Please note that User:Aegn3 has added an external link request to a lot of aircraft article talk pages, please note this user has been advised before about spam links but rather than add them him/herselves they have made multiple requests. Please note I am sure that Source soliciting also contradicts WP:SPAM rules. MilborneOne (talk) 21:00, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
You may be right. I just think about, if the content of the referenced page is useful for an encyclopedia. The information itself IMHO seems to be interesting. Best regards --JuergenKlueser (talk) 21:57, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I just found Antonov An-180. It's pretty bad, with no sources, and no indication of the status of the project, other than that it was started in 1991. The writing is also a bit obtuse: "The An-180 has been built as a cantilever airplane." Sigh. - BilCat (talk) 08:23, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
As with the A380, the issue of how many Boeing 787s have been built has become quite contentious. The compromise on the A380 has been to only count individual aircrft after their first flight. While this seems to have worked on the A380 page, it's not been readily accepted on the 787 page (We Americans can be quite difficult, as King George III and Lord Cornwallis can attest to!) The result has been that the project has been aske dto review the mattr and to possibly set guidelines on the issue.
At this point, I think we need to seach our main reliable sources (Jane's , AvWeek, FightIntl/Global, etc.), governmental bodies (FAA, CAA, ESA, Transport Canada, etc.), and manufacturers (Boeing, Bombardier, Embraer, Airbus, etc.), and see how these souces determine the number built. While there is probably not a consensus among these groups, it may help us in determining what we want to do, and provide some reliable source upon which to base our guidelines. - BilCat (talk) 23:21, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
On other Boeing types (and most airliners) the build count is actually the number delivered as that can be reliably referenced. The problem is with types that have not started delivery like the 787 is defining when built is and the only reliable sourced point is the first flight. Otherwise when is an aircraft built, when it on wheels, when power is first applied, when the wings are bolted on - none of these are probably citable. MilborneOne (talk) 23:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Opinion of a former production test pilot (me): A newly constructed certified civil aircraft is not "produced" until it has a Certificate of Airworthiness indicating that it is complete and meets the type definition documents. The C of A cannot be issued until the aircraft has finished test flying (on a flight permit), therefore if it hasn't flown it isn't a completed aircraft. - Ahunt (talk) 23:55, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Ahunt has the right idea here. That is a very distinct boundary. Some of the aircraft I'm currently working on have physically flown several times, but just recently had their "first flight" under proper clearances. -SidewinderX (talk) 02:10, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
- Good. I've come to see this as the best way in general. Otherwise it can be very difficult to cite a number in some cases. The Infobox section at WP:Air/PC is the right location for guideline wording on this, right? Also, something about excluding ground test airframes should be mentioned. -Fnlayson (talk) 04:04, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
This approach makes it easy to deal with oddities like ground test airframes, like those used for destructive testing for instance. These are test articles and do not receive a Certificate of Airworthiness and therefore are not completed aircraft. Basically C of A issued = completed aircraft and that only occurs after the aircraft has been test flown, so if is hasn't flown it is not a completed aircraft. - Ahunt (talk) 13:29, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
Right. I meant include something in the guideline wording so there's no doubt about test airframes, if the CoA is not mentioned there. -Fnlayson (talk) 14:32, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
I have just updated Template:Infobox Aircraft Type/doc to say Number of flight capable aircraft completed, for aircraft under development or still in production only those aircaft that have flown should be included. Do not include ground test airframes in this infobox although if notable can be included in the article text. I hope that reflects the above discussion. MilborneOne (talk) 19:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
This article has undergone some serious clean-up and everything in it is now sourced and the refs formatted, etc. I think the article should be retained, if only to keep the fancruft out of the aircraft type articles. To that end I have been removing the cruft from the aircraft type articles and pointing to
Aircraft in fiction instead. Still a bit more work to do in that regard yet. I am posting here to see what the thoughts are about the tag on the article, which says "This "In popular culture" article may contain too many minor or trivial references. Please reorganize this content to explain the subject's impact on popular culture rather than simply listing appearances, and remove trivia references." This is true, but there are almost no sources by which to fix this problem. If I could find a doctoral thesis entitled "The Effect of Transformers Toys on US Foreign Policy" than I would be happy! Suggestions are welcome. - Ahunt (talk) 16:03, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. That tag would not apply if it were a list article, but a list format would invite a lot of entries. Maybe some more wording on the article's purpose in the Lead would do it. Not sure what to add though.. -Fnlayson (talk) 16:14, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
There are a few books that seem to cover these sort of issues - a quick google books search on "Aviation and Culture" [1] gives things like [2], [3], [4], [5], with "Aviation and Cinema" giving [6], including [7] and [8] so there definately is a notable article ready to be written. The trick is to relate these to the article as it now stands.Nigel Ish (talk) 17:53, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
All good ideas and sources. Now it is just a matter of turning it into cited text. Please do feel free to help out over at Aircraft in fiction. My main motivation in working on the article is to keep the game and miscellaneous cruft out of the aircraft articles, so any assistance is appreciated! - Ahunt (talk) 14:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Just found X-24C it is linked from Martin-Marietta X-24 doesnt appear to have any project involvement. The main article infers it was one of many proposals but that is not made clear in the article, have we any x-plane experts that can have a look please.MilborneOne (talk) 15:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I think it is that the MM X-24 article does not explain the connection to the version covered in X-24C article. It just vaguely mentions that various X-24C designs were proposed. -Fnlayson (talk) 20:38, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Sorry another request, just removed a non notable LJ35 accident that happened today (5 Jan) from Learjet 35. But my deletion has been reverted, second opinion appreciated. MilborneOne (talk) 22:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
The way the notability standard reads, this is notable not only because of the weight, but because it was operated by a commercial freight airline. But, as I wrote on the Lear 35 talk page, it appears that because of the weight of the aircraft any fatal accident involving a Lear 35 is notable per your project guidelines. As an editor from outside this project, it seems clear that this incident meets the criteria; but if project members disagree, perhaps the guidelines need a revamp. Wine GuyTalk00:48, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
No, you are right, it was my error in removing it. In reading the guideline carefully the accident meets the guideline, but only because the Lear 35 is over 12,500 lbs. In this usage the term "airline" means a Tier 1 airline, not any commercial certificate holder, or else any light aircraft crash involving a commercially registered small aircraft would be included. These guidelines were put in place because most smaller aircraft types have hundreds of these sorts of accidents and there is no point in listing them all. In the case of the Piper PA-28 or Cessna 172 there have been thousands. In the case of the L35 there have probably been many, many dozens. The fundamental question is should the guidelines be revised to include heavier aircraft or do we want to potentially list 80 or 100 similar accidents on the type page for aircraft like the L35? - Ahunt (talk) 02:10, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Can someone refresh us on how the 12,500 lb standard came about? That would help us understand whether and how the guidelines might need adjustment. Askari Mark(Talk)02:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
12,500 lbs is the cut-off between light aircraft and medium aircraft under FAA, TC, ICAO, etc. It was chosen just to eliminate the large number of non-notable light aircraft accidents. No reason we couldn't change the guidelines to indicate that the second more stringent category would apply to all non-airline and non-military aircraft and use a standard definition of "airline", like the TC definition (CAR 705 - commercial operation of aircraft with 20 seats or more) - Ahunt (talk) 20:35, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I did assume that "airline" in the context of the guideline meant tier 1 airlines, but that is not clear, it just says "airline or military aircraft". As you point out, that could mean any company with a Cessna and a commercial certificate, which I don't think is what is meant; so that part of the standard definitely could use a rewrite.
One idea that you all might consider is amending the standard to read The event resulted in a fatality or fatalities among the aircraft passengers, instead of occupants. That would remove several incidents, including this one. Also, the standard The event involved hull loss or serious damage to the aircraft seems to be a catch-all that covers a lot of non-fatal accidents. Wine GuyTalk02:54, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Just to chime in, this accident may have made itself notable. My daily AIAA e-mail briefing included a note about it saying that it was covered by NBC Nightly News and linking Wall Street Journal article about it that states that the NTSB is looking into it. -SidewinderX (talk) 20:24, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Have a look at the given sources. The book shows drawings. The luft46.com website references show a part of these drawings. Unfortunately the drawings are not free of copyright, so a model is the best you can get in the moment --JuergenKlueser (talk) 21:57, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Concur, in its current state, though if expanded and improved, it might be worth keeping. Also, I'm not sure we ever settled the naming conventions for CAF/CF aircraft, but CC-144 Challenger would fit with the majority of the articles, such as CT-134 Musketeer and CH-146 Griffin. It is a bit contentious, as certain editors seem to think the CAF designations are invalid if they weren't "popualar", or that company designations take should take precedent. We need to be as consistent as possible, which ever format we choose. - BilCat (talk) 19:41, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I also concur. Until somebody is willing to make it a real article (Start or better) rather than a stub, it shouldn't have been a separate article; these articles on variants should, preferably, evolve from growth in the baseline article. Askari Mark(Talk)20:58, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
This article, which has been discussed here extensively before, has been given a two week reprieve, as the AfD has been put in abeyance for that time to give us a chance to get it into shape and hopefully keep it. In working on this article I have become convinced that it is worth keeping, primarily because it is keeping all the toy and game cruft out of the aircraft type articles, something that benefits all of us here on this project and thus ultimately makes Wikipedia better. I would like to appeal to the members of this project to spend a bit of time in the next two weeks helping us out over at Aircraft in fiction whipping the article into shape for retention. - Ahunt (talk) 16:20, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
What's the rush? Who is laying down timescales. Jimbo? Looks realtively well referenced to me but note that some entries are not fictional (Memphis Belle, Tuskegee Airmen?) Perhaps the article title needs adjusting, it has an effect on what people expect to see in there. Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)02:41, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
While movies like Memphis Belle, Tuskegee Airmen, Blackhawk Down etc are based on fact, the movies themselves were not documentaries. They have been fictionalized for purposes of drama. Composite characters, fictional dialog etc. This may not occur in the book, but it does in the movie version. Niteshift36 (talk) 08:48, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
The time limit is a request to the AFD nominator to hold off. AFDs can be initiated at any time. I really hope this works, but my past experience has shown it won't help much. I wish you the best of luck with this, though, as you will need it! But if this is deleted, I am going to propose that the project ban all pop-culture items on aircraft-related articles, with possible exceptions to be allowed only at the project level. I'm really tired of us having to deal with the crufters at the articel level, but receiving no help whatsoever from the WP community at large. You'll have to excuse me from participating in improving htis articel - I've been there to many times before, and I have had well-referenced articles deleted simply because they were dealing with pop-culture appearances. I can't go through that again. Sorry. :( - BilCat (talk) 03:01, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Bill on this one and if Aircraft in fiction does get deleted I would even go further and propose a total 100% ban on all pop-culture items in aviation articles, without exception. It is the only way to keep it under control. Toys, movies, books and games would have their own pages and that would be it. A go-bot that turns into an F-15 is only notable to the go-bot article, not to the F-15 article. But we aren't there yet - we are still hoping to clean-up Aircraft in fiction and retain it. - Ahunt (talk) 14:08, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
Nord Noralpha
A French IP user keeps removing the Nord 1102 as a variant of the Nord Noralpha, I added four references to show the designation exists but the IP user implies it is a myth by a friend of his friend a French aviation historian. He infers that english sources are not reliable despite two of them being ICAO and the FAA. I have assumed good faith and added the comment not built and linked it to a French reference they supplied and have tried to tell the IP user that ICAO dont take the word of an amateur historian and must have had a formal request from the company for the designation. If somebody can have a look as I have reverted the removal a number of times and it could do with some fresh eyes on it. Thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 19:56, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
Also puzzling that there are a few matches for the 1102 in Google Books during the late 1940s, which would seem to predate his friend. I've commented on this on the article talk page. --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 20:50, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
(EC)Also note potential confusion between the 1101 and 1102 Noralphas, and the 1001 and 1002 Pingouins (Bf-108). The latter had the same pair of engines, r and l handed as the former.TSRL (talk) 20:55, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
Style opinions?
Just a general post about style and standardisation across the aircraft and engine articles to see what the feeling is. I am seeing an increasing number of 'minor' edits that are changing established headers and short cites to template cites (but not the other way around?). Might be trivial but these types of changes are discouraged by guidelines and it is going to be a very tiring 2010 if we feel that we are free to 'do our own thing'. I am no angel but I do try to stick close to the rules that have been written in the past by people wiser than me and don't knowingly change things that will bust a guideline (unless it is outrageously wrong). Do we want relatively standard layout articles and cites across the project or something else? Do we understand and acknowledge the guidelines? Cheers Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)16:38, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
True. Changing back and forth between manual formatting and cite templates in references is not good and can be a bit irritating to other editors. Both are formats supposed to be acceptable per WP:CITE. Changing the main sections labels against the Aviation/aircraft layout guide is definitely incorrect. Changing subsection labels is another matter. -Fnlayson (talk) 18:59, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
I was under the impression once a cite format was used in the article then it shouldnt really be changed. The headers shouldnt really be changed from the project guidelines without discussion although some articles may need extra or different sub-headings and article related changes away from the guideline should be discussed. MilborneOne (talk) 19:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
That is the guideline in WP:CITE, it is also there that it indicates that the reference section sub-headers should not be changed without good reason. On sub-headers anywhere else, sure, they are going to be different in each article. Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)19:21, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Are these edits being done by people, bots, or both? On related issue, can we make our own cite templates fort he project? Bzuk doens't like the currently-available cite templates, so perhaps we could get his input in creating some with the output he prefers, so it at least matches the manually-formatted cites. - BilCat (talk) 20:50, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
People (well one person mainly at the moment who likes to do his own thing but they come and go, it is not someone I was talking to earlier on a similar topic BTW although it did prompt this thread). Good luck with a new project cite template but we would certainly come unstuck at FAC unless it was accepted by the MOS. Personally I like the 'short cite' format, how much simpler can it get than having to list author, year and page number in a small bundle once you have added the source it refers to and a single 'reflist' template? My only stumble with this is the 'refname' format which I can never remember so I keep some prepared in a sandbox!! Let us know what RL is up to if you find out. Cheers Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)22:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
While I am having a good old whinge/gripe is it possible to think slightly deeper about our edit summaries that may well have a life-changing effect on sensitive young aircraft editors like myself (let alone the newbies). For 'Apostrophy abuse' I would use the milder, less abrasive and technically correct 'Copy edit'. For 'Reverting this for the umpteenth time, roll eyes, sigh, etc' simply use the calmer, serene 'Reverting (see talk page)' then go to the talk page where nobody will follow you! The veins in your neck might be bursting but don't show it! Just an observation from 2009. Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)23:08, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Ok Bill, we will make an exception for you, carry on! Looking forward to removing all pop culture from aircraft articles when we all vote 'delete' for the AfD. You don't see it in Jane's do you? Quite disappointing really. Grasshopper. Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)23:26, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Found it - Junkers Jumo 004. It does claim to be "perhaps" the only engine mentioned in pop-culture, uncited of course! (Fact tagged, and waiting for two weeks to deletel it with GLEE!) I am surpried someone somewhere hasn't written a song, mentioned it in a non-aircraft book, or perhaps parodied the Merlin is some irreverent primetime cartoon series. - BilCat (talk) 00:47, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
A user with whom I have had a conflict is appartently trolling (looking through) my contributiions list, and adding Unreferenced headers to articles I have edited. If anyone has some time and sources it might be good to check these articels, and adde sources where required, before he becomes disruptive on these pages. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 01:08, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
I have reviewed all his tags. Some were justified as the articles need better citations, although many are well referenced and so I removed those tags and asked him to fact tag instead, if he has a problem with individual statements. - Ahunt (talk) 02:28, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
WP 1.0 bot announcement
This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Piper Aircraft announced today that they will be licencing the SportCruiser and marketing it as the PiperSport background article. We have had an article on the SportCrusier since 2006 with refs and photos. Today User:Dennisolcott started a new article PiperSport (incidentally the name does not conform to project titling, but that is another subject). The article has no refs and duplicates the CZAW SportCruiser subject although it appears to use copyright vio text, as it reads like a press release. The photo used is odd too and probably bears some follow up. I turned the article into a redirect to the original one, but Dennisolcott reverted that without any edit summary. I have started a discussion on whether we should have two articles on the same subject on the new article talk page at Talk:PiperSport. Interested editors are invited to express their thoughts on this subject there. - Ahunt (talk) 23:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
I'd support merging for now. Piper is likely to make changes at some point, and then it would be suitable for a variant article. Also, do we know if CSA will continue to sell its own models of the SprotsCruiser? That would figure also into the name of the main article. - BilCat (talk) 00:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
I was correct about the image used and have tagged it as a copyright vio on Commons. - 00:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
There is another image avaiable, File:Sportcruiser.jpg, but I have my doubts on this one too. By the way, that image is in one of those stupid aircrft registration categories that were forced on us at Commons. Is there not anything we can do to restore the original aircraft typ categories for thee images? - BilCat (talk) 00:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Per this article, Piper will be distributing the PiperSport worldwide, as factory-built only, and the SportsCruiser will no longer be build. It sppears the chnges are minimal, contary to a statment in the PiperSport article. I'll wait until the editor appears to be done working on the article for the time being, and then try to make some clean-up edits. Hopefully he won't revert those, especially the several fact tags I'll be adding! BilCat (talk) 01:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Yeah the article needs some serious work, but it looks like we are on our way to a consensus here to redirect it back to CZAW SportCruiser. I agree that the Piper version (apparently still to be to be built by CSA) is just a variant of the existing aircraft. The editor working on it isn't talking to anyone or making any edit summaries, even though I asked him to do so on his talk page. I also linked to this conversation on the article talk page. I would like to hear from any other project editors especially any opposed to merging these two articles. - Ahunt (talk) 01:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Sorry I didn't post here, been busy. To answer some of the questions above, no, the SportCruiser won't be produced anymore. Yes, the PiperSport did require significant design changes before being taken on by Piper and deserves its own entry. The whole reason for the "developed from" entry is to document that airplanes do change over time, and are often derived from older aircraft. I'd sure appreciate it if you'd quit deleting PiperSport
On a related note, the entry for CZAW SportCruiser should actually change to "CSA SportCruiser" since CZAW hasn't existed for a while. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dennisolcott (talk • contribs) 03:10, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
As discussed at Talk:PiperSport and also here the consensus of editors is that since the PiperSport is just a minor variant of the SportCruiser that the articles should be combined. Since Wikipedia is based on consensus you will have to provide refs to produce a new consensus here that this is enough of a different aircraft to warrant an entirely new article. The other factor in the matter was that the SportCruiser article is well referenced, while the PiperSport article had few refs and made many claims that contradicted the refs it did have. For instance you keep claiming that major modifications were made to the design without citing a ref to support that contention, whereas the AOPA article says "Piper officials said they plan no major modifications to the aircraft". There is no evidence that the aircraft is more than a slight variant of the original, with a new marketer. The PiperSport article also read like it was written by the Piper Aircraft marketing department and even if it was retained would have to be completed rewritten. As far as naming in general on WikiProject Aircraft the first name of the aircraft used in production is usually retained, rather than move the article each time a new manufacturer or in this case marketing company takes over the project. - Ahunt (talk) 13:11, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
How should Wikipedia designate older Lockheed civil aircraft?
It seems to have become common practice in WikiProject Aircraft to designate Lockheed civil aircraft using the form "L-n" as if the "L-" was always part of the model number. This is true even for older Lockheed aircraft, in particular, in the following articles:
Other forms, such as "Lockheed n" and "Lockheed Model n", are discouraged or have been converted to redirects (e.g. Lockheed Model 10 Electra).
I asked BilCat about this practice; he replied that it was the consensus of WP:AIR, and that he would try to find the discussion where this decision was reached. I think he got too busy with all the other duties on his plate, so I went looking myself. I did manage to find this discussion, which doesn't seem to have reached any conclusion, but some of the edits and article renamings related to this practice were much older than that discussion, so I assume the decision must have been made at some earlier point.
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (aircraft) doesn't give any clues here. It says that the preferred practice is to use "manufacturer" and "number" or "manufacturer" and "name". Using both "number" and "name" is discouraged, but for the civil Lockheeds we seem to be using both anyway, and I actually prefer that in this case. (In any case, if names are used, the number is also required to distinguish the original piston Electra from the later turboprop Electra.) Anyway, the question here is whether Lockheed's older numbers should have a preceding "L-".
The "L-n" form is obviously standard for the L-1011 and may also be standard for the turboprop Electra (L-188) and even the Constellation (L-049, etc.). But while it is sometimes also used for still older Lockheed planes, I think the forms "Lockheed n" or "Model n" are preferred. This is especially true in contemporary documents, in which I've never seen "L-n" used.
To confirm this, I tried doing various searches for the Model 9, 10, 12, 14, and 18 in Google Books, using different forms of the name. In every case I got the most hits for the simple form "Lockheed n", but some of those may have been false positives, since the string "Lockheed 10", for example, could turn up in an index or table without actually referring to the Model 10 Electra. I also got many hits for the forms "Lockheed nname" (e.g. "Lockheed 10 Electra") and for "Lockheed Model n", both of which were much less likely to produce false positives. In some cases, I did get numerous hits for "Lockheed L-n" (especially for "Lockheed L-10"), but most of these hits were in recent works (say, after 1960) rather than contemporary ones.
For example, the earliest Google Books hit I found for the phrase "Lockheed L-10" (using quotes) is in a single 1942 Polish publication (actually a "Lockheed L.10" in that case). After that, the next hit I find is in 1947 in English, in a report on Congressional hearings. In contrast I find 59 hits for "Lockheed 10" up through 1947, most of which appear to be genuine references to the original Electra. "Lockheed L-10A" gets no hits before 1960, while "Lockheed 10A" gets 61 hits up to that date. Likewise, for "Lockheed L-18", the earliest hit is in a single 1943 French publication, and the next is in a 1946 English publication, while there are 58 hits for "Lockheed 18" up through 1946, most of which appear to be actual references to the Lodestar.
The other civil models (9, 12, 14) seem to follow a similar pattern.
As for Lockheed itself, they seem to prefer to use "Model n" for these older aircraft. In Lockheed-authored documents, I can't find an "L-10", nor can I find "Lockheed 10", but I can find the "Model 10". Same for the 9, 12, 14, and 18, except that I have found Lockheed documents which mention the "Lockheed 14".
The FAA Type Certificate Data Sheets for these models are not totally consistent, but they also never use the "L-n" form; they refer to these types as the "Lockheed Electra 10-A" (-B, etc.), "Lockheed 12-A", "Lockheed 14-H" (-H2, etc.), and "Model 18".
In short, for the Lodestar and earlier civil models, I think we should be eliminating the use of "L-n", preferring "Lockheed n" or "Model n" (or possibly forms like "Electra 10A" for specific submodels within the main article).
By the way, if others agree to this change, I'm willing to take on the editing burden of making the necessary changes.
(I've been recently working on the Lockheed L-12 Electra Junior article, and while doing so I have tried to follow the present practice. But I still think it should be changed.)
For the older aircraft I think that replacing L-x with Model x is probably the best solution as I usually see names formatted like what Graeme quotes above.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:42, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
Jane's 1938 uses mostly "Lockheed Model xy Nameifithasone". My main concern is that the reader who does not know the project's chosen style, or maybe just not, eg, the number, should be easily led to the article whichever of "Lockheed xy", Lockheeed Type xy" or "Lockheed Nameifithasone", etc he or she uses. They can admire the full handle in the text, when they've found it.TSRL (talk) 15:23, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I used to get all worked up about names of articles, but I've mostly relaxed about that now. The most important thing is that there are redirects set up for all the likely alternative names to get people to the right place.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:53, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
(EC) Looking at the Lockheed L-18 Lodestar it was redirected from Lockheed Lodestar in 2007. This second form complies better with our article naming guidelines and WP:NAME (use the most common name). Recent attempts to move some Avro aircraft were reverted i.e. Avro 679 Manchester redirects back to the more common Avro Manchester. To me, the easy part (and possibly more important) is to change the article titles to their most common names, what is bolded in the lead (a/c type) does not have to be the same as the article name (and often is not). If there are two or more types with the same name then we use an identifying suffix i.e. Rolls-Royce Trent and Rolls-Royce Trent (turboprop) or Rolls-Royce Eagle and Rolls-Royce Eagle (1944). That leaves what to call it in the text, I have seen 'Model 18' etc. used in the few Lockheed references that I have for the older aircraft. Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)15:55, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
The Putnam Lockheed Aircraft since 1913 gives an explantion of the naming convention including the use of the term Airplane Model Designation part of which is the Basic Model Numbers which started with the Model 1. The book has no mention of any basic designations with a prefix L- all are in the form Model 12 Electra or abbeviated like Lockheed 33 Little Dipper. The designator could have a suffix letter if the engine changed and also a prefix (called Modified Basic Model Number by Lockheed) which is why the Model 49 Constellation can be Model 049, Model 349, Model 1049. L- number do exist but these are all related to Temporary Design Designations and dont have a relationship with the Airplane Model Designation. As for the L-1011 it was just a marketing designation it is actually the Lockheed Model 93. So in conclusion the L-18 Electra type designators are made up and we shouldnt really use them.MilborneOne (talk) 20:11, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
The L-numbers and CL-numbers do exist for projects (and V- was also used for Lockheed Vega) but the template has the made up L- numbers. The CL- system (for Lockheed California) is a continuation of the original L- system it was changed to avoid confusion with Lockheed Georgia who used GL-number then LG-number. The real basic model numbers stop at Model 99 MilborneOne (talk) 21:10, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
Moving forward
OK, so I've gotten started on this, having just moved Lockheed L-12 Electra Junior to the simple Lockheed 12. (That was the most common name for this aircraft; "Electra Junior" was rarely used.) I've also changed all the existing redirects to avoid double redirects, and I've changed the links in templates linking to the previous names to link to the new one. (My idea there was to keep the redirect entries in WhatLinksHere from including all the articles which use those templates, to make later examination simpler, but I didn't realize that such changes are actually batched up for later execution and that the delay can be pretty long.)
I think the move is premature, as not all of the issues have been worked out yet. I can understand the consensus to drop the "L-", but I really think "Model" should be used in its place, as that s what most Lockheed sources that I have seen use. As far as the names go, sometimes we use them, sometimes we don't. but an arbitrarily claimed "was rarely used" is quite vague. Any way, for consistency, we need to pick one syle and use it for this series of Lockheed aricraft, and that hasn't been decided yet. - BilCat (talk) 09:06, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
It does appear that the final (next?) solution has not been agreed yet. Looking back through the history of the template the 'L' numbers were added by Rlandmann in January 2008 [9] but he is no longer around to ask. It is not a bad idea to add reference sources to template pages like I did at {{De Havilland aeroengines}}, have had to do this where entries were removed by editors on a 'gut feeling'. One last suggestion is that the empty talk page for the Lockheed template would be a good place to iron it all out, although I suspect it is not on everyone's watchlist! Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)10:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Sorry about that. Actually, I had been hoping for a clearer decision before acting as well, but since this thread seemed to have stalled, I was under the impression that people were waiting for me to act rather than discuss things further. So I tried to make some decisions based on what had already been said.
I also would like a single consistent style. For the article title, adding "Model" ("Lockheed Model 12") and including the name ("Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior") are both fine with me; in fact, my personal preferences may lean toward the latter, because I like using full official names.
The reason I picked "Lockheed 12" was that I was trying to follow the "use the most common name" rule and the aircraft project's guideline of avoiding the use of the number and name together. And apparently most people did call this plane the "Lockheed 12", according to the sources I've seen; the name "Electra Junior" doesn't seem to have caught on the way "Electra" did for the Model 10.
Common practice of naming these planes isn't consistent. The Electra, Lodestar, and Orion were often referred to by name, but while "Lockheed Lodestar" would be fine, we can't simply use "Lockheed Electra" because the name was reused for the turboprop. We'd either have to use a disambiguation prefix like "Lockheed Electra (piston)" or "Lockheed Electra (1934)", or use the full name like "Lockheed 10 Electra" or "Lockheed Model 10 Electra", or forget the name and use "Lockheed 10" or "Lockheed Model 10". The Lockheed Orion faces a similar problem, because it might be confused with the P-3 Orion.
On the other hand, the sources I've seen say that the Electra Junior and Super Electra were rarely referred to by name, and that it was much more common for people to call them simply the "Lockheed 12" and "Lockheed 14". References in other documents and searches in Google Books tend to confirm this.
A similar inconsistency applies to variants: for the 12 and 14, we might have "Lockheed 12A" or "Model 12A". For the Lodestar, "Lockheed 18-56" or "Model 18-56" also seem more common than "Lodestar 18-56". But for the Electra and Orion we often see "Electra 10A", "Orion 9D", etc.
As for using "Model", it seems to have been standard practice within Lockheed, but not so much outside it.
It seems that we will have to ignore some rules if we want a single consistent style.
Sorry to go on at length. Let me know if you want to move this to Template talk:Lockheed.
By the way, since Nimbus brought it up, whatever happened to Rlandmann? He was very helpful when he was here. :(
I don't know where RL went, just stopped editing suddenly for no apparent reason. He could certainly 'see through the fog' when it descended. We have Lockheed to thank for their system. It does seem very complicated, judging the most common name is not easy either but we do have our naming convention which can help. Suffixes for similar names are commonly used, usually backed up with a hatnote in the similarly named articles to further avoid confusion. Might take a while but you could list the current article names in a table (on the template talk page) and the alternatives and then have a look at it, even add ghits in one column. The alternative is to leave things as they are even if it is not quite right (what I would do!). Things do take time around here, some of the peer reviews have grown beards!! Cheers Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)19:44, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
OK, table of potential titles added to the template talk, if you want to take a look. (I assume this is for others to look at; I already know the possibilities.) I haven't added ghits yet; I only just discovered (after looking it up) that it is slang for "google hits" and not a typo for "chits"! :D --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 22:35, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
I think real life intervened with RL, but I'm not certain. He was a great help here, and I considered him friend. I'll try to write him for an update. As for the name, I think Lockheed Model ## Name would cause the least confusion, and is close ennough to what we have now. When I moved most of the curent articles to the "L-" formt, that was the most common format, IIRC, but they were some haphazard names. I'd have to check the histories to be certian though, as my memory is very spotty right now (health). Finally, I'd include a note such as "(also clalled L-#)" in the first or second line of each article's Lead, but it doesn't have to be mentioned elsewhere in the articles unless it's in a dierect quote or source title. - BilCat (talk) 20:40, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Must have learnt ghits from my kids, sorry! Looks good, exactly what I was thinking of, and it will be interesting to see the hits result if it is any kind of reliable marker (might throw up something unexpected). Is it just these five types that are the problem? Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)22:51, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
After completing the table, followed by a bit of further discussion on the Lockheed template talk page, I've come to a conclusion. In short, I've decided to go with the "Lockheed Model nname" format, even though it does not seem to be the "most common name", because it provides a consistent, complete, unambiguous naming style for these articles while following Lockheed practice. Other naming styles can be handled with redirects. --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 08:08, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Double specs sections?
Yep, me again! I'm seeing a lot of aircraft/engine articles with a second set of specifications (but not three so far!). Seems to be typing for the sake of it as the difference is usually a couple of horsepower/miles per hour/lbs/rivets. Any significant differences between variants should be covered in the 'variants' section n'est ce pas? Just been going through the new articles bot search result, not too good but I have rescued the worthy ones from the AfD pit. Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)02:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Two sets of specs makes sense for aircraft types that have been developed a lot over many years. For example AH-1 Cobra list specs for the initial version and the last single-engine version. But that does not seem to be what you mean... -Fnlayson (talk) 04:49, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
I personally like tables of specs with notable differences between variants, such as in engine power, performance, weight, dimensions, cabin layout, armament, etc. Such tables can show you at a glance how the aircraft has changed. This is especially true for important aircraft which underwent major changes during their careers, e.g. the B-17 Flying Fortress or the Boeing 747. But I would want such a table to be relatively compact; duplicating the entire Specifications section seems like the wrong way to do it. I notice the B-17 article does not have a table like this. The 747 article does, but it's a rather bulky thing; I'm think of something a bit easier to read. --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 06:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/page content#Aircraft specifications tables were used in the past and some obviously remain, I am not sure if they are encyclopedic, less is more in most cases. It also recommends there that the most numerous/notable variant should be described, it doesn't say that extra variants should be described, then again it doesn't say that this should not be done either. The AH-1 does not look too obtrusive because there is only one level two header and providing specs for the first and last variant is a thoughtful way of doing it if we are going to continue to add more than one set of specs. Seems to be down to personal style again, like the mixed citing problem there is not a lot that can be done about it unless we all sing off of the same hymn sheet. Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)12:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
I understood that only one representative variant was included in the specs sections but some have more which is mainly historic. I would suggest that the variants section could (an normally does) discuss major changes like different engines rather than duplicating specs. MilborneOne (talk) 13:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
If I'm feeling motivated, I tend to update specs sections with the "modern" one-variant specs table. If other specs warrant listing, I try and do that in the variants section. -SidewinderX (talk) 13:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Any multi-variant specs tables should be in the variants section surely? Or split off to a new article like List of Rolls-Royce Merlin variants, the parent article would not have got through FAC with that enormous table still in it at a guess. Some of these tables show parameters that are not used in the {{Aircraft specifications}} template. Maybe there is a need sometimes. Not a biggie but my concern was that I assessed some new articles recently (created by new editors) that contained double specs (which looks particularly strange in a stub or start class article), they must be either copying an article that they have seen or doing their own thing. Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)14:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
The Avro Vulcan article has a full specs for one model and a table for the key changes across the different ones which seems to work. If there was an aircraft whose last variant was markedly different from the first in terms of changes to major dimensions as well as performance than I would think a second specs example justified. If a series of related aircraft were conflated into a single article (eg the various Westland-Hill Pterodactyl designs (no specs section yet) or the Miles Libellulas) rather than have a number of stubs then specs for each makes sense. GraemeLeggett (talk) 15:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
This article has an unusual table of contents, luckily {{Pistonspecs}} does not appear multiple times (or at all strangely), it's bordering on being a list article really. For 'series' articles we can use the {{Main}} template to keep it short and tidy, this works very well at Parnall and Rolls-Royce Trent. The Trent article was a monster before I split it into five new articles, here is how it looked before the split [10]. Three manually formatted specs tables, one 'Jetspecs' template and a variant table (that is still there for the series overview). It had got a 'little out of control' through editor's enthusiasm, it even needed its own new navbox. An extreme case but there it was. Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)15:49, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree that an article should only have one set of specs and that diffs should be explained in the text. We recently had a request to include each model year's specs in the Cessna 172 article. Just imagine what that would look like!!! - Ahunt (talk) 19:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Agree with the above. The few articles with two sets of specs that I've seen contain a lot of redundant (since repeated) info, and the first response is: but what has changed significantly? Often, not a lot. Much better to spell out important differences in the text.TSRL (talk) 20:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Just reverted an addition twice to the Lockheed Model 9 Orion article as it appears to be a opinion or orignal research and certainly not how we would present the info. We also seem to have a lot of references to Richard A. Von Hake as designer of the Orion has anybody a ref that he actually designed it on his own as he is normally described as chief engineer. Appreciate a second opinion on the included text. Thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 18:37, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
As you might note, I reverted a poor section (IMO) that was recently added and received a note on my talk page for my trouble. I'm not getting into an edit war over it but there does seem to be an ownership problem there, good luck. Maybe others can assist. Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)19:11, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
I always go twitchy when I read "almost identical" used without any detail. A quick look at the numbers for the Orion D and the V-1A suggests the latter had a bigger span (about 17%), more powerful (36%) and heavier (AUW 50%). Not, it seems, identical twins. The pdf is quite interesting, if a bit technical, and might (in my view) be an external source.TSRL (talk) 19:32, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
The linked Vega paper does not mention the V-1A, unless I missed it. Anyway, I tagged the uncited "almost identical" with an {{OR}} tag. -Fnlayson (talk) 19:59, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
That's right; it's not relevant to this supposed connection. It would make some sense in the Vega article, for its own sake.TSRL (talk) 21:15, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
Are projects permitted to have there own warnings? If so, I'd like to propse that we develop a set of warnings for project-specific issues, some of which may only be notices. This would enable us to use stock notices or warnings for common issues that we may deal with .
The first one I am considering stems from this edit, where someone again "corrected" the speed conversions for Mach numbers using Mach number at Sea Level rather than at Altitude (35,000 ft and above). Could we develop a notice that explanis the differences, and links to the relevant sections in WP articles that deal with this matter? Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 04:42, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
As you know we had a similar problem with one editor with the engines, the answer was to clearly cite the figures then revert as the cited information was changed, i.e. make it bulletproof. There are four bare external links below the specs table that are not formatted as cites, it would be fair to say at the moment that the numbers are unreferenced. It does depend what kind of knot we are talking about, the original numbers seem to be true airspeed, the KIAS at FL35 and M0.8 would be quite low. Cheers Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)09:04, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
Solid citations are needed but perhaps something like a FAQ of some description that details and explains these issues with as Bill suggests a standard message to link back to it may be a good idea. MilborneOne (talk) 11:46, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
I think the FAQ suggestion has come up before, but I'm not certain. Either way, it's a good idea, and then we only need one message template, or perhaps two if we combine it with a welcome message for newbies. As to the specs and sources on that page, Jeff is real good about tracking down the sources, and verifying the math, something I'm not that good at! Hopefully he'll double check the figures today, if he hasn't already. The Mach at sea level vs. altitude is a frequest error some editors make, and it would be good to have a smple explanation in one place to point people to. - BilCat (talk) 12:13, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
I can probably find cruise speed data in a book or something for the 757. We probably need to add a footnote to the speed values in the specs to explain the at altitude part. Like: "Speed is at altitude, not sea level. See NASA Mach number calculator page for explanation about Mach number and example calculations." That probably needs rewording and/or more explanation. A template could provide this text if needed. -Fnlayson (talk) 20:52, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
Would like feedback on a footnote edit.
Bilcat had suggested adding a note that older Lockheeds are sometimes called L-# to the lead of their articles. I've just tried this out on the Lockheed 12, using a footnote, and I'd like people's opinions. I like the idea of a footnote because I want to point out that the L-# notation is modern rather than contemporary without disturbing the flow of the lead.
However, I have two particular concerns. One is that there doesn't seem to be a standard layout for an aircraft article which has footnotes, inline citations, and bibliography entries. Different articles handle this in slightly different ways. So I just picked one which seems to look OK.
My other concern is that I don't really have a cite for my opinion in the note; I might be able to cite Francillon's Lockheed book for the company's designation scheme, but for common contemporary usage I cannot cite anything. While I've found sources that mention the dominance of the "Lockheed 12" name, no one is likely to mention the fact that the "L-12" notation wasn't used—why bother to mention designation schemes that didn't exist? So finding a cite for this is sort of like proving a negative. Of course you can look at older sources and see the absence of "L-12", which is how I arrived at this conclusion in the first place. You can even count the usage of this form in sources, as I did in Template talk:Lockheed. But all of that is obviously original research or synthesis.
I'd recomend the simple approach: just state "(also called L-12)", and leave it at that. It's what we do for most alternate names or designations. Later, if we find a source that clarifies when it was used, then we can add it as a footnote alsong witht he citation. - BilCat (talk) 20:55, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
That's excellent, and Aviation Week is a very reliable source (and they seem to have gotten over their habit of spamming Wikipedia!) Nick-D (talk) 03:55, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Slingsby
I've been sprucing up the Slingsby Aviation page but have hit an historical problem. From 1939-1967 the company was the Slingsby Sailplane Co. Ltd., but after post fire receivership it was taken over by Vickers as the Vickers-Slingsby Sailplane Co. Ltd. The Vickers part of the name was soon dropped and at that point my main source, Ellison ends. By the time Firefly production is running, the company has become Slingsby Aviation, part of the Cobham Group. Later again it became Slingsby Advanced Composites, not part of that group, then Marshall Slingsby Advanced Composites (this year). Does anyone know for sure when the name we chose for the company began and ended? Simons book might say, but I don't have it.TSRL (talk) 21:12, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
According to Gunston's World Encyclopedia of Aircraft Manufacturers, Slingsby Engineering was set up by British Underwater Engineering in 1980, subsequently becoming Slingsby Aviation.Nigel Ish (talk) 21:46, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
According to the 1982-83 Jane's All The World's Aircraft, Slingsby Aviation was set up by (and as part of) Slingsby Engineering on 5 July 1982. By the 1993-94 Jane's, Slingsby Aviation Limited is listed as a "Subsidiary of ML Holdings"Nigel Ish (talk) 22:00, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
As an AvWeek subscriber, I have access to their sourcebook, which is a gold mine for specifications for everything. However, unlike past years, the 2010 sourcebook is digital only. (In the past there was a digital pdf copy of the hardcopy). Under the new digital format, each spec gets it's own page, but they're all behind the subscription pay wall.
My question is: How should I cite it? In the past I included the page number, but now that's impossible. Should I include the URL link, even though it's behind a subscription wall? Even then, I'm not sure if the link takes me to the direct spec page, or just the general page for the sourcebook. (Although I suspect it goes to a direct page.)
I believe the book has been titled "Year Aerospace Sourcebook". So something like: "Snecma M88". 2010 Aerospace Sourcebook. Aviation Week & Space Technology, January 2010. (subscription page). -Fnlayson (talk) 14:30, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
That makes sense, although I think I will drop the "January 2010" publishing date and replace it with an accessed date. As it's all digital now, it might be possible for them to update it throughout the year (though I doubt it). For web pages I believe the accessed date is more important. -SidewinderX (talk) 19:51, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
The year (2010) is captured in the title. If the "published once a year" part is the important part, I think adding January is unneeded. That said, it's all a bit confusing this year because it's gone digital only, and it's likely that it will only be "updated" in future years, rather than "published". -SidewinderX (talk) 20:32, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
As expected, the first flight and photos/videos of the Sukhoi PAK FA have brought all sorts of people out of the woodwork. This is particularly apparent in this talk page discussion. I've got the article on my watch list, but I figured I'd make a note here so if anyone else is willing to keep an eye on the crap they can. -SidewinderX (talk) 04:38, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
You will be pleased to know that the result of the deletion request was that it is kept. Perhaps now we need to work on the four or five thousand different seat configurations of the DC-3 etc. MilborneOne (talk) 21:51, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Quite odd. I'm sorry I missed the original note. Can we appeal this, perhaps requesting a check-user on severl participants? The only "keeper" I've ever heard of is User:Father Goose. Smells a bit fishy to me. - BilCat (talk) 22:37, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Presumably there is a record somewhere of how this decision was reached, given the open nature of Wikipedia. It would help me judge the worth of an article on Spitfire seat cushion colours (brown with a little red, mostly).TSRL (talk) 22:41, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
This can be taken to a deletion review (see WP:DRV). Given the weakness of several of the keep votes and lack of any consensus, I think that this should have been relisted for further discussion rather than be closed as a keep. Nick-D (talk) 22:50, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Filing a DRV sounds good to me. However, I'm having some health-related problems this week, and I don't have the time to spend tonight figuring out how to post at DRV. Would someone who agrees with taking it to DRV mind filing this? Thanks much. - BilCat (talk) 23:41, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Despite some ongoing concerns about this article, it seems to have been saved from the AfD axe for now and, though the hard work of a number of dedicated editors, has grown into a useful article. I should point out that its major function continues to be that it keeps all the popular culture cruft out of the aircraft type articles.
I did want to point out that we have a consensus agreement on what will be included in the article, on the talk page:
Consensus Inclusion Criteria for Text in Aircraft in fiction
Real world aircraft (not fictional or made-up aircraft) that have roles in books, films, video games and as toys, provided reliable refs are supplied
For fictional characters who assume the form of an aircraft - inclusion only as a one sentence summary and only for primary aircraft, not one-time configurations.
All media types included under article subheadings by aircraft type with at least one link to the article about the aircraft type itself.
Aircraft type articles that have entries here should have Notable appearances in media sections that simply refer to this article, in a manner like Sikorsky_MH-53#Notable_appearances_in_media
The key thing is that all entries need refs - we clean up unref text each Friday to try to keep it clean.
My main aim in providing this update is to encourage any editors who find aircraft type articles that have popular culture sections to move the text and refs to Aircraft in fiction, leaving the original article looking similar to Sikorsky_MH-53#Notable_appearances_in_media.
I hope through these actions we are improving the encyclopedia! Questions are discussion are always welcome at Talk:Aircraft in fiction. - Ahunt (talk)
The B-25 article has a "Popular culture" section with several films listed, e.g. Catch 22. What is the agreed procedure? Citation needed, or move then c/n, or ...?TSRL (talk) 17:59, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Though if its not a fictional appearance, you shouldn't move it. Equally I should add, in some cases were the content is extensive and particularyl notable or related to the coverage of the aircraft (off hand eg Lancasters and the Dambusters?) it would be correct to leave a summary behind. I think there should always be a summary where the "main" template is used, as per the instructions "below the heading of the summary, to link to the sub-article that has been (or will be) summarised." GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:00, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I have to agree with Graeme that if the mention is a documentary or other "non-fiction" then yes it should stay in the aircraft article. As mentioned, Aircraft in fiction is there to keep the cruft out, not to remove legitimate factual content! - Ahunt (talk) 18:22, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
The category:Glider aircraft is overpopulated. classification of aircraft by manufacturer is natural and commonly accepted. What are the reasons of your worries? "Not sure" is unhelpful, because it is impossible (and useless) to dispute. I am "not sure" about 90% of wikipedia, but I think that one must speak only if one can present reasons, otherwise the pointless chat in wikipedia would increase dractically. I am ready to discuss& possibly accept them. - Altenmann >t17:40, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
P.S. Ahunt, please don't edit other people's comments without very serious reason. I knew what I did when I selected the indent depth. - Altenmann >t17:52, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
One thing is worth discussion though. IMO it makes sense to introduce category:((manufacturer)) gliders only if the manufacturer has many gliders, otherwise the navigation in the category will be more cumbersome. - Altenmann >t18:01, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Another thing is I would recommend to split this categegory in another direction. It is illogical to have articles of kinds Motor glider and LAK-9 in the same category (unless a category is really small). Therefore I would duggest to make a subcategory for one of them or both: category:Glider types or/and category:Glider models. 18:21, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Need to be a bit careful here, as we already have (for example) Category:Sailplanes 1990-1999 and also Category:Polish sailplanes. Could get rather fragmented. What is a "good" number in a cat? I'm vaguely aware of a glider/sailplane controversy some while ago, but are not most single seat gliders also describable as sailplanes (sporting chaps) apart from a few secondary trainers. Also military gliders = troop carriers, or trainers used e.g. by the ATC?
A "good number" is 200, so that it fits one page, for several reasons of convenience by human browsing. (For bots there is little difference, I guess.) - Altenmann >t20:35, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I was concerned with the dividing the Foo aircraft categories as the tempatation is then to have Foo helicopters Foo autogyros etc. MilborneOne (talk) 19:30, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
As I mentioned before, I am aware of this concern. The solution I mentioned is based on WP:COMMON SENSE: don't introduce a category with 1-2 items. The problem similar to "Foo autogyros" arises in many wikiprojects, e.g, in WPMusic, a similar issue is "Albums by Foo". If rapper Foo has only a single album, the category is unnecessary. On the other hand, some wikiproject like to have uniform, full hierarchy of subcategories, including even empty ones. Therefore I would suggest you guys to write up a categorization strategy: which categories and when to create. - Altenmann >t20:27, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Our primary categorization is the <nation><type><era> categories; alongside this we have a number of broad type categories, so an aircraft in the primary category "Polish sailplanes 1990-1999" can also appear in the broad type category "Glider aircraft". Sure, most of the <nation><type><era> categories are not particularly useful in themselves; their utility comes from the extensive plumbing that members of this project have put in behind these categories, which makes it easy to navigate from "Polish sailplanes 1990-1999" to other types of contemporary Polish aircraft, Polish sailplanes of other eras, and contemporary gliders produced in other countries.
If "glider aircraft" is indeed becoming overpopulated, I think MilborneOne is correct; the "type" category should be split into smaller, tighter type categories (the helicopter category has already been split this way).
Splitting out a manufacturer's category this way is at odds with how several thousand other aircraft articles are categorized. Please don't create anomalies like this. --Rlandmann (talk) 22:17, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
That's certainly another way to do it that's consistent with our current schema, but I think it would be a pity. At present, "Foo military transport aircraft 1990-1999" holds cargo gliders, cargo helicopters, powered fixed-wing military transports, and even lighter-than-air aircraft if they were designed for this role. As things stand, sailplane is a role in its primary categories. If anything, rather than proliferate primary role categories, I'd me more inclined to fold the existing "sailplane" categories into the "sport aircraft" categories. These already include fixed-wing, rotary-wing, and lighter-than-air aircraft, and the "sailplane" primary categories are something of an exception in that regard. Just to clarify -- I'm not advocating that we go ahead and do that; only that I think this would be preferable to further proliferation. --Rlandmann (talk) 22:44, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I understand now the major objection: categorizing "by manufacgturer" cannot be the basis of the splitting of the category. At the same time, the category "by manufacturer" is perfectly valid additional classification. Fortunately, my actions did little harm and does not require "emergency revert". After the "glider category subtree" is agreed upon, it will be easy to populate it. - Altenmann >t23:11, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I think Altenmann is right we just need to make the Glider aircraft sub-categories better and leave the manufacturer and role cats alone. MilborneOne (talk) 23:16, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Agreed; if indeed there is a problem here. Unfortunately, we can't please everybody! On the one hand, we have people who feel that once we start nudging over about 200 articles, a category is getting too big. On the other, we've have people wanting to add every twin-engined aircraft ever or every high-wing monoplane ever to their own gigantic categories! There is, of course, ample precendent for both giant and tiny categories on Wikipedia. While it's true that "Category:Gliders" is now nudging up over the 200-article mark (and therefore onto a second category page), I really think we can live with that. Our breadth of coverage of glider types is getting pretty good now and I think it will be a long time before we're looking at a third page (after we have articles on 400 different glider types!). Is there anyone here who can't live with the glider category being spread across two pages?
Underlying the issue here is the same semantic problem we faced on a previous occasion: we use "sailplane" in "Polish sailplanes 2000-2009" as a role, while "Glider" in "Category:gliders" as a broad classification of a kind of aircraft. The way our categories work, the Foo-123 falls into the broad category of "Glider" so is classified into "Category:Gliders", but it is a glider designed for the sport of soaring, so its role is sailplane. This is exactly analogous to how the Bar-456 might fall into the broad category of "Helicopter" and is classified as such; but is a helicopter designed for crop spraying, so its role is "agricultural aircraft". The confusion over gliders is a product both of linguistic ambiguity in English, but also the very highly specialised nature of these aircraft.
Thanks for your patience with us Altenmann! I think you can see that some of these issues have quite a history behind them :) Any suggestions and input into how we can do things better is always welcome. --Rlandmann (talk) 23:43, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I have opened a peer review for the combustor article. I've spent a fair bit of time researching and rewriting most of the article as the first step in my wiki new years resolution. I'm hoping that this article will become a model for engine component articles, and I need ya'lls thoughts on how I've done so far! -SidewinderX (talk) 20:35, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
Week two of no interest! I know it's not the most exciting topic of all time, but I would really appreciate it if a few editors could read through the article and leave their thoughts on the peer review page. Thanks! -SidewinderX (talk) 22:26, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks I have deleted them and give the user a final warning, although most of their contributions dont appear to add much value. MilborneOne (talk) 20:24, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Problems, including edit warrings, are continuing, now made worse by accusations of trolling, and mass removals of supposed trolling comments, including thos made bt me. It looks like a semi-protection is needed for the article, and perhaps even a full protection until this settles down. I would really appreciate another set of eyes or two here on this page, especially from an admin. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 17:05, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
AH-64 Apache has been nominated for Good Article and is awaiting review. The article looks fully referenced. It seems to cover all major points/events. But there may be things missing. Help where possible or provide suggestions/comments at Talk:AH-64 Apache. Thanks~ -Fnlayson (talk) 22:33, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
While looking for some refs just noted the TCDS for the T-211 is held by AD Aerospace Inc of Georgia and it has not been amended since 2002! No mention of Indus Aviation. MilborneOne (talk) 23:51, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Jeff and I are having some difficulty with the KC-X article, and keeping it cleaned up. User:Sliceofmiami is basically a single-issue user, and has no real idea what a encyclopedia article should look like. Whatever your opinio, we could use some extra ones on the article. The article's talk page should suffice with a good overview of the problems. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 09:51, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
Today's crash in East Palo Alto has attracted some attention...
I've noticed there have been multiple attempts today (currently five, with the last two unreverted) to add the same East Palo Alto crash to the Cessna 310 article. In case people here are wondering, this crash has attracted much more than the usual attention for a small plane crash, since it has knocked out power in the Palo Alto area for pretty much the entire day, and also because a senior Tesla Motors executive and two other unidentified Tesla employees were killed. (I live in nearby Mountain View, and there's a lot of local talk about it. Fortunately my place has not been affected.)
The crash probably doesn't satisfy any of the Aviation project's notability requirements, unless the deceased Tesla employees were themselves notable enough to warrant mention, but I wonder whether it might qualify for inclusion in the article on Palo Alto Airport.
There is some discussion on the Cessna 310 talk page - the accident is non-notable for an aircraft type article and will be removed. I can't address whether it should be included in the airport article or not, but maybe someone from the airports side of the project can point out their guidelines. - Ahunt (talk) 23:08, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
Chimes Aviation Academy
Had a tidy up of Chimes Aviation Academy and removed some marketing stuff and junk but apart from a claim of the largest aviation academies in India it doesnt appear to be particularly notable. Just looking for other opinions. MilborneOne (talk) 12:53, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Just had a look - one ref was a dead link and the other two are reprinted company press releases. They seem to have lots of web coverage, but it is all the usual noise - blog postings, reprinted press relaeses and a Facebook page, all with the same text on them. I think Wikipedia has probably been co-opted as part of their marketing effort - recommend AfD as non-notable. - Ahunt (talk) 13:33, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Due to a news current event we have a problem over at this article - it is getting massively edited and vandalized faster than it can be fixed. - Ahunt (talk) 18:51, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Some background on CNN - looks like it was a suicide by a person with a grudge against the US IRS, who owned the building the PA-28 hit. Going t be a long day, I think. - Ahunt (talk) 18:58, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
The vandalism and mass-editing seems to have calmed down somewhat on this article now and I have cleaned up the text there a bit. Next issue - my read of Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aircraft/page_content#Accidents_and_incidents seems to indicates that this is a non-notable incident (can't call it an accident as it seems it was intentional), although our guideline there is intended for accidents, not attacks. There is already a page 2010 Austin plane crash on the event. Does anyone think it should be retained in the PA-28 aircraft type article? - Ahunt (talk) 23:44, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
A short entry or a link to that article in the See also section should do. It seems notable to me since it was intentional. -Fnlayson (talk) 00:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
As some of you might have seen, I'm doing a bit of category and template maintenance work at the moment. One thing that's jumped out at me (perhaps because of our recent discussion here about the "Glider aircraft" category) is that Category:Ultralight aircraft and its children seem a bit misplaced now. As things stand, we're treating "ultralight" as a role, just like "airliner" or "fighter", but I think it's really more of a characteristic like "glider" or "seaplane".
The reason for the mismatch is, I think, largely historical. Even five years ago when we put the category system in place, the gap between "ultralights" and certified GA types seemed a lot bigger than it does now :)
I suggest we lose the various Nation-Role-Decade ultralight subcategories and move the articles into the equivalent "sport" or "civil utility" categories, but retain the top-level "ultralight aircraft" category for these articles. Any objections? --Rlandmann (talk) 00:06, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
As long as it works! The main problem with calling an aircraft an "ultralight" is the lack of national agreement on what that means. In the US it is single seat and empty weight of a max of 254 lbs - very small aircraft. In Canada it can be as big as two seats and 1232 lbs gross. - Ahunt (talk) 00:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Very true; which I think makes an even stronger reason why "ultralight" should not be a primary categorization :) I'm open to suggestions about how we can more sensibly implement the "characteristic" category. My first thought is that we should just be guided by the manufacturers' marketing; if they're shooting for an "ultralight" classification in any given market, we can follow suit (regardless of what that market might be). --Rlandmann (talk) 04:09, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Just had a look at this article. It seems to be a proposal to build an aircraft by an unknown company, it doesn't seem to make Wikipedia:Notability (aircraft) and looks like manufacturer WP:SPAM to me. Mostly they seem to be actually selling simulator model aircraft plug ins for X-plane. Without RS I am thinking maybe we should take it to WP:AFD. - Ahunt (talk) 14:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, the "unknown company" is just one person — the inventor. Although the article looks spammy, I don't really think that it's the work of anyone associated with the project. I'll take it to AfD. Cheers --Rlandmann (talk) 10:18, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't suppose that "French military reconnaissance aircraft 1930-1939" was intended to be a sub-set of "French reconnaissance aircraft 1930-1939"? - Ahunt (talk) 17:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
I've done very little category making, but looking at the history of "French reconnaissance aircraft 1930-1939", it seems to be (if I'm reading the template right} a sub-set of "French military reconnaissance aircraft 1930-1939" , not vice versa. "French reconnaissance aircraft 1930-1939" seems to be unique, in that, for example there is no "French reconnaissance aircraft 1920-1929", whereas there is a "French military reconnaissance aircraft 1920-1929".TSRL (talk) 17:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm about to start an article about the USAF's Light Attack/Armed Reconnaissance (LAAR) program, and I'm looking for some input on what to name the article. Right now the program is only just past it's "request for information" stage, so it's possible the name may change in the future. If that's the case, we can move the article as needed. In the meantime, I'm leaning towards Light Attack/Armed Reconnaissance Program (with LAAR as a redirect/disambig) towards it. My only concern with that is that it may not technically be a "program" yet. That doesn't bother me that much, but I was thinking I should get some consensus first. Thanks! -SidewinderX (talk) 16:24, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Additional note: I've seen some popular references to the program as the OA-X program, but nothing official under that name. I'd prefer to use the official name (and maybe redirect OA-X to this). Just an FYI -SidewinderX (talk) 16:30, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
My only concern with Light Attack/Armed Reconnaissance as the title is that someone might stumble upon the article thinking it was about light attack/recce aircraft as a class, not a specific program. If you don't think that will be a problem, I can go ahead with that.
Fnlayson -- yup, those are a couple of the aircraft that are being proposed for the role (you can add the AT-6 Texan II to the list as well). There are plenty of resources out there. I'll start it in my namespace, then move it to the world wide wiki once it's started. -SidewinderX (talk) 17:47, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Yup, that's a good idea. I wanted to include it in a category, didn't think to make one up! A US Military procurement navbox would be nice too. -SidewinderX (talk) 23:47, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Ok, I'm adding the cat to several suitable articles, but I'm not sure what boxes to put in the cat, so it's still looking like a red link... any ideas? -SidewinderX (talk) 13:40, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
I would like to get some opinions on this article. Is this just a poorly referenced article that needs some work or a non-encyclopedic subject that is nothing more than a large collection of WP:OR opinions? - Ahunt (talk) 01:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
That is kind of the way I am leaning too, but I would like to hear what some of the other editors have to say as well. - Ahunt (talk) 13:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Per the Verticopter deletion discussion, if anyone has ready access to the 2009 or 2010 Jane's All the World's Aircraft, I wonder if you could please check to see if there's any mention of it in there? The earliest I could manage this would be the weekend. Cheers --Rlandmann (talk) 11:11, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
A search of the Jane's website turned up nothing, and I have access to the full Transport library. Neither Garrow nor Verticopter has any hits. The AIAA journals/conference proceedings turned up nothing, nor did a search of the CSA Illumina Aerospace & High Technology Database. Finally, a search of the ProQuest Military (mostly engineering stuff, not just military) database turned up nothing as well. I'm on the delete side, if you need me to weigh in on the AFD page, just let me know. -SidewinderX (talk) 12:55, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Many thanks! Without asking you to support one side or the other, could you please report these findings to the discussion? That way, we have a record of what's already been searched. --Rlandmann (talk) 13:25, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Actually, according to Finnish naming conventions it is correct with a lower case "l". And although the two articles describe the Finnish state aircraft manufacturing industry, they are in a way related and in another way not (like you could say about McDonnell --> McDonnell-Douglas --> Boeing). But the articles are a little messy and could use some cleaning up. --MoRsE (talk) 17:49, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Naming question; the article on this aircraft was begun some three years ago as ENAER T-35 Pillan, but a little while later was changed by MoRsE to T-35 Pillan, with the comment "better as?" The query raised no discussion; but I wonder if this choice is unduly influenced by US military naming style. My only book with it in calls it the ENAER T-35 Pillan, but then it has, for example, the Lockheed P-3 Sentinel. What do you think (there are no guidelines, so far as I can see, so ease of use for reader, I think, has primacy): ENAER T-35 Pillan; T-35 Pillan; or just ENAER Pillan? There should be an accent on the a, I know and can sort once we have a preferred form.TSRL (talk) 17:19, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
The reason for why I made the change originally is that I realized that the aircraft wasn't only manufactured by Enaer, CASA also built it. But I don't have any reason to make any fuss about this one, nor do I have any objections on the change of name. --MoRsE (talk) 17:38, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Do you have a reference that they were built by CASA, the info I have is nearly all of them (120) were built at Vero Beach by Piper and exported as kits to Chile for assembly. I have added some info on the prototypes and the Piper kit production. MilborneOne (talk) 17:59, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately I don't have my reference library at hand, but the aircraft is known as the E.26 Tamiz in the Spanish Air Force. Google gives a few hits but none that one could say are very trustworthy. --MoRsE (talk) 18:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Here is one for instance: [11]. The pages also suggests that another Chilean company was involved in manufacturing the aircraft (INDAER CHILE). --MoRsE (talk) 18:27, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
On the CASA question, the OBA cited says that the "aircraft for the SAF are assembled from kits by CASA as the Tamiz (Grader) the first of these having been flown on 12 May 1986."TSRL (talk) 19:39, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
According to OAB 1991/2, these kits were supplied by ENAER, possibly implying ENAER had built them. Certainly in OBA 88/89 the phrase used re the Piper/ENaer is "manufacture [rather than assembly?] has been gradually transferred to ENAER".TSRL (talk) 20:42, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
In cases like this, we still use the name of a manufacturer in the title and use redirects from other possible names. Why we don't do this with US aircraft is just an unfortunate legacy issue. --Rlandmann (talk) 19:45, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Use the manufacturer that produced the most aircraft or omit it from the name. If Piper designed it then that company should be listed in the Infobox in the Manufacturer field or Designer field. -Fnlayson (talk) 20:12, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Even though the box is named "Aircraft and missiles produced by the Egyptian Air Force" all three items on the list were produced by "Egyptian General Aero Organisation" according to the articles linked. Would it not make sense just to rename the box to reflect this? - Ahunt (talk) 02:40, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
User:FieldMarine recently created an article on a monoplane built by Ben T. Epps under the title Epps Monoplane. A little further research showed that Epps built five unrelated monoplane designs, none of them named, and that (as is common in these cases) the NASM directory calls this one the "Epps 1907 Monoplane".
The original article I created should never have been changed to a redirect. The Epps Monoplane article can certainly cover all variants in the series as they don’t seem different enough to warrant individual articles. Please discuss at the article’s talk page. I’m not an admin, but I’m surprised there was not discussion prior to this initial move. I cut & pasted my original article back to where it was in the first place when I created it & I don’t appreciate the mischaracterization of my edit. I hope this is discussed fully before any further moves. Thanks! FieldMarine (talk) 13:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Just to note I have just blocked User:75.80.151.51 for 31 hours as he/she continues to add content to aircraft articles (mainly operators) without referencing. Some if not all appear to be also factually wrong. Please check any edits you see from this IP, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 22:41, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Sorry not here early but user has been blocked 55 hours by User:Daniel Case, no edit summaries, no references, whatever source he/she are using has a few errors in it, main assumption is government operated aircraft are operated by an air force which is clearly wrong in the cases the user has changed. I suspect the user will back again! MilborneOne (talk) 17:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
We'll be ready for him when he comes back! I'm just reverting all his edits as I find them. He's probably been given enough rope to warrant a longer block soon. - BilCat (talk) 18:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
A-10 Thunderbolt II was nominated for Good Article a couple days ago without prior notice. It is near the bottom of a long list now. Only problem is the article has several paragraphs that need references. I've started citing what I can. Try to help where you can. Thanks. -Fnlayson (talk) 17:17, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
Nothing definitive; Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation simply gives "Ass", but doesn't indicate whether this is German or English; I assumed it to be the German word because in every case I've seen elsewhere in the book, they give names in the original language and the translation in parentheses afterwards in many/most cases; unfortunately not here though. Stützer's Die Deutschen Militärflugzeuge 1919–1934 gives details of the plane, but no name, and it's too early to show up in Nowarra's Die Deutsche Luftrüstung 1933–1945. Maybe one of our colleagues on de might have something? --Rlandmann (talk) 08:28, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
No source, but FWIW: the dewiki article, the original version of which predates the enwiki one, says Albatros L-75 „Ass“; no source is given there, but I can't really imagine a German author giving a literal English name! More practically, calling an aircraft a donkey is a bit clumsy. Mostly they have more exciting names - the L 68 was Alauda, Lark; the L 79 was Kobold, a goblin-like creature; the L 76 was Aeolus, a god of the wind. "Ace" just seems more plausible than "Ass"... Shimgray | talk | 22:04, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
User:MilborneOne, that English master of understatement, just pointed out this article with a note that says "found stub article IAR 46 needs work". The Template:IAR aircraft points to ICA IS-28 for this aircraft type as the IAR 46 is a variant of the ICA IS-28 and is described on that article page. Do we want to have a separate page for the variant or do we want to just put the IAR 46 out of its misery and redirect it to ICA IS-28? - Ahunt (talk) 19:48, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Oddly the same article creator User:Sponsoru2006 added a bunch of stats to IAR-46 (with a dash) right before he or she created IAR 46 as an article (without the dash). You should note that despite the addition IAR-46 (with a dash) is still a redirect to ICA IS-28. Me? I am a bit confused. - Ahunt (talk) 19:55, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
If it helps I have full info and specs for the IS-28M2 motor glider. Don't know what an 'IAR 46' is. The motorglider version was different to the IS-28 glider in significant ways which would allow a separate article, it has an engine (ok, you worked that out already!), the seating is side-by-side instead of tandem and it has twin rearward retracting undercarriage legs housed in the wings as opposed to the single wheel of the glider. Quite happy to flesh it out, that would be ICA-Brasov IS-28M2 as Jane's called it). Looking at the numbers of the IAR 46 it appears to be a different aircraft (12 metre wing instead of 17 metres). With a Rotax engine it must be something much newer than the IS-28M2. Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)21:11, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
IAR 46S Found a photo of it, shares the fuselage and tail of the IS-28M2 but does have a much shorter wing, putting it more in the general aviation class (i.e. not a motor glider). You learn something every day. I think the article should stay and be improved, cheers. Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)21:17, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Sounds OK, it might be worth breaking out the motor-glider versions 28M1 and 28M2 into a seperate article probably as ICA IS-28M and leave the original IS-28 article to just cover the glider (aircraft, un-powered, non-mammal). Apologies for just tagging it for the project then leaving it but I just wanted to flag it for attention when I saw it. MilborneOne (talk) 21:23, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
(EC) More here, there seems to be a 17 metre motor glider version of it!!!! It would make sense to merge it with a new IS28M2 article (as that aircraft was designed first?). Can't do it until next week if no one is volunteering. Nimbus(Cumulus nimbus floats by)21:25, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
There's an entry for the IAR 46 in Brassey's World Aircraft & Systems Directory 1999/2000, which also has (brief) entries for the various motor-glider versions of the IS-28.Nigel Ish (talk) 21:45, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Great response here and great work by all - it looks a lot better now than it did! MB1 - I presume you are excluding Rocky and the other flying squirrels? - Ahunt (talk) 13:05, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Template:Post-Cold War Fighter Aircraft is being added to aircraft article, apart from being located under the infobox it appears to add no value. It uses links based on fighter generations- not a good idea as nobody can agree on them. I think it needs to be discussed before being added or used. MilborneOne (talk) 19:53, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
It seems incomplete now. It would probably be fairly long if all the fighters in service in 1991 until now were added. -Fnlayson (talk) 19:59, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
I have been deleting it but it would be nice to get other opinions, but I still think using generations is a receipe for constant edit wars which is why we dont have generation categories. Not sure they add any value as it is a see also by stealth! I have left a note on the Indian IPs talk page about this thread. MilborneOne (talk) 20:07, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Fighters in service until 1991 that are not added in template are Su-27 early variants,F-16 early variants,F-18 early variants,F-15 early variants and all of them had been taken off service after Cold War and new variants were introduced as in case of F-18A/B which was replaced by F-18E/F.And there are similar template for Tank ,you are more than welcome to view it.It make viewing all fighter at once and jumping from one page to other is so easy like never before.That why i had requested chitres verma to create this template.It could help people which are using wiki and wiki is for help am i right.--59.94.131.192 (talk) 20:18, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Don't see what it adds. Would you want a Cold War fighter navbox? I note also some of the bottom section are only projects. There are similar templates for tanks, they aren't actually used on every article they link to, but tank classification is relatively simple. Even then, there are errors in the tank templates. Just off to sort them.GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:29, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't like it either. I really dislike the generations divisions, mostly because it invites edit-warring and arguments. "post cold war fighter aircraft" really isn't a convient way to organize them... we already have manufacturer nav boxes, and we have decadal categories. That should cover use pretty well. -SidewinderX (talk) 20:30, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Concur with Side. Also, the definitions of "fighter" is probably too broad to pin down to a template. Toss it! - BilCat (talk) 20:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Argentine Meteors
Has someone got expertise in Argentinian serials? According to Derek James' book, the 100 FAA Meteor F.4s were serialed I-001 to I-100. I think the I stood for interceptor. One web source says that, in 1963, they were reclassified as fighter bombers, using C- serials. My Q is how was this done. They could have kept the number and just changed the letter; but quite a lot of aircraft would have gone some 15 years after purchase, so they might have renumbered as well. Bottom line; is, for example I-99 the same airframe as C-99?TSRL (talk) 21:27, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
You might try User:Jor70, an Argentinian wikipedian with a good and objective working knowledge of Argentine military history. If he doesn't know the answer, he can probbly find a source with the info, or another user who might know. - BilCat (talk) 21:48, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
A variety of IPs and new users have been adding copyrighted material from the Hawker Beechcraft website. Much of the info is the History of Beechcraft, which has its own article. I believe I'm excempt from 3RR as long as copyvios are involved, but I'm not certain. We could use some more eyes on this article, especially from admins. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 22:26, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
One of these editors has posted a COI disclosure at User_talk:Ericacenci#About_Me, so that is a positive step forward. Now we need to make sure that we have help with whatever they intend to add. I have asked them to post to the appropriate article talk page first. - Ahunt (talk) 01:15, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Template: Beechcraft
Speaking of templates, the Beechcraft template does not have any of the Hawker business jets except the Hawker 400 (presumably in its Beechjet 400 iteration). While I am aware that they are not Beechcraft products per se, I do think we need to capture the Hawker jets somehow. Should we create a new template, or rename & expand the existing Beechcraft template? YSSYguy (talk) 00:35, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
This new article seems to me to be a non-notable WP:NOTNEWS event and doesn't seem to meet the inclusion criteria at WP:AIRCRASH, but I would like to gather some other opinions. I am not completely sure how a six seat Seneca had nine people on board, but the accident report seems to indicate it was "misloaded". It may thus qualify as a "deadliest" by type accident, but there is no ref to indicate that and it is possible that someone else crashed one with even more people on board a Seneca. - Ahunt (talk) 16:54, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Some quick Google-fu seems to show that the 9 deaths is correct (and that the aircraft was operated by Foxpine Air Charters, however depending on how you search you only come up with less than a handful of relevant pages, none of which have more than bare-bones information. Barring something dead-tree having more details, I'd have to agree it's Not Notable, and I've nominated it for AFD. - The Bushranger (talk) 19:32, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
