer has not done so in the past, such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and the Alenia Aermacchi M-346 Master. In such cases, using all three components should not be a problem. - BilCat (talk) 15:32, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

In addition, we'll probably want to make a master list of US/CF military aircraft with thier current designations, and the proposed name. This will allow us to clear the majority of the new titles, and to know which titles would be contested before we make the moves. - BilCat (talk) 15:32, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

• The main problem I see is which manufacturer name to use (e.g. McDonnell F-4 Phantom II or McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II) with the "manufacturer-designation-name" nomenclature. I support the "manufacturer-designation-name" format if it is not mandatory for US military aircraft and others. -Fnlayson (talk) 17:53, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I dont think I would like to see an exception for US military which already stands out as non-standard with all the other articles and often requires loads of piping to add back in the manufacturers name in list and other articles. If the F-4 was to change then the title would have to be agreed by consenus on what is considered the more common name (not unlike a lot of the non us articles) hence we have Supermarine Spitfire rather then Vickers-Supermarine Spitfire (or even BAe Spitfire) not a big problem. I dont think Bill is calling for a big bang change so if the m-d-n is agreed as standard it can be used for new articles first then could be rolled back with suitable discussion and consensus. MilborneOne (talk) 18:42, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

The main point of the proposal is to eliminate the exception of the US mil articles not have a manufacturer in the title. The advantage of the previous system has been that the US military aircraft have been exempt from the multiple manufacturer issue, but we have to deal with it on almost all other articles. For the majority of US mil articles, that should not be an issue, but it will be for some. As Michael stated, we'll just have to agree by consensus on what manufacturer to use with them. This is where having a Master List will help identify the problem articles, but allow us to move the remainder as we can, hopefully without issues. - BilCat (talk) 22:13, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Further, we already have to deal with the McDonnell Douglas merger issue on the civil airliner pages. We have Douglas DC-8, but McDonnell Douglas DC-9.

One unrelated non-US article that has had difficulty with names is the "Mitsubishi A6M Zero". It ought to be at Mitsubishi A6M, but an exception was made to use Mitsubishi Zero. Later, it was moved without discussion to A6M Zero, where it is now. Allowing the m-d-n format for all article would let us use Mitsubishi A6M Zero as the full title. In most cases for Japanese WW2 aircraft, the "manufacturer-designation" format is sufficient, but some others do have official or semi-official names, which would be allowed under the new system. - BilCat (talk) 22:31, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

HAL Tejas edit war

We have an edit war going on at HAL Tejas, again. Sigh. Both "competitors" are registered users, so a semi-protect would do no good in this case. Could an admin or 2 look at the article, and see what actions would be best taken here? Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 08:59, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

...I might note that at least one of the users involved has also been pushing rather the same anti-Tejas, apparently pro-China POV elsewhere before. - The Bushranger (talk) 17:53, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

As one of the editors involved in this dispute, I'm pretty sure this one is resolved. The main issue was over what radar was installed in the aircraft and because no citations were provided, the information was reverted several times. Although a clear picture still doesn't exist I think both parties are content to leave the article as is for now. Vedant (talk) 19:13, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

F/A-XX

Found another one: F/A-XX. Totally unreferenced, probably misnamed. - BilCat (talk) 20:09, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Well... that article is probably spawned from this. However, F/A-XX is what the "6th gen" Super Hornet replacement slated for the 2030/2035 timeframe. It will eventually be a procurement program, but there is obviously little out there right now. -SidewinderX (talk) 20:40, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Definitely misnamed. "F/A-XX" is the Navy's working designation/name. No idea what Boeing is calling their concepts for it. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:18, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I also see Air Trek: Generations showing up there already too. Sigh! Should the page be about the F-XX program, or about Boeing's possible contender? I'd say the former. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 22:13, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

It could go either way. Think there may be more info on the Navy program though.. -Fnlayson (talk) 22:22, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

At this point, it's basically just news. I'd Prod/AFD the article as it is. If kept, I could either way also - it depends on which has the most info avalible. - BilCat (talk) 22:33, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Prodded. - BilCat (talk) 23:38, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Seconded the PROD! - Ahunt (talk) 23:43, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

This may be of some interest to people watching this subject: Boeing's "F/A-XX" Aims For Future Fighter Contracts - AvWeb - Ahunt (talk) 15:12, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Boeing 777 turbulence incident

A new article has been created incident of turbulence involving a Boeing 777 at Emirates Flight 530. This seems fairly minor and not worth a separate article to me. What do you think? -Fnlayson (talk) 13:15, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Non-notable, fails WP:AIRCRASH. I would support an AfD on it. We really need to avoid turning Wikipedia into a sensationalistic report of every minor aircraft incident. If this was the Automobile Project would we report every shopping mall parking lot fender-bender that any car had? - Ahunt (talk) 13:28, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I PRODed it. Will see if that works. -Fnlayson (talk) 16:23, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I seconded the PROD! - Ahunt (talk) 17:08, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Is it possible to third it? This wouldn't even merit mention in the "accidents and incidents" section of a page, yet alone a seperate article. Geez. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 19:31, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

• A user just removed the PROD tags. :( -Fnlayson (talk) 13:12, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I see that. Referenced or not it is still not-notable - let's take it to AfD. - Ahunt (talk) 13:21, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

This is to notify interested members of this WikiProject that Emirates Flight 530 has been nominated for deletion. Editors are invited to participate in the deletion discussion. - Ahunt (talk) 18:32, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Captions for line art

A couple of reverts recently removed the "thumb" attribute from line art in articles, with the summary "line drawings and 3-views don't need thiumbs"[3][4], and then ""generally" - these are the exceptions"[5][6]. When challenged on this, BilCat pointed to the "exemption notice" at the bottom of WP:AVIMOS#Images (the bold bit) and promptly went on a wikibreak. Regardless of whether or not one is "obliged" to follow the MoS, one should certainly have a good reason for deliberately not doing so, especially where it affects accessibility. The thumbnail attribute should go back in here, and in other examples of the same thing. I've pinged WT:ACCESS and WT:MOS for input as well. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:52, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Agree. The problem with not using thumbs is that there is then (as far as I know, and I have asked) no way of adding a caption. Yes, you get a temporary caption if you hover, but many casual readers will not know this. Line art, and 3-views in particular often need captions. We are asked to put these diagrams in the specs space, where a particular variant has been specified, but quite often the 3-view is not of the same variant; in any case, the reader may well need reassurance if it is.TSRL (talk) 09:56, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

WP:CONEXCEPT applies:

Consensus decisions in specific cases do not automatically override consensus on a wider scale – for instance, a local debate on a WikiProject does not override the larger consensus behind a policy or guideline. The WikiProject cannot decide that for the articles within its scope, some policy does not apply, unless they can convince the broader community that doing so is right.

Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:10, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Chris, you stated "Regardless of whether or not one is "obliged" to follow the MoS, one should certainly have a good reason for deliberately not doing so, especially where it affects accessibility." This is quite false, as far as I know. This a long-standing guideline in WPAIR, but apparently the wiki-wide policy on accessibility is comparitively quite recent. I've been on WP for nearly 4 years, and this is the first I'm hearing of it. The last I heard, captions were only to be used if they were descriptive, which most 3-view captions are not. So all of a sudden someone adds a thumb to a 3-view where it it did not exist before, I reverted it, and then Chris shows up complaining that I'm violating some policy as if it was in the 1789 US Contituition, and that WPAI is "deliberately" violating it. Some good faith on your part might be nice here, as we didn't purposefully write this guideline in order to brek a policy that apparently wasn't even written yet. (Some good faith on the fact I might actually be sick and need a wiki-break would be good too.) - BilCat (talk) 10:53, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not passing judgement on why you're taking a wikibreak: I brought it to WP:AIR talk specifically because you had implied that you wouldn't be around for a while. Sorry if my use of the word "promptly" implied that you were doing so to avoid having to explain yourself. As for whether the accessibility guidelines came after the WP:AIR content guidelines, I'm not disputing that they did; however, they exist now, and they're part of the main MoS, which certainly does suggest that it should be followed unless there's a good reason not to (which is what IAR is there for). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:17, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

The WPAIR guideline for 3-views is at [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/page content#Images, not WP:AVIMOS#Images. I had looked at poth pages, and mis-remembered the correct link code. Not that matters, as it's a deliberate violation of policy! - BilCat (talk) 11:12, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Quoting from the relevant text:

Please use the "thumbnail" option for all images other than those inside infoboxes and the three-view drawing (where one is included in the specifications section).

The problem with this is that the specifications section is a section of an article; it doesn't provide any context by itself to identify the three-view image as such. I'd like some clarification on why a caption should specifically be omitted here (it certainly isn't redundant), with a view to changing that text if it turns out to be inappropriate. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:17, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Whether the thumb option is used doesn't affect accessibility, at least for screen readers,. When it is omitted, the last parameter of the file (normally the caption) becomes the alt text, which is always read by screen readers. In fact I slightly prefer images without thumbnails, since they don't have pesky thumbnail links. Graham87 11:56, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

All I removed were the thumbs; the caption line is still there. - BilCat (talk) 12:44, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

It's "there", but it's hidden. If an image needs a caption (i.e. it's not purely decorative) then that caption should be visible. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:52, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I was merely addressing Graham87's comment that a caption need not be visible for accesibility to work. If that's true, then my removal of the thumb paramenter does not affect accesibility. That's all I meant, no more, no less. - BilCat (talk) 13:43, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I have to side with Bill here; if for no other reason than a three-view drawing's thumbnail, quite honestly, often looks rather odd. The caption can be hovered/screenread, so there's no accessability problem, and having a caption that says "A three-view drawing of the Foo Fighter", in the article "Foo Fighter", seems to me to be rather redundant. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 15:31, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd not argue strongly for the thumb per se - though I prefer it and can seen that if we do get copyright access to Flight's detailed drawings we may want a larger format - but on identification. Yes, we know its a Foofighter, but the spec is for a Mk.XXI and the 3-view for the very differently profiled Mk.XXXII. With the scarcity of legal 3-views, we often can't get a match. The caption reads "Foofighter Mk.XXXII", a simple description of the contents of the diagram, so OK for thumbs use? Any format with a visible caption would do for me. As I said up there, I'd guess many read-onlys don't know about hoovering. Took me a long time to find out. Sorry for slight repetition.TSRL (talk) 16:09, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that unless a good caption can be given, then it is probably better to leave one off. For accessibility the "alt=" should be used together with a appropriate caption eg "line drawing of aircraft shown from the side, from above and from in front". If the image is not of the model as cited in the specifications, or a specific variant, then it were better that that was in a caption. GraemeLeggett (talk) 16:13, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

The image isn't purely decorative, so what's the rationale for omitting the caption? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:24, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

The rationale for omitting a caption is that in many cases it doesn't add anything - if the caption would just be something like "three view drawing of a Feefighter", and there is no need to specify a version, then a caption can be safely ommitted as it is "an unambiguous depection of the subject of the article" to quote WP:MOS.Nigel Ish (talk) 22:19, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I'll throw this template in: Template:3-view. It supports a caption (for cases where adding one is useful or necessary) and also sizes the image to 300px. It has been my understanding for several years that the image in the 'specs' section is allowed/encouraged to be bigger than a normal thumbnail. I see edit summaries of 'forced image sizing removed', apparently this is not to be done now and indeed at FAC they ask why some images are not presented in a larger format. Yep, I'm confused!! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 03:55, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

American Airlines Flight 614 Nomination for Deletion

This is to notify interested members of this WikiProject that American Airlines Flight 614 has been nominated for deletion. Editors are invited to participate in the deletion discussion. - Ahunt (talk) 21:50, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

As readers will note from the redlinks this article got speedied instead. - Ahunt (talk) 13:15, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

"Nuclear wessels"

I noticed that a user has been adding Category:Russian inventions to a large number of Soviet and Russian aircraft (and ship) articles. Now, I don't really think that a Tupolev Tu-160 or a Kirov class battlecruiser qualified as an "invention", right? - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 21:16, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Also Category:Soviet inventions, and Category:Ukrainian inventions. To me these don't qualify as a new thing or "radical breakthrough" as mentioned at Invention. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:23, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I've reverted a few of them - at the speed the user is making the changes - I wonder if some sort of automated tool or bot is being used.Nigel Ish (talk) 21:46, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Thought so. Thanks. (Also, the "w" in the title was intentional. ;) ) - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 22:16, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

• Sorry, the W looked like a typo. Changing back... -Fnlayson (talk) 22:22, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

No worries. I have a strange sense of humour sometimes. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 22:22, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

KC-100

Flight Global has an article on the new KAI KC-100] being developed by Korea Aerospace Industries. As far as I can tell, we don't have an article on it yet, which would probably be at KAI KC-100. - BilCat (talk) 13:37, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Wide-body_aircraft proposed move

Just in case you were not aware of this move discussion, you now have the pointer. Vegaswikian (talk) 07:08, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Copyvio images again

And yes, they are in the HAL Light Combat Helicopter article, and are the same images that have been deleted 4 or 5 times already. This is getting very old. For permissions, they state "Published in a newspaper and hence, is deemed to be a free image"! I'm going to need a wiki-break again! - BilCat (talk) 16:54, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I thought I had removed them all earlier! MilborneOne (talk) 16:55, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

From the article? The IPs have been readding all day long! Some other admin is going to get me for edit warring! :) - BilCat (talk) 17:00, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I have protected it for a week until the image copyright issues are resolved. MilborneOne (talk) 17:05, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't save the links to the copyright noticis for those images from before, so I don't have them now. They should be in the deleted files of some of the images on Commons, if we can contact an admin there to look. - BilCat (talk) 17:13, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

This is one of them, just so we dont forget when it gets uploaded again. I have marked File:L C H.jpg as a copyvio on commons, source is http://www.hal-india.com/LCH-mar10.asp (© Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. All rights reserved.) MilborneOne (talk) 17:25, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Perhaps we need a sub-page on WPAIR dedicated to common copyvio images, to have all the links to the sources in one place. - BilCat (talk) 17:52, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

The most darkly amusing/disgusting part is that picking one or two images, uploading it/them, and using the proper templates and disclaimers to claim fair use, isn't that hard! But they'd rather say it "doesn't seem copyvio". Geez. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 19:02, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I sincerely doubt "Published in a newspaper and hence, is deemed to be a free image" is allowed in Indian copyright law! We have enough reliable users from or in India that someone should be able to confirm it one way or the other, though I doubt it's neccesarry! :) - BilCat (talk) 22:28, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Laws? We don't need no stinking laws! - 00:03, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Aircraft flight control system

I had a message on my talk page from an IP editor complaining about another IP editor's recent adds to the Aircraft flight control system article. I did revise it some time ago and have been watching it steadily go downhill with much unreferenced material being added. The fly-by-wire section seems to be the main problem area, I think that section has grown to a size where it could be split into its own article where it could be more closely monitored. I wonder if submitting the article for peer review at this stage would be useful to at least check the facts? Promotion would be a bonus. Not suggested any of this at the article talk page yet, just musing here! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:48, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

In looking thought that article (and adding fact tags) it seems the biggest problem is that about 90% of it is unreferenced! - Ahunt (talk) 19:46, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's why its hard to revert. Its a big job to fix it. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:05, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

I was looking at just that problem. Yes it is a big job to fix it. The problem with all the unref stuff is that most of it is probably close to correct, otherwise it would be better to just challenge and remove the unref text and stubify it. - Ahunt (talk) 20:10, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

It's a sandbox job for sure to bring it up to encyclopedic standards. I don't think that there would be any objection to a split, sorting it out at the same time. Need a good title for a fly-by wire article, maybe Digital aircraft flight control system, I only have experience of the Tornado system and that was called CSAS (Command Stability Augmentation System), probably a million acronyms out there. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:27, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Actually I like your idea of splitting it and cleaning it up at the same time, makes sense. - Ahunt (talk) 20:56, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

I've added a note to the article talk page about this discussion (seems to be the opposite of what is happening in the section above!). Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:20, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Continued undiscussed moves

User:Petebutt has once again moved a page without discussion, this time moving Northrop Grumman KC-45 to EADS KC-45. However, this is currently under discussion on the talk page, but Pete has not even participated in the discussion to this point. This is not the first time he has made moves while they were under discussion on the talk page. What measuers should be taken to address this issue? I have given him a lave 3 warning, but I'm not sure what the next best move to make here is. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 16:22, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

CF-18 Hornet was recently moved to CF-188 Hornet also. That seems to be a one way or the other thing to me though. -Fnlayson (talk) 16:29, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

CF-188 is a case where CF-188 is the official designation, but everybody calls it CF-18, including the Canadians themselves, I believe... - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 18:36, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes everyone in Canada calls it a "CF-18" including the pilots who fly it. - Ahunt (talk) 19:44, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

And now for something completely the same: Mitsubishi A6M Rei-Sen. He just dosn't get it, or doesn't care. Either way, this is becoming quite disruptive. - BilCat (talk) 11:07, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

...*headdesk*. I've given him another warning. If this keeps up though I'm afraid the big guns will need to be called in. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 14:43, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

I have left a message asking him to discuss his moves with the project, I think he means well but just needs to communicate with the project and explain why they should be moved. MilborneOne (talk) 18:57, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Yet he has been asked not to do this before, on several occasions I believe. I do hope he listens this time. - BilCat (talk) 19:33, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Here's another puzzler. What is the reasoning behind the change from "Mitsubishi A6M" to "Mitsubishi A6M Rei-Sen"? FWiW Bzuk (talk) 12:08, 28 May 2010 (UTC).

To be honest, the page was at A6M Zero when he moved it. It has previously been at Mitsubishi Zero (a consensus choice per the WPAIR/NC notes), but had been moved to A6M Zero about 5 years ago. As I pointed out in the discussion above on the proposed new naming conventions for US mil aircraft, Mitsubishi A6M Zero would probably be the best choice if the m/d/n guidlelines were extended to all aircraft, where applicable ("Zero" being used as it it almost-universally the most common name). - BilCat (talk) 12:39, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

• And now... User:Flayer has conducted a cut-and-paste move of Aeronautics Defense Dominator to Aeronautics Dominator (and a 'normal' move of Aeronautics Defense Orbiter to Aeronautics Orbiter). Sigh! - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 00:27, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Naming_conventions_(aircraft)

Based on current discussion and suggestions by BilCat please find a proposal at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(aircraft)#Naming_convention_proposal_2010, comment welcome, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 21:18, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Italian vintage glider

Hi to all; (I'm sorry for my poor english) I wrote a new article in it.wiki on an italian vintage glider, the it:CAT 20, but my sources are minimal. Searching the web I found that was made in Italy under license of austrian brothers Ullrich and Wolgang Hütter, look here and here for Hütter H 17 original glider. Have you bibliography to help this article? Thanks PS: if anyone knows the Italian better than I know English can also answer in my talk or it:Discussioni progetto:Aviazione :-) --Threecharlie (talk) 07:19, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

aerofiles

http://www.aerofiles.com/ seems to have gone; anyone know if they will be back? It is/was a very useful site.TSRL (talk) 16:50, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Weird, but you are right - it is giving a 404 error. On the plus side very few things once posted on the internet are really gone these days. Aerofiles can be found on Archive.org right here and can still be used as a ref from there, too. - Ahunt (talk) 17:46, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

They are back in action now.TSRL (talk) 09:12, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

They must have had a server failure; glad that fixed it! - Ahunt (talk) 12:17, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Article layout

An IP editor is questioning the layout of aircraft articles at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide/Layout (Aircraft), other comments welcome. MilborneOne (talk) 18:49, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

F-16 article clean up

An IP editor has tagged F-16 Fighting Falcon as being too technical. That's reasonable, but the user keeps trying to moving text that summarizes the Design section out of the Lead. Could use some other opinions/help on this. Thanks. -Fnlayson (talk) 16:23, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

As part of this clean up effort, I split off the Operational history text to F-16 Fighting Falcon operational history. -Fnlayson (talk) 19:48, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Aviation announcement template

The aviation announcement template does not appear to be updating, article alert bot is down for an indeterminate time. I think it is a good idea myself. I tried editing Template:WPAVIATION Announcements but the content is actually at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Article alerts if anyone would like to update it manually. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 07:36, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Fly-by-wire new article

There is currently a discussion on splitting the fly-by-wire section out of the aircraft flight control system article, the text had become a mess and was virtually unreferenced. I have started a sandbox version for the new article. I don't have much in the way of references to fill the cite tags. Would appreciate if any editor with anything to add/adjust there could dive in and help out. Many thanks Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 12:05, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify, please add to my sandbox version as the text in the aircraft flight control system is going to get stripped out/deleted. Ta. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 13:09, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Done now thanks. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 23:00, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

"Derived from", or just another designation?

On several pages, dealing with aircraft types which served both in the civil world and with the military, especially with the American forces, I regularly find phrases like on the Bell Huey family page, with the Bell 204B quoted as being "derived from the UH-1B". I believe this to be technically incorrect. The designation "204B" is the (internal) company designation for this specific type, but as the US military have their own designation system, they 'just happen to call it' the UH-1B; so the 'UH-1B' and 'Bell 204B' are just different designations for one and the same aircraft-type, not one being a civil or military version/development from the other. So in this case, all are 204B's, only those sold to the US Army are also called UH-1B. Your thoughts on this; am I correct here? Antheii (talk) 22:39, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Bell 204B is also the civil designation and that's what the Bell 204/205 article covers. The civil version followed the military one. -Fnlayson (talk) 22:50, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The model 204 was designed by Bell to a US Army specification. After it was accepted into Army service Bell developed it into a civil version, allowing the US Army to effectively subsidize the development of the civil version. If you check the FAA Type Certificate data Sheet you will find that the civil 204 model was certified on 4 April 1963, well after the first 204Bs were turned over to the Army in November 1960. The civil version, which I have flown, has quite a number of changes over the military version to meet FAA aircraft certification standards. For instance the rear cargo door and its latching mechanisms had to be redesigned to meet civil standards to prevent inadvertent opening and allow emergency escape. There were hundreds of similar changes made to gain civil certification. As a result of this it is quite correct to say that the civil Bell 204 is derived from the military UH-1B and in fact was paid for by it as well. The same sequence of events happened with the model 205 and 212, both of which I have flown in their military and civil versions - the military version came first and the civil version was based on it. - Ahunt (talk) 22:56, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't disagree on that civil the (sub-) version was developed from the military version, in that order; my point is that the UH-1B also is a Bell 204. And the 204 is just an example, there are more instances where, in my understanding, there is no correct differentiation made between the designation systems of the manufacturer and different users, sometimes leading to incorrect statements about 'X developed from/into Y', while both are the same. I will try to find some more examples this weekend. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Antheii (talk • contribs) 14:57, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Maybe we just need a bit more clarity on the issue. Yes Bell called the project "model 204" from the start and supplied it to the US Army under their designation UH-1B. Therefore you are right that the statement "the Bell 204 was based on the UH-1B" is not accurate, as the UH-1B was what the company called a model 204. Bell at that point had no civil marketable model. Bell then developed a civil certified model from the Army UH-1B which Bell certified as the model 204B for civil use. The UH-1B was a model 204 and the civil certified version which was somewhat different was also a model 204. Perhaps it would more precise to say that "the civil certified model was based the military model"? - Ahunt (talk) 16:15, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

CFM International CFM56 FA Nomination

Hey everyone, I just wanted to leave a note that I have gone ahead and nominated the CFM56 article for featured article. Feel free to drop by the discussion! -SidewinderX (talk) 19:25, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Hey everyone, I've got a quick call for assistance/advice. A user is requesting that I write the applications section of the article as prose, and I'm not sure how to respond. (Item #4). I already mentioned that the applications section is standard for WP:AIR / WP:AETF articles, although I didn't explicitly say that it is usually just a list. Should I just come back and say that it's usually a list? I don't want to seem combative... Thanks! -SidewinderX (talk) 11:50, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

The guideline is Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aircraft/Engines/page_content#Applications which says: "It is usual to list all known aircraft type applications from reliable sources (including testbeds) for aero engines. For ship or land vehicle applications a sub-header is often used for clarity, i.e. Other applications or Alternative uses. Larger lists can be formatted into columns using Template:Multicol to save page length and white space. It is advisable to add a note or cite any unusual or contentious applications that may be questioned by other editors". I have no idea how you would even make a list of aircraft into prose, but at least he didn't ask for it as a poem. - Ahunt (talk) 12:06, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

It'd be tough to fit the iambic in when "Boeing 737 Classic" already fills the pentameter, much less "KC-135R Stratotanker" and "Boeing 737 Next Generation" which breaks the pentameter! -SidewinderX (talk) 13:51, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

The editor's request is a comment and therefore not actionable as far as FA reviews go, if it was in relation to an 'oppose' then you might think about changing something. Sometimes you have to stand your ground at FAC review. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 13:59, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree, perhaps you should change the applications list to haiku format instead. - Ahunt (talk) 14:00, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

You could also direct the commenter's attention to the applications sections of the two existing engine FA's, Rolls-Royce Merlin and Rolls-Royce R, noting the format and the only difference is that they contain some images to fill the white space, consistency across articles is important as was noted in this archived essay. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 14:09, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

break

User:Redtigerxyz has requested an expert's opinion on what needs to be included in the tables in the variant's section of the article, specifically asking about why T/W ratio was not included (although thrust and weight were included separately). I have provided a response, but the user would still like a second, expert, opinion. If anyone has a minute, I would appreciate it if you looked at the questions here (item #8 under "replies to redtigerxyz") and left some thoughts. Thanks! -SidewinderX (talk) 03:28, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Still looking for an expert opinion here, if anyone's got a minute. -SidewinderX (talk) 12:19, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Another question brought up by the same user... The user would like me to explain quote jargon terms unquote in the article such as "Thrust", "Bypass Ratio", and "Pressure Ratio". These terms are wikilinked, which is what I thought the SOP was in terms of "defining" terms that everyone might not know, but the user is still asking... is there a MoS entry I can refer the user to? Or should I just go ahead and add notes for these terms? -SidewinderX (talk) 12:19, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't see why footnotes should be added when separate wiki articles already exist. MoS summary style is somewhat related. The only thing I am seeing in the main MoS page is about using plain language and avoiding jargon. There may be something of use at WP:OVERLINK and this technical articles essay. In general I find it a pain to read an article where clicking on a lot of links to understand the terms is required. Some wording for context helps with that. -Fnlayson (talk) 13:14, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree, and for more complicated terms, or terms that did not have good articles on WP, I used a nota bene. But the three terms the user is focused on, "Thrust", "Bypass Ratio", and "Pressure Ratio", aren't that complicated, and I feel like the wikilink should cover it. Particularly for thrust... you're reading a jet engine article... thrust is the basic performance measure... not every car or car engine article defines horsepower! Bypass ratio and pressure ratio are a bit more complicated, but that's why they're wiki-linked! Idk, am I being too defensive? Or do I just know too much? -SidewinderX (talk) 14:22, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

(EC) Not sure if this essay might help: Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable. To my mind the terms are not jargon but unavoidable technical terms and as you say they are wikilinked, if the reader has navigation pop-ups enabled they only have to hover over the link to get the basics of what a term is about (we have to assume that they don't though). Failing that I sometimes add a very short description of the term after the wikilink; Pea (a small round green vegetable), Carrot (a long pointy orange vegetable)! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 14:26, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

break

The FAC admins have decided that the article needs more reviewers before it can move forward. If anyone has a few minutes to read through the article and leave some thoughts I would greatly appreciate it! -SidewinderX (talk) 01:26, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Commons Categories

As project members may be aware the fan boys have taken over the categorisation of aircraft images on commons. I tried to find somebody to take interest but commons does not have appear to have the project concept, or anybody who cares. The main problem is that images have had aircraft type categories removed and one related to aircraft registration added. If you look up for example Boeing 747 you just get a list of registration categories which you then have to hunt through to find a picture. I suspect whoever changed them all did not take into consideration the general public looking for images and I suspect they dont realise that registrations are not unique to a type, so you could get a Boeing 707 appearing in the Boeing 767 category if it has the same registration. Being bold I have added the type categories back to all the Dassault Falcon images but removed them from the registration category. So you can still search by registration but all the relevant images appear in the type category. I didnt have any airliners but I think they screwed the operator categories as well. So waiting to be mass reverted on commons I though I would mention it here, either you can support the moves or tell me i am mad and I should leave commons to the fan boys. MilborneOne (talk) 14:07, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

No you are not mad, in fact you are quite right! Listing images only by registration will only help "airplane spotters" and greatly hinders those of us writing aircraft articles, as when we look for a photo to illustrate a new article by aircraft type we won't be able to find it. Nothing wrong with having both type and registration as parallel categories, though. - Ahunt (talk) 15:36, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I "TOTALLY" concur!!!! (Not with the "mad" part :)) We tried once to have those cats deleted, but they were kept. I think it's time to try again, or at least de-populate them. It's really a non-intuitive system that just makes it difficult to find photos. As a compromise, I think having actual pages for the registrations numbers, not cats, might might sense, and would show up on the type cats if they were added tothose pages. We might check and see if the fanboy(s) who did this is/are still around, and if they would be open to this change. - BilCat (talk) 15:39, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I have left a message at Commons:Category talk:Aircraft by registration which appears where the main driving force can be found. Any comments welcome particularly as they are now adding military aircraft to the system! Commons also had an interesting discussion here Commons:Categories for discussion/Current requests/2009/09/Category:Aircraft by registration where most of them thought it was a good idea. As Bill says not against reg cats just not replacing the type and user cats. MilborneOne (talk) 16:11, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

User:Arpingstone was a supporter of the reg cat idea, I have left him a note on his talk page, as a major contributor of aircraft images I have asked him for comment. MilborneOne (talk) 16:32, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

There has to be some way they can be used concurently. Also, Michale, you might want to change "Silly" in the heading to something else, like "Confusing". I know when ourside editors come here and call our efforts "silly", and often worse than that, it usually puts me on the defensive immediately. - BilCat (talk) 16:37, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Bill good point, I have changed it. MilborneOne (talk) 16:47, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

No, User:Arpingstone (that's me) was NOT a supporter of the Regcat system. I was asked to use it, perhaps a year ago, by a person whose username I no longer remember. I went along with the idea blindly (and unwisely) without thinking of the consequences. From now on I will be happy to follow whatever consensus comes from the above writers. - Adrian Pingstone (talk) 18:14, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Apology Adrian thanks for clearing that up, and thanks for coming over and giving an opinion, appreciated. MilborneOne (talk) 19:00, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

No problem (I just didn't like the word "supporter") Best Wishes - Adrian Pingstone (talk) 13:22, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Leoair

Leoair is about an aviation school in South Africa. It does not appear to assert notability, and its only source it the company's web page. It appears to have been created by the school's current owner (only two editson the registered account), in Oct 2009, and has been tagged as unreferenced since Nov. Is it eligible for a PROD, or should we AFD it? Thanks. (Not is has been the spam target of a user who is also linkspamming the R22/R44/R66 articles, so he may remove any PRODS.) - BilCat (talk) 20:31, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh I would suggest trying PROD first and then if that doesn't work go to AFD. - Ahunt (talk) 20:46, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

PRODed. Oh if an and min happends by, the IP has continued to re-add the spam to the R-copters' pages, and is up to a level 3 warning. - BilCat (talk) 21:45, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Seconded the PROD and watched! - Ahunt (talk) 23:12, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Afraid I did not get past the music on the website! Do we have any guidelines on flying club articles apart from general notability? The vast majority of them are just attempted free adverts but some are written by editors with no COI believing that they are adding to 'the sum total of all human knowledge' as Jimbo puts it. I don't mind a factual article on a flying club and the aircraft they operate (especially if they are unusual), maybe it is more the commercial flying schools (a subtle difference) that are the problem area. Should have a look at it as we always get the WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument with these articles. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 23:24, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The music is probably a copyright vio, too. Now I remember why I surf with my speakers off! - Ahunt (talk) 23:46, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations, Bill! The PROD succeeded and the article is now gone! PROD can be a real labour saver, provided no one cares about the article! - Ahunt (talk) 00:41, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Page moves

As project members may be aware we have adopted a new guideline for aircraft article naming and have started to move US military articles into line. Thanks to all that are helping but User:Airplaneman has pointed out an error I have made in not moving the talk archive pages as well. It may just be me! forgetting to tick the subpage move box but appreciate if others could check we have not left anything behind in the moves. Also if in doubt about which is the correct manufacturer then please do not move the page but seek consensus, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 13:46, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

A very good point, I checked all the articles that I have moved so far and found one archive page at the C-5 Galaxy which I have fixed. I looked at the page moving advice at WP:MOVE which says to 'check "Move all subpages, if applicable" during the move process'. I tried a dummy move on an article with archives, this checkbox only appears on the talk page move screen and not the article move screen. If we moved the talk page instead of the article would the article get renamed? Dunno!! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 14:21, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Good point! Thanks to User:Airplaneman and others for catching this. -Fnlayson (talk) 14:44, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

On my moves, there's a checkbox that says also move the talk page yes/no, and it's checked by default. One time I managed to unclick it by mistake but caught it. :) - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 21:34, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Single-bay wings

BG-1, showing the single bay wings.

Avro 504 - Two-bay wings

While I'm fairly well-read about aviation, I've never been able to find an explanation for terms such as "single-bay winge". The photo is from the Great Lakes BG article, and uses the term in the caption. Looking at the image, I assume the term means that one wing is attatched to the fuselage directly, and the other is held up by struts; however, which or what is the "bay"? There is nothing about this at all in the Biplane article. Can someone address this on that article? Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 17:39, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I wrote this article Bill: Interplane strut#Bays, it could be added to the biplane article, it even has a reference!! It's the number of fresh air gaps between the fuselage and any interplane struts (counting only one side of the aircraft and stopping at the outermost struts and not including the cabane struts), the photo on the right is a single bay job as it is correctly captioned, have added an Avro 504 as an example of a two-bay job. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:50, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah! Thanks much. Yes, a short explanation in the Biplane article, and/or a link to the strut page, would be helpful. - BilCat (talk) 17:55, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I found that article on my own doing some internet searches. :) So the interplane struts break each side of the wing into open bays. The wingtip part is excluded, I guess. -Fnlayson (talk) 17:56, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

(EC) Yes, that's right Jeff, see also Flying wires, might be more useful stuff in the component navbox at the bottom of both pages. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:58, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Has there ever been anyhting such as a no-bay wing, which I imagine would be strutless? - BilCat (talk) 21:43, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Cantilever biplane

I'm pretty sure there has - seems the Darmstadt D-18 was one. And, that wouldn't be "no-bay", actually, but rather a "cantilever biplane", like so. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 21:52, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

There are also two examples in the comprehensive Wing configuration#Wing support article. --TraceyR (talk) 22:11, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I had found that one, but it wasn't explained in the text, so the exact definition was unclear. - BilCat (talk) 22:25, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I have added some explanatory text to Wing configuration#Wing support (copied from Interplane strut#Bays). --TraceyR (talk) 22:49, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again, and to all who helped on this. Hopefully now we have enough links ans info out there that the info can be found when needed. - BilCat (talk) 23:00, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Prodding a redirect

As part of the great name change project I've prodded Grumman XF5F-1 "Skyrocket. It fails R3 speedy on two counts, but seeing as there's a quote in the name I don't think it should be kept around. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 23:42, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

The quote mark looks like stray text since there is not a closing quote mark with it. Not likely someone would be looking for that. ;) -Fnlayson (talk) 23:45, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Why does it fail Template:Db-r3? It's a typo. - BilCat (talk) 01:32, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

On two grounds. One, it's not recent - the page has been around since 2006. And second, it's an article converted to a redirect (yes, I was dumbfounded by that too!) - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 02:28, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

The recent part usually doens't matter, but the old article does. Milb1 can probably delete it for us - the old content is nonsense anyway! - BilCat (talk) 06:45, 11 June 2010 (UTC)