Talk:Fabre Hydravion

Suspect Information

The information "distance of 457 m (1500 ft)" is suspect because this was flown in France and the distance is a round number in feet. I suspect the author or the reference rounded the value to feet and it's been used as fact. I suspect the real distance is and estimation of either 400 or 500 metres. 64.150.193.2 (talk) 00:39, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

The French Wikipedia says 800m. I will read the original French sources to see if there is a reliable figure. I will also look for a citation for the Canard hanging from the ceiling in terminal 3 at Marignane Airport. --Andrew Hennigan (talk) 09:56, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

The source for the French Wikipedia is an information site for the Etang de Berre, the lake where the flight took place. La Provence newspaper on the occasion of the 100th anniversary (http://www.laprovence.com/article/france-2565) gave a more reliable figure, saying "après une course d'environ 300m, l'engin se sépare de l'élément liquide, parcourt environ un demi-kilomètre à 5 mètres de hauteur" = "after a run of about 300m the machine separated from the water, covering about a half kilmometer at a height of 5 meters." This makes "about half a kilometer" the best figure so far. Would be better, though, to find a contemporary newspaper account. Clearly the 800m of the FR Wikipedia account is just the sum of the distance covered in the runup plus the flight itself. Andrew Hennigan (talk) 06:08, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Canard

There seems to be no good contemporary source for this aircraft being called Le Canard. For instance, see [1], a 1913 article from l'Aérophile about canard layout aircraft. It also seems an unlikely name for an aircraft given that a secondary meaning of the word is "hoax".TheLongTone (talk) 23:35, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

"first aircraft to take off from water under its own power." ?

As opposed to taking off with power from some other source? Terry Thorgaard (talk) 15:53, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Like being a glider towed by a boat or such like. MilborneOne (talk) 16:17, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

As done by Gabriel Voisin in 1905.TheLongTone (talk) 16:26, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Points

Two, oops, three, years after the initial discussion above, is there any objection to my changing the distance flown to "about half a kilometre", as per L'Aérophile archived in Gallica?

Also, hydravion is not the name of the aircraft, which doesn't appear to have been given a name. Hydravion is simply French for seaplane/float plane, so that translating (and moving the article) to Fabre seaplane or Fabre float plane would be more accurate. The Aérophile article designates it throughout as an "aéroplane marin". Any objection to a move?

Cheers, Awien (talk) 02:04, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

The distance change is fine imo, but I don't think that the article should be moved. It's a French aircraft, and there is plenty of precedent for titling aircraft articles in the original language. Maybe you should raise the issue at Wikiproject aviation, since I doubt that many people follow this page and it seems to be an issue with fairly wide implications.TheLongTone (talk) 13:27, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Sure, I can perfectly see keeping the original French - I'm bilingual, after all. Originally, though, this aircraft was designated an "aéroplane marin", not an "hydravion". So the two possibilities that seem to me to make sense are to retain the original term untranslated: Fabre aéroplane marin, or say in English what type of craft it was: Fabre float plane. I imagine from what you say about original language that the former would be your preference? And not revolutionary, so hardly needing to be opened to debate? Awien (talk) 17:40, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

(adds) Re-reading, it's clear somebody mistook hydravion for the actual name of the machine, like Éole for example, whereas what it is is the current French term for the type of aircraft. Awien (talk) 17:54, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

That was a precipitate change without consensus.TheLongTone (talk) 13:42, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I have several English-language sources (small pocketbooks) which refer to it as the "Fabre Hydravion," one headed the "Fabre Seaplane" but then in the following text as the "Fabre Hydravion". The word is often italicised, as here, suggesting that this was Fabre's name for it. Flight first mentions it generically as a hydro-aeroplane, hydroplane and various other terms, but, digitizing errors aside, first uses the term "hydravion" in 1912 - for a Nieuport type:[2]. This rather suggests that it later got called a hydravion and the British subsequently mangled the meaning in mistranslation. These sources are not really sufficient to clear the matter up, but I hope this helps. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:43, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

That's right, Steelpillow. Hydravion is the common noun for this type of aircraft, not the proper noun referring to Fabre's machine in particular. Cheers, Awien (talk) 17:17, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

See WP:COMMONNAME.TheLongTone (talk) 12:13, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Seriously? You don't see that choosing between the formal and the informal or the older and the newer variants of a name, is not the same thing as promoting a name that's simply a mistake based on a misreading of sources? Awien (talk) 18:44, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

If the majority of reliable published English language sources call it the Hydravion, then that's the name WP uses. - BilCat (talk) 19:44, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm unable to post links at the moment because I'm working from the back of beyond on an antique tablet. But anyway, given Google's new and inferior search algorithm, it's not clear how one determines a "majority" of sources, since Google now overrides requests for a specific word. But if you Google either Fabre seaplane or Fabre float plane, you get plenty of hits where the machine is not called Hydravion, one very authoritative looking one being Flying Boats and Seaplanes: A History from 1905, by Stéphane Nicolaou.

and btw, I moved the article to Aéroplane marin in accordance with TheLongTone's concern with retaining the original language. Where the article should be is at Fabre float plane or Fabre seaplane, followed by the mentio n "also called Hydravion". Awien (talk) 03:41, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Nicolaou's published English-language history of float planes (see above) includes verbatim Fabre's own account of the exploit, elegantly translated into English. Nowhere does Fabre give his craft a name, simply referring to it as "my machine". He did not call his craft Hydravion. If you persist in refusing to rename the article, you now do so knowing the name is wrong. Awien (talk) 08:12, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, most early aircraft were unamed at the time: Louis Blériot is a rare exaple of a manufacturer giving type numbers...and even this is a can of worms. Many designations are ones given well after the event. Esenntially, this is an argument about which French term for an aircraft which takes off from water is used. This is the website of the Musee de l'Air, which has the machine in question in their collection: they call it the Fabre Hydravion. The French Wikipedia page] refers to it as the Hydravion Canard: as far as I can ascertain the term Canard was not officially used at the time, and only became used as a term for aircraft with a front-mounted stabiliser when Voisin flew the Voisin Canard...initially a landplane.TheLongTone (talk) 14:14, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

So where does this leave us in terms of avoiding giving the mistaken impression that hydravion was the name of the craft? Awien (talk) 02:22, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Just to see how it sticks, I have edited the first part of the article to show that the term "hydravion" is descriptive of the function and not the name of the machine. If people are unhappy that this is unsourced, it will be necessary to contrive an explanation that it is a term used later for this and other machines, and to add cites such as the page in Flight I noted above. OTOH, if people are generally happy with this approach, then I think it would be worth requesting a page move to Fabre hydravion with a small "h". English-language sources are probably a little wobbly on this, but I think that enough evidence can be gathered to at least make a case. It might also be worth creating Hydravion as either a disambig page to the other hydravions on Wikipedia or a redirect to seaplane. What do you all think? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:04, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Still think that the common name in English is the "Fabre Hydravion", certainly what my Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft uses so I would suggest not moving the article. MilborneOne (talk) 11:11, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

That's the problem, though, MilborneOne. Some anglophone somewhere along the line mistook the French common name for a class of aircraft for the proper name of this particular machine. WP as an encyclopedia shouldn't be perpetuating the error. How do we avoid doing that? Awien (talk) 19:34, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

That the name "Hydravion" was a mistake by an English speaker somewhere is an assumption on you part. It might be correct, but names evolve for a variety of reasons. Unless you can cite a published reliable source that actually makes such a claim, we can't treat it as a "mistake". We can state the aircraft was not originally named by the designer, as that appears supportable by sources, but that's really all we can do. - BilCat (talk) 19:51, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Also this is "English" wikipedia so reflect English use not French. MilborneOne (talk) 20:23, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

If it is true that the Musée de l'Air refers to it as the Fabre Hydravion, this would suggest that it was not the English who first mangled the name. I dug out some more sources. Hallion, Taking Flight, 2003 follows the modern usage. If it was an error then it has become the common usage and we must use it too. BilCat has it about right. I also found two Blandford pocket books written by Kenneth Munson and published within two years of each other. They offer a tantalising clue. "Pioneer Aircraft 1903-14" (1969) titles it the Fabre Seaplane and writes in the text of a "hydravion" (small "h"). "Flying Boats and Seaplanes since 1910" (1971) titles it the Fabre Hydravion and writes in the text of the "Hydravion" (capital "H"). One wonders what made Munson or his editor change his mind. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:34, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict, real life conflict, and briefly not intended as brusquely)

Hydravion was not the name of the craft - capitalising it suggests erroneously that it was.

On the Musée de l'air website, I find one instance with a cap, in a section title; in the text and in the search function it's always lowercase.

Google searches find plenty of English sources that call the craft the Fabre seaplane or Fabre float plane, as well as Fabre Hydravion.

MilborneOne in particular, why on English WP would we insist on the misused French term when we have perfectly good English terms? Moving the article to Fabre float plane (or seaplane), also called Fabre Hydravion, then a few tweaks to the text, is by far the most elegant solution.

Cheers, Awien (talk) 21:36, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Because the common name in English is Fabre Hydravion that fact that it may be wrong doesnt stop it being the common name, as has been said that can be explained in the text. We have other common name aircraft articles like Harrier Jump Jet which is clearly wrong on a number of levels but it is a common name. MilborneOne (talk) 21:42, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

I've made a couple of adjustments to the text as per the refs above. From my pad, I can't add refs to the article. Awien (talk) 02:11, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

That looks OK Awien but I have just added "Fabre" to the front of the first sentence as it look wrong that it doesnt match the article title per usual practice. MilborneOne (talk) 09:42, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Goéland

Presumably this would have been the second machine? (Fabre Hydravion on flyingmachines.ru; can't do link on tablet)

Even during the following year, 1911, the Fabre machine continued to be regarded as a phenomenon. I quote from The Yachting World:

April I2 - 'There was an alarming incident at Monaco this morning, M. Fabre, the owner of the aero-hydroplane Goeland, nearly losing his life. Goeland is a novel kind of machine.... It is driven by a Gnome engine, and the inventor's idea is that, after skimming for a certain distance on the surface of the water, the plane should gradually rise up into the air. It has caused one of the competitors to remark that he thought of carrying a punt-gun mounted vertically on his craft in case the long-legged monstrosity looked like hopping over him and securing the prize. [Previously it had been suggested that the craft would compete as a motor boat, rigged so that it could not fly.]

'Since the weather conditions seemed perfect and the sea was quite smooth, M. Fabre determined on a trial run. The machine crossed the harbour in perfect style, skimming along the surface; nearing the harbour mouth, it rose up into the air to a height of about 30 yards, and soared along beautifully, greatly admired by thousands of spectators. As soon as it cleared the harbour, however, and encountered the full force of the wind outside, the machine became unmanageable and to the horror of the onlookers was swept along at a terrific pace towards the rocks and stone walls below the terraces. Fortunately, M. Fabre, with great presence of mind, managed to throw himself clear of the machine into the sea, and was promptly picked up, none the worse for his startling experience.'

There is now evidence that the pilot on this occasion was Jean Becue.

Awien (talk) 16:35, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Judging by l'Aerophile its the original machine. Referred to as a hyroaeroplane. Goeland gets one hit for that year: its an article about birds. Fabre is an alleged duck but never a gull, to my knowledge.TheLongTone (talk) 14:38, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Even though they certainly wanted to be birds: avion, aviation, aviateur, aviatrice, and the obsolete verb avier (to bird) are all coined from Latin avis, a bird.

As for Goéland, the Flyingmachines site is quoting a contemporary source, The Yachting World, even though they don't show a facsimile. But who knows whether that reporter got it right or had his wires crossed, or whether the name question became moot because the craft was a write-off ... (got to go) Awien (talk) 17:43, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

(back for a moment) Not proposing to move the article or anything, just interesting, potentially a factoid to be included in a footnote. Awien (talk) 18:13, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Indeed...I have some experience of being involved in things that have been covered by the press, and have no idea why I believe anything I read anwhere!TheLongTone (talk) 12:03, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

I was once interviewed by the press. The guy came with an agenda, and between cherry-picking words out of context and biased commentary, framed me to fit his stereotype. Sickening. Awien (talk) 21:40, 10 April 2015 (UTC)