Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft/Archive 46

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Archive 49

Air Zoo image additions

An editor is spamming a large number of pages with images taken at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo, most of which add nothing to their respective pages, and would seem to represent a disproportionate number of images of their collection being illustrated to the detriment of lots of other museums. Perhaps someone can look into this? - NiD.29 (talk) 09:11, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at RSN

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Airline_fansites This discussion at WP:RSN about the use of enthusiast websites as references may be of interest.Nigel Ish (talk) 11:17, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Help watch TAI/AgustaWestland T129 ATAK article

Please help keep at eye on the TAI/AgustaWestland T129 ATAK. Some IPer(s) have been rewriting/changing info in the Infobox and Lead on this helicopter article. -Fnlayson (talk) 17:22, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks for the help! -Fnlayson (talk) 14:24, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Policy on Facts, False Statements, References, and Consensus

Moved to Talk:Light fighter § Policy on Facts, False Statements, References, and Consensus

 – — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:50, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Missing titles in some "Sport Aviation" reference

Hello,

in some articles such as Stits SA-8 Skeeto or EAA Aviation Museum there are some reference to old Sport Aviation articles where (at least) the titles are missing (and we have the same errors on the French wiki as these articles are mainly translated from yours). On the EAA website there is an access to the archives for "premium members". If one of you has such an account, is it possible for him to retrieve the titles (or even the authors) ?

Thank you, --Gaillac (talk) 10:56, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up, as we have quite a number of these. It would have been best if the editor who entered them in the articles as refs in the first place completed the titles, but it looks like he hasn't edited for almost four years now. - Ahunt (talk) 17:17, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Jane's All the World's Aircraft

Jane's All the World's Aircraft is a wonderful reference and maybe an example for the WikiProject Aircraft. Many of us own a copy (if you don't, indulge, a used one can costs £$€10-20 at amazon on abebooks) but being a 10kg chunk of paper isn't always the easiest book to check (hey, wikipedia on a smartphone is way lighter!). I stumbled upon this online, searchable version, obviously in a legal grey zone, but if you own a copy, I don't see why you couldn't use it. hapyy new year!--Marc Lacoste (talk) 17:45, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

As a copyright violation, we can't use the webpage in references and no page numbers are provided. Also doesn't go back very far. - NiD.29 (talk) 23:50, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Of course not. It just facilitates the search in your own copy.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 05:21, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Grossly incomplete, full of bugs, insecure connection via http and not https, parent site in Russian/Ukrainian. No, this is not a site to visit with your malware defences down, let alone log in to. Probably just a crude honey trap for your personal data and botnet membership. Something called avitop.com advertises on it, looks suspiciously biased towards East European resources, bit more sophisticated but still dodgy-looking. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:48, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Jane's is an annual that has been in print since 1908, so which of the ~110 volumes? I have six, including four compilations. None of them are likely the ones you have, and most predate that site's contents. With no page numbers, or year, and with Jane's being alphabetical by country, it really isn't of much use, other than to check for the existence of a particular entry and good luck finding which volume has the entry they stole. It probably won't be from the volume(s) you have. Sometimes they changed their entries from one year to the next or randomly omitted some. But with no entries predating the 60s (or 70s?) even this is not that useful. Personally I dislike Jane's as I have found too many errors and misidentified types, and their conversions from metric (and translations) were "creative" in the early years. Better to find their source, many of which are now online legally. Lots of omissions as well in the foreign listings. Like any encyclopedia, I won't use it as a reference if any alternative exists and I replace instances of it I find with better references, whenever possible. - NiD.29 (talk) 20:23, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Do you have any sort of listing of errors and/or alternative sources that others could use? Considering that many people consult Jane's assuming it is the last word in reliable sourcing, it would be useful to compile a set of errata for various Jane's versions, as well as a listing of what their original sources were and which references are more reliable. Actually, I've been thinking for a while that such a project, done more generally--tracking down sources of aircraft specs and data, verifying their contents, and posting the results and errors--might be of great service to aircraft researchers and aficionados, especially those who care greatly about getting their facts right. (No, I'm not asking you to do that, just floating the idea.) --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 06:05, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

wikidata?— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:41, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I haven't bothered since I generally check specifications across a number of sources anyway - if one source is improbable, or inconsistent then I simply ignore it. It mostly affected French and German types, which often were recorded as being slower and smaller usually than the original source indicated, and this was mostly for early types where sources are much more sparse than for modern types. - NiD.29 (talk) 20:49, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Flight Global Archive

The archive is currently our of action. With a note they are transitioning to a "new platform". Are we expecting a lot of link cleanup when it's available again? GraemeLeggett (talk) 15:28, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

If it's available again - its been down long enough that there is a good chance it won't re-appear again, or in a notably different form - they seem to be very keen on selling subscriptions, so it may well disappear behind a paywall. If it does re-appear, we undoubtedly will need an awful lot of cleanupNigel Ish (talk) 15:48, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

An ugly proposition...TheLongTone (talk) 16:03, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Will need a lot of cleanup even if it doesn't reappear. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:21, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I just emailed them this query, so fingers crossed:

"Hi, Wikipedia editors have become accustomed to extensively referencing your online PDF archive of Flight backnumbers. Its recent disappearance has caused us much consternation, as all our many hundreds if not thousands of links to it in aviation articles are now broken.

"Would you be able to confirm your plans for its future? In particular, do you expect to be restoring it in due course, and if so then in what form? Knowing this would greatly help us in deciding what to do about the sorry state that this has plunged so many aviation articles into, in what is currently the biggest and most widely-read encyclopedia in the world. I am sure you would not want so many links to your web site to disappear, if it can be avoided.

"If you could reply to me, I will pass the message on to my fellow Wikipedians. Thank you so much for listening."

— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:21, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your clear query. fingers crossed.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 20:26, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, well done. I can't see the value to them of commercializing issues from more than 10-15 years ago and the newer issues were not in the archive. Anyway, let's hear what they say before getting too anxious.TSRL (talk) 20:45, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I don;t suppose any of these existing ref links made it onto archive.org? - Ahunt (talk)'

Just tried an html link and to my surprise the web page and pdf download are both there. But something is odd about it, in that some bits generate a browser error message about an httpss (note double s) protocol. I managed to work round it by using the Flight side navbar, but I cannot find any direct pdf links on Wikipedia, it's as if some bot has been cleaning them out in favour of the html holding pages. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:37, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

• Could we have worded that to have made WP sound any more arrogant and lecturing?! We're probably still in bad enough grace at Flight after the awful way we treated them a few years back when they were offering content to us. We'll be lucky if they don't just blacklist us altogether. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:31, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

This reply has been sent to me:

"Thank you for your email. As part of the FlightGlobal relaunch we had to re-platform the site and unfortunately the Flight PDF archive was not compatible with the new software so we had to take it down for maintenance and development. The archive will be back online soon, however I can't give you a date for this or tell you in what form it will be in. We will let our readers know as soon as the archive is back online. "

So, good news in the long term. Once it comes back, we can look at the possibility of a bot to convert all the links. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:49, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Unnecessary fork?

List of pusher aircraft by configuration and date from List of pusher aircraft by configuration. - NiD.29 (talk) 21:16, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Dont think it adds any value and is a copyright violation of the original article! MilborneOne (talk) 21:25, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

The best solution would be a sortable table at List of pusher aircraft — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 21:46, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Heinkel He 179 designation

The RLM aircraft designations webpage lists 8-179 as allocated to Heinkel, but provides no details. However, I recently received a copy of Dan Sharp's magazine Luftwaffe Secret Bombers of the Third Reich and page 15 of that magazine describes the He 179 as a four-engine variant of the Heinkel He 177 (meaning that Heinkel saw the He 179 as a potential viable bomber design in the event the He 177's development was plagued by its unreliable DB 606 engines). As stated on this page, the RLM cancelled the He 179 on September 12, 1939 as development of the He 177 picked up pace, even though the fire-prone DB 606s would be the Achilles' heel of the He 177. Does anyone have drawings or specs for the four-engine He 179, given that it is clear that the He 179 was Heinkel's first proposal for an He 177 design with four separate engines?70.175.133.224 (talk) 23:25, 28 January 2020 (UTC)Vahe Demirjian

Doctored photo of Henschel Hs 127

I found this photo at the Messerschmitt Bf 165 article, and as noted on the Secret Projects Forum, this is a doctored photo of the Henschel Hs 127 that lost the Schnellbomber contest to the Junkers Ju 88. Therefore, this image may have to be deleted.70.175.133.224 (talk) 03:23, 29 January 2020 (UTC)Vahe Demirjian

Copyrighted drawing of Junkers Ju 287

File:Esquema 3D con Jumo 004 y He S 011.JPG

Ju 287

Although this drawing is claimed to be someone's own work, it actually comes from page 51 of the book Luftwaffe Secret Projects: Strategic Bombers 1935-1945], and the 3-view Ju 287 drawing on the right hand corner of this image (showing the Ju 287 configuration with four underwing jet engines and two fuselage mounted engines) clearly reflects the original BMW 003 engine arrangement for the Ju 287 as of early 1944 (I recently received a copy of Dan Sharp's magazine Luftwaffe Secret Bombers of the Third Reich and on pages 79 and 81 it is mentioned that the baseline production Ju 287 originally was to have had four underwing turbojets and two fuselage mounted turbojets, only to have the engine arrangement changed to two underwing triple-engine clusters by July 1944). At the bottom of page 51 of Herwig and Rode's book is the drawing from the Junkers project documents of the production Junkers Ju 287A-1 in the ultimate configuration (dated July 1944) it was to be built (two clusters of three BMW 003s under each wing, fuselage positions eliminated). Since the drawing of both Ju 287 V1 and the original production Ju 287 design iteration from early 1944 is credited to Adolf Galland but is actually from Luftwaffe Secret Projects: Strategic Bombers 1935-1945, I'm wondering if this image should be deleted as a copyright violation (the authors of this book passed away years ago, according to the Secret Projects Forum 1 2).70.175.133.224 (talk) 23:25, 28 January 2020 (UTC)Vahe Demirjian

I've nominated the page for deletion (and I've removed the link to the book on Internet Archive from your post because the link is an almost certain copyvio).Nigel Ish (talk) 23:18, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

I found another Ju 287 drawing that happens to be copyrighted from page 51 of Luftwaffe Secret Projects: Strategic Bombers 1935-1945 despite being stated to be someone's own work and ought to be deleted as well.70.175.133.224 (talk) 03:24, 29 January 2020 (UTC)Vahe Demirjian

Sky Knight Helicopter Program

I just ran across Sky Knight Helicopter Program. It's sole source is primary, and currently a dead link. Send to AFD? - BilCat (talk) 20:50, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Or perhaps just redirect to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department were it is already mentioned. MilborneOne (talk) 20:55, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

A redirect would probably be best, since essentially almost all of it is unsourced. - Ahunt (talk) 20:56, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Concur, but unfortunately, the LACSD mention is also unsourced. Facepalm - BilCat (talk) 21:06, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Good point, it should probably be removed there too, as unsourced. - Ahunt (talk) 21:24, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Notification of move discussion for Death of Aaliyah

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been proposed to be moved from Death of Aaliyah to 2001 Marsh Harbour Airport crash. Discussion is located at Talk:Death of Aaliyah#Requested move 31 January 2020. - Ahunt (talk) 15:37, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Notability

The notability of the recently uploaded Western Airplane King Bird has been questioned with a view to deletion. It doesn't differ in significance to many other articles about aircraft that did not make production but flew. Any suggested responses?TSRL (talk) 09:32, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Project consensus is that any aircraft that has flown is notable for an article. MilborneOne (talk) 09:37, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Northrop Switchblade at AFD

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Northrop Switchblade. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 04:46, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Discussion about use of non-reliable sourcing at Sukhoi Su-35 - a GA

Please see the discussion Talk:Sukhoi_Su-35#Unreliable_sourcing.Nigel Ish (talk) 18:12, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Spuermanoeuvrability boxout

I'd also appreciate comments on the quote which has been boxed-out, see Talk:Sukhoi Su-35#Supermanoeuverability — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:12, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

How to present the Barnes Wallis variable-sweep types?

We currently have a minimal stub article on the Vickers Type 010, better known as Barnes Wallis's Swallow. I have just drafted a modestly longer one on its predecessor, Wild Goose. These are the best-known examples of what he called his "wing controlled aerodyne".

Wallis regarded the wing controlled aerodyne as distinct from the aeroplane. It not only had movable wings, then almost unknown, but it lacked conventional control surfaces such as ailerons and a tail (history has decided that it is just another class of aeroplane).

Right at the start, alongside Wild Goose, was the Green Lizard anti-aircraft missile, launched from a "gun" tube and with pop-out swept wings. In fact, it was government funding for Green Lizard which enabled the Wild Goose work to go forwards.

A good many subsequent projects followed, emanating originally from Wallis and rippling outwards, some accreting tails, ailerons and other conventional control features as they went. They involved as a minimum Vickers, Heston, NASA, Folland and Boulton Paul. Ultimately they influenced some of the more conventional swing-wing types - Tornado and possibly F-111 - which entered service.

Each such project has relatively little of note to say about it and most were never built. Swallow was proposed in many variants, of which only a handful of research RPVs flew. How much history of the wing controlled aerodyne is likely to be worth writing up, and do any of the examples, even Swallow (when properly expanded), deserve their own article? Would a single article on the Wing controlled aerodyne be sufficient, or even a mere section at Variable sweep wing (a location which Wallis might well have argued against)? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:24, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

It is an interesting subject, but I would have to note that whether we have articles on each type, one on the range of them or just a mention elsewhere is really going to hinge on the depth of the refs that you have found on it. How do the refs stack up? Will they support a single article of some length on Wing controlled aerodyne? - Ahunt (talk) 15:03, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

I would estimate no more than half the size of the current Variable-sweep wing article from the limited refs I have. But I know there are other and probably better sources out there - Wallis' definitive paper and a recent book among them. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:45, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

I like that draft, I especially appreciate the use of Derek Wood's Project Cancelled - it is one of the very first aviation books I owned, and have turned to time and again over the years. I've used it to redraft the Vickers Swallow article just now. Hope this helps. Kyteto (talk) 19:31, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Same here. Barnes Wallis, TSR2, etc. were already icons of mine but Wood's revelations also heavily influenced my views on politics. What a disreputable shambles!

Anyway, back on topic, I have added a section on the wing controlled aerodyne to the Variable geometry wing article, so I think I will move my Wild Goose draft live when I get a chance and see how things go for a while. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 21:56, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Fair-use pictures

Fair-use pictures are a great way to depict the general configuration of projects, not yet visible in the wild (or never for stillborn projects). Being able to use fair-use pictures is a nice feature of wikipedia, and is not detrimental to the designer as they often release the pictures in press release, to spread the awareness of their project. They do not release it under a wikipedia-compatible license as the press pack implies reuse by the press, no need for them to tailor a license specific to WP.

But some users are stringent with the case and can't understand the usefulness to the reader - I'm afraid for them, an aircraft picture looks like all the other aircraft pictures, not seeing the specific details of a configuration. For example, I uploaded this File:Boeing-NLT-concept.png to illustrate Boeing's 2011 project for the Middle_of_the_market#Boeing_New_Light_Twin_(NLT) segment (via the always well informed Jon Ostrower). Another user added a template as he thinks This file does not appear to comply with the non-free content criteria, specifically: Criterion 8, because the file does not significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would not be detrimental to that understanding.

I think it's not the case, but if I'm alone, the file will be deleted on Friday. If any other people (or an admin able to remove the template) thinks the same, you're welcome to add your thoughts in the talk page. Thanks!--Marc Lacoste (talk) 06:55, 26 February 2020 (UTC) Note I tried to talk to the other user but he replies very slowly, not the best way to have a thorough discussion when the deadline is a week away.

References

Wondering which is preferred:

1. Cunningham-Hall_PT-6
2. Cunningham-Hall_PT-6

I have not seen a single page where the full references are dumped into the citations. And what is meant by mish mash? The only inconsistent entry would seem to be to a primary source that needs to be replaced with a secondary one - which would not justify the complete rewrite of the entire section into this unreadable mess. - NiD.29 (talk) 10:29, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

The answer lies between the two. Per WP:CITETYPE, "A general reference is a citation that supports content, but is not linked to any particular piece of material in the article through an inline citation. General references are usually listed at the end of the article in a References section. They are usually found in underdeveloped articles, especially when all article content is supported by a single source. They may also be listed in more developed articles as a supplement to inline citations." In other words, converting every cite into inline note format is often the wrong thing to do.

As the guideline points out, not every cited source need be referenced by an inline notes. It is common to list the more significant sources in a bibliography and then to reference them as required by inline notes. There are various template-type toys to help do this properly, so it is important that editors understand this is not merely a passing fancy but a very widespread academic standard which we Wikipedians have baked into our habits. On the other hand an otherwise off-topic source may contain a relevant factoid which can conveniently be referenced, and this is not sensible to list in a bibliography.

In the present example I would say that the National Service cite should be a note only. The rest are specifically about the subject or its parent company, so they should be listed in the bibliography if they contain significant additional material that is relevant to the topic but not actually cited; from this distance, it looks like most of them should be, but that is what the article talk page is for.

— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:40, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

• General references can also be referenced to via inline footnotes that lists specific page(s). -Fnlayson (talk) 15:03, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I think that clarifies it. - NiD.29 (talk) 18:31, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Citation style and templates

WP:CITEVAR advises to keep a consistent citation style, to avoid: switching between major citation styles but considers helpful imposing one style on an article with inconsistent citation styles. I think that was this edit goal.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 03:51, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

The citation style is not the same as the citation type. Type refers to where and how citations are placed - inline, note, bibliography, etc. Style refers to the formatting of the individual cites - capitalisation, italics, punctuation, date position, etc. The issue hereabove is about types not style. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:27, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

I have previously pleaded with the editor to follow guidelines, they firmly believe that citation templates must be used. Every article that I have created used short referencing because I can not use citation templates. If we compare the first and latest versions of the Turbomeca Aubisque article (to take just one) it now has a mixture of short referencing and templates, no doubt soon it will be completely templated because it is currently a 'mish mash'. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 14:33, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Whether to use templates or not is in a sense more a matter of editorial style than citation type, hence it comes under WP:CITEVAR, which itself quotes Arbcom; "Wikipedia does not mandate styles in many different areas; these include [...] citation style. Where Wikipedia does not mandate a specific style, editors should not attempt to convert Wikipedia to their own preferred style, nor should they edit articles for the sole purpose of converting them to their preferred style, or removing examples of, or references to, styles which they dislike." The message is repeated in WP:CITECONSENSUS, which states clearly that "The use of citation templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged: an article should not be switched between templated and non-templated citations without good reason and consensus – see "Variation in citation methods" [i.e. CITEVAR], above." Feel free to ask here for help with any further instances of such editorial disruption. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:12, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

I might add that I just bang 'em down in whatever style seems best at the time and don't give a fig how much work other editors care to make for themselves. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:15, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

I sometimes insert citation templates from the off, and sometimes I use then to convert another editor's citation into a more consistent style eg blending a plain text cite with an added webarchive template into a single cite template. And sometimes I put ina rough and ready citation, feel bad about it later and go back and fill it out properly. GraemeLeggett (talk) 16:59, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Sudden mass removal of categories

With 27 reverts like this one User MilborneOne removed the Category:Military equipment of the Vietnam War from the respective aircraft types. Given reason: "dont normally categorise military aircraft by war". He also removed 41 further aircraft types that had been in this category for many years.

1. This is not a category named "Military aircraft of the Vietnam war". The aircraft had been put into this category named "Military equipment of ...", most of them many years ago.

2. "dont normally categorise military aircraft by war", so what about Category:Military aircraft of World War II ?

3. No less than 41 aircraft types had been here completely undisputed since 2016 or earlier, see LTV A-7 Corsair II.

4. There is a sub-category named "Vietnam War naval ships" with very few listings, compared to those 68 (!) aircraft. The 68 aircraft types were as well undoubtedly used as "Military equipment of the Vietnam War". Why didn't he dare to touch the ships?

Findings: The removals have been unjustified, since the mentioned aircraft types do fit exactly into this category, according to its very name. Either the respective aircraft types have to be re-inserted into this category or a new category "Military aircraft of the Vietnam War" must be created. --Uli Elch (talk) 10:12, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Although aircraft are not classified by war at a technical level, they certainly are at a historical level. You give an unarguable example of that in Category:Military aircraft of World War II, I own a book on the exact same topic, and we also have a Category:Military aircraft by war, of which your example is a sub-category. I would suggest the creation of a slightly more specific category, Category:Military aircraft of the Vietnam War and make it a sub-category of both Category:Military equipment of the Vietnam War and Category:Military aircraft by war. @MilborneOne: does that sound reasonable to you? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:24, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I suggest you take a look at relevant CFD discussions (e.g. this, this and this). DexDor ^(talk) 13:25, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

MilborneOne's edits look good to me. It's not unreasonable to categorize ship articles differently as they are about a single ship, whereas aircraft (and tanks, rifles etc) are manufactured in large numbers and thus the type may have been used in many wars. DexDor ^(talk) 13:15, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Two out of three of DexDor's emxamples do no fit here. The Gulf War was a limited-length war for which the weapons were not specifically designed; the contrary is true for the Vietnam War, which lasted more than double as long as WW I. A deletion discussion of March 2013 can as well be considered slightly obsolete by now.

And most warships have been used in more than one war, take USS Forrestal (CV-59) or USS Midway (CV-41). However, most aircraft types have been used in one war only.

Finally: How useful is the ridicously small remaining category, if you don't even recognize the 68 military aircraft types as "Military equipment" ? --Uli Elch (talk) 13:46, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks to DexDor for the enlightening CfD links. I see that my suggestion is exactly what consensus has just undone! I did not know about the WP:NONDEF guideline and I note that WP:DEFINING is not even adopted, so I trust my instinctive disagreement is forgivable. Even I know that the Lockheed AC-130 gunship and Cessna A-37 Dragonfly were developed specifically during and for the Vietnam war. Then we have the whole Wild Weasel thing. There must be others. Although the Bell UH-1 Huey was already around, it became so iconic of that war and so heavily evolved (think Huey Cobra gunship), that I think it justifies inclusion. (And don't forget that some WWII types were used in other wars, for example the Bf 109 in the Spanish Civil War, the Spit in the Israeli war of independence, others in Korea). I don't buy the non-defining rationale for these articles, hence they need a suitable category. The CfD said that such articles should be moved to Category:Military equipment of the Vietnam War. Obviously, there is strong community consensus to de-categorize types already established by the time the war started. @Uli Elch: Are relevant articles, such as the ones I mention here, being moved across per the CfD or just being blindly de-categorized? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:14, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the latter is the case ("blindly de-categorized"). --Uli Elch (talk) 15:34, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Re "they need a suitable category" - we have categories such as Category:1960s United States attack aircraft that form a more comprehensive categorization scheme than by-war categorization.

Re "The CfD said that such articles should be moved" - ?

Note: There is a list (which has advantages such as being referenced) -Weapons of the Vietnam War#Aircraft (which is, of course, in a Vietnam War category). DexDor ^(talk) 16:00, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

You may have noticed that in general, some articles are placed in more than one category, that some are grouped in both list articles and in categories and even in navigation templates as well. There are reasons for all that.

According to the Vietnam CfD, "The top level category (Category:Military equipment of the Vietnam War) is not included in this nomination as it includes a number of articles (e.g. Landmines in the Vietnam War) for which the Vietnam War is a defining characteristic - that category should be cleaned out manually." Above that it lists some articles to be moved in "Note: The following articles that are in categories proposed for deletion above should be moved up to the remaining category" (which last is a link to the aforementioned category). I have pointed out that the war is also a defining characteristic for several aircraft articles. The logic of the CfD is that these should also be moved up. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:00, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Being a defining characteristic is a necessary condition for an article being in a category, but it doesn't mean the article has to be categorized for that characteristic.  For example, being used by the USAF is a defining characteristic of the AC-130 (e.g. it would be unreasonable for the lede to not mention the USAF), but it's not categorized under the USAF because we don't categorize aircraft (or missile etc) types by who has operated them  (example CFD). DexDor ^(talk) 20:55, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Your arguments apply (or not) equally to Category:Military aircraft of World War I and Category:Military aircraft of World War II, only the numbers of articles differ. What do you propose to do about them? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 21:38, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Also, the status of the war as a defining characteristic (or not) was the reason given in support of the CfD and hence also the round of deletions/reversions which kicked off this thread. Any others have not been advanced as reasons for deletion, so bringing them up now is a bit tangential. I think a case based on them would need to be a lot more fully argued. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:00, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Just to note it was a mass addition first, not a mass deletion, just saying. MilborneOne (talk) 10:04, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry not to comment earlier but I was dealing with real world stuff, just to note that "Sudden mass removal of categories" makes it sound like I just decided to remove them without explanation but note I was responding to the mass addition of the category by User:Uli Elch. As already described previous discussions have pointed out that other than world wars we dont categorise by war (or user). There is a discussion somewhere about the falklands war if I remember. We end up with the old C-47 problem if we added every war that the Dak was involved in we are talking a lots of categories. As Steelpillow pointed out I dont know why WW1 and WW2 is an exception perhaps we need to discuss them as well. MilborneOne (talk) 09:43, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Per DexDor in the above TL:DR, it appears to be about the war as a defining characteristic of aircraft born and bred in the context of the war. My argument is that this also applies to a smaller group of machines developed for the Vietnam war. If we overrule that rationale then we need to see if there is any other reason to keep the World War categories, or if we accept it then we must recognise that it also justifies the Vietnam one. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:13, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Background: There's a consensus at CFD to generally not categorize articles about mass-produced items by operators/usage as it tends to lead to some articles being in a mass of categories and/or for usage that isn't mentioned in the article (e.g. Mk82). There are also cases where it's unclear whether a particular weapon type etc was used in a particular war (because of lack of knowledge or subjectivity - e.g. would B707 and VC10 be Falklands War aircraft?).

Consistency of categorization would suggest that we should apply the same rules to usage in WWI/WWII. However, those categories don't lead to significant categorization problems (e.g. an article about a weapon type used in WWI/WWII would almost certainly mention that in the article text).  Note also that some weapon types are categorized by period (e.g. Category:Military vehicles of the interwar period - Category:World War II vehicles - Category:Military vehicles of the Cold War period etc) and there's sometimes a bit of ambiguity about whether such categories are based on usage or on date of introduction - not ideal, but not necessarily a big problem.

In summary, having such cats for WWI/WWII but not for other wars may be the best (least worst) option.

A category for "Aircraft developed for the Vietnam War" might survive CFD, but imo it would not be good to introduce a developed-for-war categorization scheme (on top of all the other ways we categorize aircraft etc). DexDor ^(talk) 10:51, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

This discussion was initiated by the removal of aircraft from the well-established and accepted Category:Military equipment of the Vietnam War. What argument in favour of that removal do you still have? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:06, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

The Vietnam CFD (linked above) concluded that Cat:AotVW should be deleted - not upmerged. DexDor ^(talk) 15:47, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

That was because it assumed that the war was not a defining characteristic of any of the aircraft involved. I have here pointed out several counter-examples which show that assumption to be false and the 'Nam cats therefore to be on a par with WWI and II. What part of my logic are you having trouble with? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:59, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

• This is a regular issue. I'm unsurprised to see DexDor (who never saw a category they didn't want to delete) here.

The question is, should we categorise military equipment by conflict? This is a near universal approach almost everywhere outside WP, so why is WP being so odd about it? Yes, the overlaps are often untidy, but so what? Andy Dingley (talk) 11:02, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Your arguments have been rejected at CFD (some examples). Would you want, for example, B707 and VC10 in a Falklands War category? DexDor ^(talk) 11:15, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Steady on chaps, let's not get personal - on either side. Falklands trivia go way beyond deleting aircraft for which the war is a defining characteristic, which is the focus here. Let's stay on-topic. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:27, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

See the WP:NONDEF guideline. The answer we have been offered is, only when the war is a defining characteristic of the particular equipment. For pre-existing types simply used in a new war, that can be listed in the relevant article about the war. The aim is to reduce the proliferation of endless nerdy fanboi categories. Personally I think we have taken a step too far, such "aircraft in the X war" categories are useful in many ways - otherwise I would not have books on my shelves about precisely these categories. In the present case try an Internet search on "Aircraft of the Vietnam War". On the other hand, categories like "Films in which Ham A.C.Tor blew their nose" or Category:Barbie video games‎ breed like rabbits. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:27, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Re books - that's not the same thing as categorization. For example, a leaflet from a nature reserve might list birds often seen there, but that doesn't mean the articles about those birds belong in a "Birds of Foobar Nature Reserve" category.

Would you put aircraft types such as C-47, F-111, E-2, SH-3, U-2, and P-3 in a Vietnam War category (as the OP did)? If not then (1) how would you decide which to include?, (2) the list probably wouldn't match your book and (3) you could well find another editor who doesn't understand categorization putting them in the category (e.g. see the Mk82 link above). DexDor ^(talk) 16:22, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not going to argue the individual borderline types here per se. My criterion for your (1) would be - is any significant aircraft-specific content in this article defined by the Vietnam War? Taking the F-111 as a nominal example (without looking to see), if the Wild Weasel F-111 variant were treated primarily in the F-111 article then I would add that, but if it were treated primarily in the Wild Weasel article then I would add that instead. Re. your (2) and (3), I can only ask what is their relevance here? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:27, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

My main point is that you (and the OP) may feel that some aircraft types should be in a Vietnam War category, but that when one tries to narrow down what exactly the inclusion criteria for such a category would be it gets messy. Re (2) you commented about "books ... about precisely these categories." P.S. Re Wild Weasel I think you may mean the F-4. DexDor ^(talk) 21:46, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Your wording such as "if it were treated primarily in the ... article then I would add that instead." shows that you are making the mistake of trying to create lists in category space rather than categorizing articles. DexDor ^(talk) 21:49, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Oh, come ON! Passing WP:NONDEF was invoked by the CfD as the reason to keep certain categories; now you are claiming it is a reason to delete and listify. You cannot have it both ways. (Yes, WW was the F-4 and F-105, the F-111 was the later Raven, well spotted). — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:46, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Application of WP:CATDEF

So, I'm getting fed up with all this circular wikilawyering. Per WP:CATDEF; "A central concept used in categorizing articles is that of the defining characteristics of a subject of the article. A defining characteristic is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently define the subject as having—such as nationality or notable profession (in the case of people), type of location or region (in the case of places), etc. For example, in "Caravaggio, an Italian artist of the Baroque movement", Italian, artist, and Baroque may all be considered to be defining characteristics of the subject Caravaggio." It is crystal clear that a book titled "Aircraft of the Vietnam War" is such an RS. Do such things exist? Bill Gunston; Aircraft of the Vietnam War. Lou Drendel; Aircraft of the Vietnam War: A Pictorial Review. "Legendary Aircraft of the Vietnam war", the Smithsonian. And do they describe some planes as developed specifically for and during that war? Yes they do! So let's get on and do it too. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:18, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Iam not sure adding them back in without a clear consensus is a good think if the discussion has not reached a conclusion. MilborneOne (talk) 12:27, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

What is unclear about the consensus which approved WP:CATDEF? What is unclear about the application of CATDEF? I am not sure deleting them without reference to CATDEF was a good thing. Please be realistic, the above discussion is never going to reach a clear conclusion. But if you really think I am wrong about the application of CATDEF, then feel free to point out where and how. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:37, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Anyway, I have now added the few examples I mentioned above back into Category:Military equipment of the Vietnam War, per the OP's concern. No doubt others of you will find justifiable examples I have missed. One might consider recreating Category:Military aircraft of the Vietnam War to accompany the WWI and II categories that no critics seem to dare pay attention to, although I personally think that these should all follow the real world RS (per CATDEF, yes?) and lose the word "Military" from their titles. But I think the aircraft-specific categories are best left for a separate discussion once this issue has settled down. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:45, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

So being in a book that says this aircraft was in the Vietnam war is enough to add a military equipment category, sorry still dont get it. I have loads of books that mention x aircraft and y war do I need to add a few dozen categories to C-47 etc Also CATDEF is just a guideline not policy. MilborneOne (talk) 15:00, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

OK, so the WP:NONDEF guideline was used to justify deleting some categories. On what grounds does that overrule the WP:CATDEF guideline? And how does that all apply to Category:Military aircraft of World War I and Category:Military aircraft of World War II? Are you trying to suggest that their sources somehow differentiate them from the military aircraft of the Vietnam War, so that CATDEF applies differently to them? Sorry, I still don't get it. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:52, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

As a way ahead past this seemingly unsurmountable obstacle, perhaps I might paraphrase CATDEF; "For example, in "The Cessna A-7 Dragonfly, a military aircraft of the Vietnam War", military, aircraft, and Vietnam War may all be considered to be defining characteristics of the subject Cessna A-7 Dragonfly." I should perhaps emphasise that this is an example of what an RS might say, it is not an example of editorial opinion. What part of that example is inappropriate? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:56, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes but that can apply to thousands of military aircraft. A military aircraft being in a war is not a defining point, in fact they are all designed for one war or another. I dont think the world war cats should exist either but that is the current consensus. I dont have a problem with aircraft of the Vietnam war being a list but I dont see why it should be singled out in the category structure with the world wars. MilborneOne (talk) 16:05, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

So let me get this right. You are saying that we should ignore CATDEF but adhere to a strict interpretation of NONDEF? You have no intention of engaging with that issue because it might go against your personal PoV? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:09, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

We are engaging. I need to know why the Vietnam war is an exception and why we should ignore previous consensus not use these equipment categories. If we add Vietnam, then it opens the door for adding Korea, Falklands, Gulf War, Borneo and hundreds of other wars and conflicts that in the past the project decided was not defining. MilborneOne (talk) 16:31, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

It's all in the above thread, but OK, maybe that's a bit TL:DR. The criterion as set out in CATDEF and NONDEF, as I paraphrase it here, is whether a given aircraft type was developed for and/or during the war concerned. As far as I know this happened with only three wars; WWI, WWII and the Vietnam war. This does not open the door to other wars as you fear, because no planes were specifically developed for those. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:03, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

The perhaps we need to consider a different category name, as in this case a user in good faith added every possible aircraft that had operated in Vietnam as it fitted the "Category:Military equipment of the Vietnam War" MilborneOne (talk) 19:19, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

That may prove worthwhile, but I am in no hurry. The equivalent WWI and II cats have far more planes to worry about. I just checked the Gloster Gladiator and Fairey Swordfish, both of which are prewar types that saw notable service in WWII. One is in a sub-cat of the WWII cat, the other is not. Looking around, the whole war-related cat system is a bit of a mess, these issues are not confined to aircraft! The Vietnam military equipment category is piddling by comparison. If any change is to be made, I think it needs to be coordinated across all three wars and more than just aircraft. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 22:13, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Aircraft were developed for the French and British wars through the 20s and 30s, then there were the wars in China - so not just three wars, and limiting it to those imparts a strong US bias on the whole system. - NiD.29 (talk) 23:29, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I did not know that. Can you give any examples of types specifically developed for a given war in this timeframe? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

For the French, there was a whole series of "Colonial Aircraft" such as the Nieuport-Delage NiD 690, while the British had a whole family of bomber-transports developed from the Vickers Vimy, such as the Vickers Victoria. - NiD.29 (talk) 00:28, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

An aside from that, from what I have read (not having checked all the dates myself) is that of all the American aircraft that saw operational service during WW2, only the P-61 (supposedly) saw the entirely of its development after the entry of the US into the war - and it barely made it. The British and Germans and others have a lot more, but only from having fought for longer, and possibly having better procurement systems. The development of the P-40, P-47, P-51, B-17, B-24, B-25, B-26 B-29 and even the B-36 all predated the entry of the US into the war. In some cases, specific lessons were learned, and incorporated into the next generation of aircraft, and in some cases, those aircraft did enter service before the end of that war, but the exception is more common than the rule other than for WW1. What I am trying to say is that designed for a particular war is a poor method of categorization that would require an excessive amount of policing - and referencing, and would be counter-intuitive to the average reader. Far better to create a list. There is already a list of WW2 aircraft, a list for other wars, aside from WW1 (for which there are a collection of lists, some more complete than others), would not only make more sense, but be more manageable. - NiD.29 (talk) 02:25, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Category:Aircraft in Royal Australian Air Force service

As previous consensus I removed the Category:Aircraft in Royal Australian Air Force service from aircraft articles. The category remains as it has Foo in Australian service articles which are OK. User:Nick-D reverted my removal on the ground that these aircraft only ever served with the RAAF. I cant see why the RAAF is an exception to not categorising by user and the only ever operated by one could apply to hundreds of aircraft articles. Any thoughts why the RAAF should be an exception to the consensus, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 21:43, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

If we have this category then we will have to have one for every air force. - Ahunt (talk) 22:48, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

The only aircraft articles I support using this category for are RAAF-specific types. For instance, General Dynamics F-111C, CAC Wackett and Lockheed AP-3C Orion. These articles are effectively the 'x in Australian service' for these types, given that no other air forces have ever used them. Nick-D (talk) 06:56, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

What does categorising achieve that a list in an article does not? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:42, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. The category groups together articles covering the RAAF-specific use of aircraft. Nick-D (talk) 09:52, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Generally, we have been deleting such categories and where appropriate "listifying" them, i.e. adding/updating a list of the aircraft to the relevant article, or if need be creating/updating a standalone list article. This presents the same group of aircraft, but in a fuller and more useful format for the reader than mere categorisation. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:44, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Still dont like having single-user aircraft like the Lockheed AP-3C categorised by user, Lockheed TriStar (RAF) (or even Avro Vulcan) in the same class is not categorised as an aircraft in service with the Royal Air Force, it wouldnt take long to fill an RAF Category with hundreds of entries that only served in the RAF. I would expect a similar USAF cat to reach into the thousands. We have resisted such categories in the project before and as Steelpillow mentions lists are OK. MilborneOne (talk) 18:36, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the logic to things like CAC Wackett in Australian service being an appropriate article for the category but the article on the plane not being appropriate given that if anyone was to create such an 'in service' article it would (hopefully) be folded into the article on the plane. For air forces which have used lots of national-specific variants, sub-cats could be a way of managing issues with categories getting too large, per usual processes. Nick-D (talk) 23:15, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Template:Infobox aircraft begin

We need a template editor to make some corrections to Template:Infobox aircraft begin. The coding for the logo parameter needs to be removed again. We discussed using a logo field over 10 years ago here, and the consensus was to remove it, yet it occasionally comes back.

Conversely, if someone wants to keep the logo parameter in the infobox, feel free to make your case for it here. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 22:47, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Do we have any aircraft that have their own logo that use it (as opposed to a manufacturer's logo)? I thought I may have entered a couple over the years. - Ahunt (talk) 23:36, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

The Piper Cub had its own logo, Curtiss often had a logo specific to each aircraft (such as the Curtiss Robin), and In the early years, Lockheed modified their star logo to include the aircraft name in the star. They are not overly common though, but it is even rarer for anyone to add the logo as the artwork needs to be made up first, and there are a lot of manufacturer's that still need to be done. I see no reason to exclude it though - it isn't as if it is mandatory, and so long as it is clearly noted that the logo is to be specific to the airframe, and not the manufacturer. All that said though, I don't think it belongs at the top of the page, which should be reserved for a shot of the aircraft if at all possible. - NiD.29 (talk) 00:20, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

I mean logos for individual aircraft types being added to the Infobox, such as File:Logo Airbus A350.svg, which was added to the article here. They were added for the Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafele in the past, and WP:AIR decided against using them. - BilCat (talk) 02:57, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Also File:Logo Airbus A330.svg and File:Logo Airbus A380.svg. - BilCat (talk) 03:11, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

I think in previous discussion there was no objection to adding the logo to the article if it was of note but not in the infobox, most of these are just marketing stuff and are not really noteworthy. MilborneOne (talk) 10:08, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

I concur. This is what is done in the Dassault Rafale article, and seems to work just fine there. I finally found the old discussion, which is from 2007, here. - BilCat (talk) 12:50, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Never mind. It came back on the A350 page, and I'm no longer going to fight it. Everything else on Wikipedia has a logo anyway, so why not aircraft too? - BilCat (talk) 07:27, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Template:not a typo

I'm disappointed we have to use templates to protect the original wikitext from robots. The wikitext should be as simple as possible to read for real humans. Automated tools should not interfere. If they need such a template, it's because they are flawed, not us.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 08:02, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

That's AutoWikiBrowser (AWB) for you: It does a lot of things that it shouldn't do, or that are optional. The other part is the seeming takeover on Wikipedia of hyphens by n-dashes in areas they aren't commonly used in outside of specialist publications, if at all. They are prescribed for number ranges now, and thus anything with a number and a hyphen is fair game to AWB, even designations and serial numbers. - BilCat (talk) 08:21, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

It isn't really AWB that's the problem - it's the users who don't bother to check that it is only changing what it should be (i.e. ranges). There needs to be a reminder to those using it that they must take responsibility for their edits, and AWB access should be removed from those who don't.Nigel Ish (talk) 08:40, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Good point. I've never used AWB, so I don't know how exactly it works. - 09:37, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Slowed rotor

Just come across the Slowed rotor article. It came across as total fanboi, as if it were a standard term and widely used. I have toned that down a little bit, but it is full of micro-facts, especially the inevitable list of aircraft, and I think it would benefit from some fresh and experienced eyes. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:28, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Focus article proposal: Lockheed C-141 Starlifter

Hi WP:Aircraft. Its been a long time since I've put forward one of these for general consideration, but I feel that it justifies some attention for multiple reasons. Firstly, it has been awaiting cleanup, as per our Template:WPAVIATION_Announcements/Aircraft tracker on our splash screen for just over 11 years, by two weeks give or take - it seems high time to polish this off if we can find the time and motivation. Secondly, and selfishly, I intend this to be the 500th aviation/aerospace article that I have overhauled to date, a habit I started on roughly about the same time as this aircraft was listed for cleanup, which made this timing sort of poetic. Thirdly, although there's a lot of banners and tags on the article itself, I have some sources ready to add content and think its like that others may do as well, if prompted. I'll give it a run through, but any contributions towards cleaning this long-on-hold article would be much appreciated! Kyteto (talk) 14:43, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Good plan! I have a short warbird tech book on the C-141 that should help some. -Fnlayson (talk) 15:48, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Request for comment at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Missing articles/5

Looks like this project page was nominated under the good faith assumption that the page is no longer needed. Input from this project to the MfD discussion would be helpful in determining if deletion is in fact okay or if archive/keep is the better solution. Sulfurboy (talk) 02:23, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't see any need to keep the empty pages as there is a log elsewhere of the actual page creations, so this is more a simple reminder of pages that still need to be created.

Wondering a few things though

1. whether remaining pages could be consolidated into a smaller number of pages (we now have less total than used to be on each page).
2. that the process used to generate the list be rerun, as a whole bunch of new redlinks are not included here.
3. finally, should Aerofiles, which is as close to comprehensive a list as exists of US and Canadian aviation be included in the sources to check for completion against? - NiD.29 (talk) 03:01, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

It needs reverting to this version as the edits were performed by two sock puppets of a banned user, some (all?) of the created articles have been deleted. Missing articles 4 should also be reverted as that is where some red links were sent. In some cases no article was created, simply redirected entries to the parent company. Same happened with the missing engine article page though there is only one page which makes life easier. The MfD process might need to be closed with an explanation. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 08:34, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Technology demonstrator

Technology demonstrator is covered briefly in prototype, though the link redirects to Technology demonstration which is very much looking at things from Video Games/Console tech viewpoint. I wonder if the later could be rounded out with some aviation content. GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:12, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Sudden mass deletion of commons category links

It has always been the standard to provide a link to the aircraft manufacturer in lieu of the actual aircraft when no images are yet available, however someone has decided to remove all those links entirely. Pretty sure they serve a purpose - has the consensus changed on this? - NiD.29 (talk) 20:40, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't think we ever had a consensus or even any sort of discussion on this, that I can recall. There is no guidance at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aircraft/page_content#External_links, which is where it should be if we had a consensus on the subject. To be honest I have noted and support the removals, as they did not link to further images of the actual subject of the article, but instead to other aircraft from the same manufacturer, so not much use to the reader of that particular article. - Ahunt (talk) 20:45, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Indeed I see no added value to have links to the aircraft manufacturer instead of links to the pictures of the actual aircraft. At the end of the day such links to the manufacturer are not far from being misleading from my point of view or to formulate it in another way what is the added value from Aircraft A1 to it's manufacturer XY where the reader will not find any picture of the aircraft A1 which he is looking for. At the end of day Wikipedia is made by the authors for the readers. These readers will (according to my conviction) want to see in each article links which are relevant for the article and links to topics which are just in some relation to the topic of the article are just of limited (If any) added value for the user. --Robby (talk) 21:43, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

I do see such value, in rare cases. The Fairchild 82 had an image, thus at least one relevant image on Commons. In such a case, a link to Fairchild was better than nothing. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:43, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

@Robby: I'm more concerned with the removal of the direct link to the Commons pages that you have been doing. As shown with the migration of Short Descriptions to Wikipedia, Wikidata is subject to vandalism, and thus is not a reliable method of handling these links, which could be changed without anyone noticing it. - BilCat (talk) 21:56, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Well, at the very least I now have a list of aircraft to find images for, lol. I am surprised many of those are still lacking images, and I am sure there are in fact images for at least 1/3 of them just waiting to be uploaded to wikimedia from flickr (No known copyright restrictions) and other archives (currently going through the Canadian archives and the Vancouver archives - which would be a far better use of time than deleting links. BTW, linking to the manufacturer does help with fixing those images that have been misidentified. - NiD.29 (talk) 22:02, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

This is part of a big project to synchronise links between Wikipedia articles and Commons categories, via the sitelinks held on Wikidata. Over the last year or so, hundreds of {{Commonscat}} links have been updated to point towards the categories for the individual aircraft, and even more of the "In other projects -> Wikimedia Commons" links in the sidebar should point towards the appropriate commons category. The links from aircraft articles to manufacturer categories slow down that maintenance more than they help with it, though, so from that perspective it's good to remove them. Regardless of that, I also don't think that they are useful when they don't contain any media about the specific aircraft, which are the cases that Robby is removing. If they *do* contain images of the aircraft, and we don't have a matching commons category, then the best thing to do is to create a new commons category and to update the link to it on Wikidata (or add the commonscat link locally in the article, and I'll add it to Wikidata when I spot it). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 22:17, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

And yet at the same time Short Descriptions are being added to millions of Wikipedia articles, ostensibly because Wikidata is subject to vandalism and cannot be trusted. So which is it? Or this yet another case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing? - BilCat (talk) 22:22, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

@BilCat: Having local short descriptions sucks in so many ways, and concerns about vandalism have been blown out of proportion to make political points about whose wiki is best. Regardless of that, though, here we're using sitelinks to connect articles and commons categories. Sitelinks can only be changed to point to existing categories, not to arbitrary text, which significantly reduces vandalism. Plus, those same sitelinks are used to display content from Wikidata in the commons categories, so making sure that the sitelinks are corrrect helps improve enwp, commons, and wikidata simultaneously. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 22:31, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for taking my concerns seriously, and I understand your points. I appreciate it. - BilCat (talk) 22:36, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

going through the list of affected pages, I find that some of the deleted commonscat links HAD actual directories full of images to point to, that probably needed nothing more than simply being redirected - or the page name parameter being deleted. A little more diligence would have been useful, rather just hitting delete without checking at all. - NiD.29 (talk) 22:56, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

@NiD.29: Please do more edits like that! This is exactly what we're trying to do in preference to removing the links to the manufacturers. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 23:19, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Working on it. - NiD.29 (talk) 06:00, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

• I'm with BilCat on this. We shouldn't be going in both directions at once re Wikidata. I share the concerns over the unreliability of Wikidata (no WP:RS, and less scrutiny for vandalism). We will need to fix that some way else though, as Wikidata seems unstoppable now. It could, and should, have been so much better though. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:43, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Comments re:value of these links - they allow me as an editor to jump to the correct Wikimedia folders to find out if there are <<any>> images - including ones that may have been added at the top level since it was last checked. Removing them means manually navigating there, which means it won't happen as much. Maybe a new image needs a folder of its own, and the person who sorted it that far wasn't up to making one, or didn't have the time or ability to sort it further. It also means that even if no-one has created the appropriate sub-folder for that particular aircraft, that there is a chance I may find what I am looking for. No worse either than the hundreds or even thousands of pages in which the images used in the Wikipedia page are the only ones found on the Wikimedia category page. Sometimes I go through the unsorted folder, and while I may not know the specific model number for an Airbus or newer Boeing, not being interested in aluminium sewer pipes, I know dumping them into the general Airbus or Boeing folder will get it to the correct place faster, as people who really know Airbus or Boeing sewer pipes will be seeing it - and resorting it. Otherwise it stays forgotten in unsorted aircraft. With no link there, there will be fewer eyes making these fixes, even if it eventually helps with other long term problems.

I have also been concerned with the disconnect between Wikipedia, Wikimedia and Wikidata for some time - the lack of oversight for organization and consistency really shows over there, likewise the lack of any easy means to start a conversation regarding large scale problems - such as naming conventions, a personal bugaboo, is annoying, as is the difficulty in fixing them. Just finding the correct category is a hassle, with no clear and consistent format. I recently uploaded a bunch of archive photos of an early Boeing, and the whole Boeing section is a horrible mess, so instead of me simply entering it while uploading them, I had to dig - and lost at least 10 minutes trying to unravel the mess someone created there trying to sort it out. Ideally all three should be linked directly and organized from here for consistency and utility. Add to that the absurd situation in which the default page creation doesn't create a category, but a useless text page that will need maintaining, separate to the page here, but partially duplicating it. - NiD.29 (talk) 06:00, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Just to note that I'm making similar edits this evening, but I'm checking that the commons category doesn't include relevant images first. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:34, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Cirrus engines and manufacturers

There is a discussion about the Cirrus engine articles at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft/Engines#Cirrus range. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:53, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for deletion of Pacific Flying Club

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pacific Flying Club. - Ahunt (talk) 02:32, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

A-class review of Lockheed F-104 Starfighter

If anyone is interested, the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter article could use an technical pair of eyes for its A-class review. Thank you all for any help you are able to provide. CThomas³ (talk) 17:21, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Dual Dep

Does anyone know what this phrase means? It's used in a 1929 article on a US airliner, clearly concerning controls, so Dual probably OK, but Dep?TSRL (talk) 21:30, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Which article? BilCat (talk) 21:58, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Looks like Dual Dep is short for "Dual Deperdussion" control system here. -Fnlayson (talk) 22:41, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

• More info in ABC of aviation also. Deperdussion was the inventor's name. -Fnlayson (talk) 22:46, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

It's actually Deperdussin. Yes, that Deperdussin, one of the important French aircraft makers before World War One. He also devised a forerunner of the modern control system.--Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 19:11, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion about variants section in Junkers Ju 252

There is a discussion at Talk:Junkers Ju 252 about the inclusion of a variants section in the article. It seems Denniss and I have opposite opinions on the matter, so other opinions would be welcome. - ZLEA _T\^C 23:14, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Aircraft articles style guide

The aircraft articles style guide, Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide/Layout (Aircraft), has been significantly changed today by one user - diff to date, without prior discussion or consensus. There is a discussion about whether this is acceptable here. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 21:12, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Logos again

Contrary to an earlier discussion which we had and was settled here, someone has been adding logos to the infoboxes of many aircraft articles again. See Boeing 787, Airbus A380, Airbus A330 etc.

The consensus we reached earlier was that they should not be included in the infobox, maybe later on in the body of the text if it was particularly notable.

@Steelpillow: In case you were interested.

Elshad (talk) 10:44, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I raised the issue again in March at the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft/Archive 46#Template:Infobox aircraft begin, but the response then was tepid. After trying to remove them on my own, I gave up. We have logos for everything else in infoboxes, so why not aircraft? That said, the only sure way to get rid of them is to remove the logo parameter from the infobox, but no one seemed willing to support that. - BilCat (talk) 12:23, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

To be honest I am in two minds about this. Product logos can be a distraction and are surely out of place in a technical directory. But they are often more recognizable to the general public than the aircraft itself, and can therefore be of wider non-specialist value. I notice that articles on products as diverse as the Microsoft X-Box games console, the Red Dwarf TV sitcom and Diageo (formerly Guinness) Harp Lager tend to sport their respective logos. If I were overly concerned either way, I would look for Wikipedia-wide guidance on how we handle product logos in general; putting on blinkers and bucking the trend is surely a losing strategy. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:46, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I removed them again, as per the last consensus, but I don't find it a concern either way. Feel free to revert. - Ahunt (talk) 13:23, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

If would probably help if the logo was NOT placed at top of the Infobox, e.g. move it to the bottom or at least below the main image, imo. -Fnlayson (talk) 16:16, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

That would imply a minimum-work minimum-impact minor coding change - perhaps at the same time the size of the logo could be reduced slightly so it doesn't tend to overwhelm the section as well? For what it is worth, a great many aircraft in the 1930s had their own logos - it seems to be a trend that comes and goes for certain eras, . - NiD.29 (talk) 19:22, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

It'd be quite simple to move it under the photo in Template:Infobox aircraft begin, or to disable it altogether if that's what we want. But the remainder of the navbox is part of Template:Infobox aircraft type. Moving the coding there would be simple too, but any existing logos on aircraft pages would have to be moved manually. Personally, I'd rather put it under the main photo, if we keep it the infobox stack at all. - BilCat (talk) 02:52, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Agreed, under the photo is best - it should never have been at the top, but then it was probably inherited from a more general template that had it first. - NiD.29 (talk) 06:40, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Navbox for the whole of the RAF

Template:Royal Air Force aircraft names is a navbox listing every type in RAF service. It is being added to all the aircraft articles - 252 as I write. Yet we already have a far more informative List of aircraft of the Royal Air Force, a simple "See also" link to that would require no more clicks to bring it up. To me this is ultimate navbox clutter, listcruft hell, or whatever more unprintable epithets you might care to imagine. Has it gained any kind of community consensus? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:04, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Consensus? Not that I have seen. Yes it is listcruft. Yes it should go. - Ahunt (talk) 22:40, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Way too broad; so much so that it has no real relevance to an individual aircraft article.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:29, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

I'd be perfecty happy for that to disappear, too, for the same reason DaveReidUK (talk) 10:43, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Navboxes for aircraft designation systems

Category:Designation-based aircraft navigational boxes lists navboxes based on aircraft designation systems. Several recent discussions on the Template:Royal Air Force aircraft names‎ designation-based navbox have revealed much dissatisfaction.[1][2][3][4]

The category also includes a number of other navboxes which have been hijacked by inserting "designation systems" into the navbox title and linking to the category. I reverted some hijacking but would not be surprised to see it restored without discussion by the designation-scheme enthusiasts.

It seems to me that it most or all aircraft articles a "See also" link to a list article would be both more elegant (because it saves a mouse-click, navclutter and bandwidth) and more informative (because list articles have room for clarifications). Is there genuine value to any designation-scheme navboxes at all, or should the whole lot go up for WP:TfD?

— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:02, 5 June 2020 (UTC) [reworded 11:21, 5 June 2020 (UTC)]

The RAF navbox is not a designation system, it is just a list of the names that the manufacturers gave the types with a few exceptions. RAF designation would be mark numbers such as Lightning F.2, F,3, F.6, T.5 etc. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 08:17, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation#Navbox for the whole of the RAF, where its most vociferous advocate disagrees with you. Note too the only category to which it has been added. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:25, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

I cant see the RAF list of names as any possible use as a navigation aid, the names are not really related. A lot of the names were not even allocated by the Air Ministry so hardly a "designation system". We have an perfectly good article List of aircraft of the Royal Air Force which if the reader is really interested that can look at. MilborneOne (talk) 09:00, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

If there was an impetus to link RAF aircraft of a given period together in a more obvious way - as opposed to via the categories - it should be more focussed eg by type/role or campaign if anything. Eg "RAF fighters of Battle of Britain", "Aircraft of RAF Coastal Command in WWII". While I understand the idea, it has given a huge navbox which makes getting something out of it harder. US examples tend to give some horizontal navigation across type, the Luftwaffe doesn't. GraemeLeggett (talk) 10:12, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks all, the sentiment on RAF names is strong enough. What about the other navboxes listed in the category? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:02, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

These include for example:

• Category:German aircraft designations navigational boxes‎
• Category:Japanese aircraft designations navigational boxes‎‎
• Category:‎Soviet designations navigational boxes‎
• Template:Italian military aircraft
• Template:Admiralty aircraft type numbers

and so on. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:36, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

RMI-8

The RMI-8 is a fake aircraft which never existed. See this and this online forum threads in which fake images are exposed. The sources cited are almost all unreliable and the apparently reliable ones as like as not cite them too. Sorry I don't have time to AfD it at the moment, if anybody feels up to it, that would be good. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:31, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Rather than send it to AfD, perhaps the article should be about the history of the hoax? - Ahunt (talk) 18:48, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Not a bad idea, considering it seems to have fooled a lot of people. However, are there any reliable sources about the history of the hoax? - ZLEA _T\^C 19:06, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Looks like the Hungarian and German Wikipedias were fooled too. I'd let them know but I don't speak those languages. - ZLEA _T\^C 19:11, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

I do not know, if it's fake or not. But just to say it is fake and the sources are not reliable - needs also some justification. The discussion in a forum is not a source for existance or versus existance. One of the sources in the article is "Dr. Hegedűs, Ernő - Ozsváth, Sándor: Többfeladatú harci repülőgépek rendszeresítésének hatása a német és magyar repülőipari kapacitások kihasználtságára a második világháborúban" (PDF). Katonai Logisztika. Vol. 21/II. 2013. pp. 149–177.. At least the author Dr.Hegedus has a PhD and it can be assumed, he learned how to rate sources and reliability. Just my 2 cent --JuergenKlueser (talk) 19:48, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

The very few sources which might have some reliable content do not adequately establish even the existence of the plane beyond its project designation, never mind its notability. For the most part they parrot the unreliable sources and even reference them. Two or three short and obscure references in works of dubious rigour do not constitute enough RS to justify an article. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:04, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

There are two refs cited in the article, one is a book by Bonhardt. Do we know what it says? The PDF ref cited by Ernőb seems to spends a lot of time on the similar Marton X/V (with photos of that aircraft) and mentions the RMI only once and never calls it the RMI-8. - Ahunt (talk) 15:13, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Bonhardt et al are obviously covering a wide swathe of material and while their book probably establishes the existence of the project it is unlikely to be sufficient to establish any verifiable construction activity. Ernőb's Marton X/V is this plane: the story is that the Martons worked at the RMI and the plane was known by both names. But the images Ernőb produces are all fakes or imaginings - he even acknowledges the two apparent photos as such in their caption. His only citation for the plane is Bonhard et. al. So yes a design may well have existed. But a prototype nearing completion? Almost certainly not. And enough to establish notability for an article separate from the RMI? Absolutely certainly not. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:35, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Okay, well the best evidence we have seems to indicate that it was a "proposed design, under development", but certainly none completed or flown. Let's see if your WP:PROD goes to completion or not. - Ahunt (talk) 15:56, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of RMI-8

The article RMI-8 has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Most information about this aeroplane is patently fake. See the evidence produced in discussions at Marton XV-01 on www2aircraft.net and Marton X/V (RMI-8) on Secret Projects. The two cited sources do not adequately establish the status of the design, never mind its notability. One even acknowledges it is publishing fake photos and cites the other as its only source.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:35, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Full AfD

Prod was removed, so now I have put it up for the full AfD process at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/RMI-8. All comments/votes gratefully received. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:46, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Joe Baugher as a reliable source

In the DYK nomination for Republic XP-69, the reliability of Joe Baugher's website has been questioned because it is self published. According to WP:SELFPUBLISH, "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." Baugher has been published in many reliable aviation magazines and his website has even been used for research by many other aviation authors. In my opinion it is reliable enough for DYK, but I want to know what others think. - ZLEA _T\^C 14:40, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Then he would be considered an established expert and we can use his site as a source. - Ahunt (talk) 14:42, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

That list of publications is just that, it makes no reference to what they said about him and most have nothing to do with aircraft. Some are so off the wall he probably just wrote them a letter. ABE Books have no works by him. His self-published online encyclopedia does at least get an entry at Worldcat. But I can see the need for more substantial verification of his peer-reviewed/published status. If not actual published articles, then 3rd party RS saying how good his work is. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:15, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

[Update] Google Books was not very forthcoming; of about a dozen books mentioning "Joe Baugher", only one was neither self-published nor paywalled:

• David Seidman; The F/A 18 Hornet, Rosen, 2003. P.10; "Military aviation expert Joe Baugher".

— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:11, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• Personally I don't think that he's RS by our definition.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:38, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Royal Air Force aircraft names

Template:Royal Air Force aircraft names has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:58, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for deletion of TechHaus Volantis

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/TechHaus Volantis. - Ahunt (talk) 17:14, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Note that the result of this AfD was "keep", after the nomination was withdrawn. - Ahunt (talk) 12:07, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Overwing jet engines

A few aircraft types have jet engines mounted over the wing. So far I can only think of the Martin P6M Seamaster, VFW-Fokker 614, Honda MH02 and Honda HA-420 HondaJet but I know there are more. Is there enough information about the configuration to make an article useful? Even a short list article might be interesting. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:39, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Add in the Boeing YC-14 and Antonov An-72! It is an unusual enough configuration that I would think it would be a worthwhile article, especially if refs can be found that explain why it has been used or avoided. - Ahunt (talk) 18:50, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Also the Beechcraft PD 290. - ZLEA _T\^C 19:08, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Not sure if this counts, but there was a planned version of the Messerschmitt Me 262 with ramjet engines mounted above the main engines. - ZLEA _T\^C 19:20, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

That would have been fun to fly ! - Ahunt (talk) 19:37, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• For the whole 30 seconds that the fuel lasted! (The Me 262 wasn't very big, and was short-legged already!) - BilCat (talk) 00:59, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Nacelle is very short article at this time. I'd recommend fleshing it out to cover the various configurations first, such underwing, midwing, overwing, tail, etc. Then if some sections warrant splitting off, that could be done when needed. - BilCat (talk) 23:54, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Or a more suitable article than Nacelle, if one exists. I'm not sure if we have a separate article somewhere that covers aircraft engine installations already, but expanding such an an article, or splitting off the section to its own article, would probably be best. An article solely on overwing installations would be very short, but one covering all types of installations is probably needed. - BilCat (talk) 00:57, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Beriev A-40 and Beriev Be-200--Marc Lacoste (talk) 05:54, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

The Sukhoi Su-10 had both over- and underwing engines. Odd duck that one. - BilCat (talk) 10:06, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks very much, all. Checking Category:Aircraft configurations, there are a lot of articles on other engine layouts, though I am unclear of the encyclopedic value of separate low-quality and fairly repetitive articles for the four-engined jet aircraft, trijet and twinjet. I think maybe that a more generic article on say Jet engine installation would be a good one to help pull it all together; the overwing section could then break out if it needed to. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:50, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Go for it! - ZLEA _T\^C 13:18, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Draft now building at User:Steelpillow/test1. Contributions, comments, especially references, all welcome. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:33, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Antonov An-178

We are having a WP:COI WP:SPAM problem with this article. It looks like the company marketing dept has decided it needs to be much more promotional. Some additional eyes would be appreciated. - Ahunt (talk) 14:00, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

I'll help keep an eye on it Adam. - Samf4u (talk) 17:55, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

. Super, thank you!

An admin has also protected the article so that only auto confirmed users can edit it for a week or so. It seems to me that on aircraft articles these days we are having far more problems with "company marketing departments" than real vandals, although the effect is similar. It is probably the COVID-19 situation that is driving what I would call "desperate marketing measures" (ie on Wikipedia). - Ahunt (talk) 18:05, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

From smaller and relatively new companies, with not so successful products which need PR compensation, not really established manufacturers.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 06:47, 3 July 2020 (UTC)unsure about the covid causality though

Well I wouldn't call Antonov small or new, but you are right, we aren't seeing this sort of WP:PEACOCK issue from Boeing, Airbus or Textron Aviation! - Ahunt (talk) 11:25, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

New in a free market, and small by the present output, not history!--Marc Lacoste (talk) 11:50, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

There are definitely signs that they are new to the concept of "marketing". - Ahunt (talk) 12:53, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I imagine that their online PR efforts might be run by the same type of "kids" who are canvassing for Wikipedia to change the Kiev article name to "Kyiv"! - BilCat (talk) 23:53, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

It's a bit of a worry that this company thinks that the fairly sophisticated institutions who buy large jet aircraft would be influenced by a Wikipedia article, but I guess that as these types of companies advertise in trade publications and at places where their market passes by (my local airport, for instance) it must work. Nick-D (talk) 23:59, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

"It's on Wikipedia so it must be true!" My guess is they are scratching around to try and find some "work from home" activity, with associated noddy points, during lockdown. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 07:52, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for deletion of BDC Aero Industrie

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/BDC Aero Industrie. - Ahunt (talk) 12:15, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for deletion of IML Addax

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/IML Addax. - Ahunt (talk) 12:58, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

US registrations

Aerofiles explains the 1926 revisions where letters K,M,N,V,W,Y were added to number triples, but how were they ordered? Did go eg 700K, 700M, ...700Y, 701K '... or did all Ks precede all Ms? I suspect the former but it would be useful to be sure. Thanks for any help,TSRL (talk) 20:39, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

TSRL This page refers to the letters as "blocks", so most likely all Ks precede all Ms and so on. Also, in case you missed it and need it for whatever you're working on, the blocks E and H were also used. - ZLEA _T\^C 01:39, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Sky Sword split notice

I have proposed that Sky Sword be split into Sky Sword I and Sky Sword II. These articles were originally separate, but were merged two years ago. If you are interested, please visit the discussion at Talk:Sky Sword#Split proposal. Thank you. - BilCat (talk) 23:26, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

P-51 and laminar-flow wings

An IP has questioned whether or not the P-51 had laminar-flow wings, based on an undisclosed book. Perhaps this is a settled question, but it's something I know nothing about. Please see Talk:North American P-51 Mustang#Laminar flow wings, and comment there if you're interested. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 22:51, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Bigsworth chart board

I just ran across Bigsworth chart board, and have no idea what it is even after reading the stub, much less what to do about it. Delete? Improve? Draftify? Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 19:58, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Seems to have been pretty widely used. It gets quite a few mentions in histories of air navigation and stuff. But they are only brief mentions, so I cannot see it passing WP:GNG. AfD it and see what happens? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:09, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Slightly fancy clip board! Worth an article? Probably not. - Ahunt (talk) 00:15, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

User:Samf4u has nominated the article for AfD, but the nomination page didn't get created in the process. I don't know how to fix it, and Sam's been offline since the nom. - BilCat (talk) 21:48, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I could finish the nom work, but I don't know what his basic argument was going to be. - Ahunt (talk) 22:17, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Iv'e commented here. Samf4u (talk) 11:54, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

List of General Dynamics F-111 aircraft operated by the Royal Australian Air Force

The List of General Dynamics F-111 aircraft operated by the Royal Australian Air Force appears to violate the Wikipedia is not a directory policy. Should it go up for AfD? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 05:31, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Nah! Capable combat aircraft are important to small, obscure nations, and we should allow them a little pride. They can't take pride in much else, after all! ;) - BilCat (talk) 06:16, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Something we try and avoid doing as it is best left to the fan sites for this level of detail. so I would suggest AfD. Not really encyclopedic how many entries would we need in List of Douglas C-47 aircraft operated by the United States Army Air Force ! MilborneOne (talk) 09:28, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Nomination of SEMAN for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article SEMAN is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/SEMAN until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. BilCat (talk) 16:47, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

V-1 flying bomb

An editor requested some unit conversions on the V-1 flying bomb article, I did these and then realised as a German article the metric values should have been primary. Looking through the article there is a mixture of primary units, large unreferenced sections (some apparent original research/synth), wikilinks not at the first instance, citations in the lead and a bunch of German words not italicised. It appears to me to be out of control!! It's a popular article, perhaps a few eyes in there could fix it or perhaps it needs some kind of review process? It is quite a long article which does have daughter articles but perhaps the summary paragraphs left behind are too long? I have no particular interest in it apart from being on my watchlist. Is it an aircraft or a missile?! Which project should look after it? It deserves some attention, cheers. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 19:36, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• WP:WikiProject Military history, but not sure which other projects might apply here. -Fnlayson (talk) 19:22, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

R101/R.101

User:Mark Lincoln has changed all the instances of R101 to R.101 in the R101 article insisting that it is the legal name and we shouldnt use slang. Raised it here because we consistently use the designation without the stop/period in all the other Admiralty airships. Comments welcome. MilborneOne (talk) 18:48, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Minor comment these are not actually Admiralty airships but the R100 and R101 were civilian airships. MilborneOne (talk) 18:53, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I have Morpurgo's biography of Barnes Wallis in front of me. R.100 and R.101 are correct. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:18, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Here too is an RAeS piece on The R.101 story, complete with dot. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:21, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Further to the above, the R.100 had "R-100" written on it, while the R.101 had "R 101". Giving the two article titles different punctuation is absurdly unhelpful. Giving them both the same demands either we choose one marking style or we go with the official punctuation. I propose we move both articles to the dot version. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:29, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

On the other hand Nevil Shute's autobiographical account writes them as R100 and R101. He also writes "Mr" without a period, as in "Mr N. S. Norway", without a period, so there is evidently some editorial license in that approach. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:37, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

"Mr" without a dot is standard British English usage, so nothing can be deduced from the absence of a dot there. Rosbif73 (talk) 09:12, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Other Sources

• The London Times use both of "R101 and "R 101" in a number of articles/
• Hansard uses "R101"
• The Civil Aviation Authority uses type - "RIGID AIRSHIP R101" serial number "R101".
• The airship itself doesnt have a dot/period painted on the side. MilborneOne (talk) 20:00, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

It is true that the R.101 did not have a period between the R and the 101 painted upon it. No rigid airship had the period painted upon it. That was just the fashion of marking the airships. Just as no British airship had a lower case r painted after the number on it when the nomenclature was HMA NO. XXr, (see HMA NO. 9r through HMA NO. 25r). All airships from HMA R.26 on through R.101 were so designated but the period was not included in the markings upon the airship. For an accurate discussion of nomenclature see Mowthorpe, "Battlebags", Appendix A, "Royal Navy Numbering" pages 157-158. Just because some sources mislabel the airships proves nothing as there are other journals and such which correctly labeled airships such as in "Vickers Rigid Airship R.80," Aeronautics, XIX, The Research Committee, Reports and Memoranda, No. 773; and "H.M. Airship R.100: A Description," Aircraft Engineering II, No. 11, p. 10, January 1930, (Examples drawn from just two pages, 378 and 379 of the bibliography of "The British Rigid Airship 1908-1931). What brought forth this controversy was my search of source material before editing the designation of R.100. I found a brochure put out by The Airship Guarantee Co. Ltd., Howden, Yorkshire, on July 5, 1928. A brochure published by the firm which manufactured the airship and employed Nevil Shute Norway. (See Higham, "British Rigid Airship" pg 380). Mr. Norway, writing as Nevil Shute, is my favorite fiction author and I have a copy of every book of his that has been published. I am not disposed to denigrate him but would not cite "Slide Rule" as a source for the correct designation of R.100 anymore than I would claim his opinion of the R.101 was not colored by his beliefs on the proper role of government. I confirmed the correct designation of the R.100 from source material, not just a published history, before changing the designation in the article from R100 to R.100. The official reports upon the loss of the R.101, R.38, R.34 and so forth ALL use the correct designation with the period between the R and the number. I may provide many more examples of the correct designation of British airships if required. Just because some are wrong does not make their error correct. As such I believe that the Wikipedia should use the correct designation in the articles within it. Mark Lincoln (talk) 21:20, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not always run with the technically correct name. Its policy on article titles for common names and the explanatory supplement on official names require us to use a more commonly-recognisable name where one exists. So the guiding motivation behind many comments here is not which form is "correct" but which is/are most easily recognisable. I find that barely applicable to the the "dot or not" issue. Elsewhere this project has a habit of inserting dots in aircraft type designations by default, whether or not the dot is formally correct. Now we have its denizens arguing not to do so. In many cases no single official version exists - contemporary official records all vary. This was particularly so in wartime, when proof-reading reports was not high on anyone's agenda. For example I had to go though all the Blohm & Voss articles removing dots. Now, here we are going through these airship articles inserting dots. Why? No normal reader gives a monkey's nuts whether there is a dot or no. Space, dot, hyphen or all one string are all mere typographical conventions and appear at random in the "common" domain. They are all in fact the same name punctuated according to editorial taste. The only anchor we have is the punctuation used in official documents. In the present case, there are clearly enough official documents adhering to it to make it a strong candidate. I say, go with it; Mark Lincoln may have it right for a slightly over-simplified reason, but his evidence shows that he has it right nonetheless. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:21, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

"Wikipedia does not always run with the technically correct name. Its policy on article titles for common names." - MilborneOne. I have not requested that the title R101 be changed on the article. I am well aware the it is the commonly used misappellation for the airship. Rather I am arguing that the text of the article should use proper nomenclature. Yes it may appear picky but where is the monumental harm in using the official, legal, designation within an article? Mark Lincoln (talk)

Article naming debate on Denney Kitfox

Another article naming debate was recently started by the CEO of the aircraft kit manufacturer than makes the Denney Kitfox. More participation from interested editors would be useful in coming to a consensus at Talk:Denney_Kitfox#How_to_change_a_heading_name. - Ahunt (talk) 14:52, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Niagara Amphibious Aircraft Corporation

Anyone have anything on this company? Their first and possibly last design appears in Aero Digest in October 1934 (https://archive.org/details/aerodigest2519unse/page/n378/mode/1up) but I can find no other reference to it anywhere, neither in WikiP, the web more widely or in print. They are not in Gunston's manufacturers book. Did they merge, rename or just sink in the Great Depression? They were, however briefly, based in Buffalo where there might be local records.TSRL (talk) 21:18, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's "Directory of Airplanes Their Designers and Manufacturers" ISBN1-85367-490-7, lists on page 215 the "Niagra Amphibious Aircraft Corp. (See: Amphibious Aircraft Corp." Checking that reference I found on page 28 "Amphibious Aircraft Corp. (Niagra Amphibious Aircraft Corp.) (Buffalo, NY) Amphibious Aircraft Pusher." This is not much help I realize but that is all I could find in my extensive library which reveals anything about the Niagra Amphibious Aircraft Corp. Good luck. Mark Lincoln (talk) 16:56, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Airbus A300-600

An Airbus A300-600 article just popped, as a translation from Japanese no less! Should we redirect it, propose a merge back, or improve it? BilCat (talk) 01:02, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Regardless of the fact that half the article was still in Japanese, I am not seeing any argument that the 600 should have its own complete article. It looks like it had tons of duplication with Airbus A300, so I think the current decision to redirect it is the best outcome. - Ahunt (talk) 13:16, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

The matter of British airship nomenclature R.100 vs R100

It appears that the Wikipedia has decided with the person(s) wishing to drop the period despite conclusive evidence to the contrary. In the previous discussion of this matter one person claimed that Nevil Shute (Norway) did not use the period in his autobiography "Slide Rule." This is quite untrue. I have a copy of "Slide Rule" and it uses the proper R.100 (and R.100). As Mr Norway was chief calculator and oversaw the completion of R.100 as well as flying on all but one the R.100's flights it seem a valid reference. Indeed it may be considered source material. A recent biography of Mr Shute "Shute – The engineer who became a prince of storytellers" also uses R.100 as Mr Shute did in his autobiography. J.E. Morpurgo in "Barnes Wallis: A biography" published in 1972 use the correct nomenclature R.100 as well as R.80, R.38, and the R. in other British rigid airships so correct nomenclature is not just a modern fetish. As it appears from the deletion of the correct usage in the R100 article Wikipedia has decided to not admit to the truth and rather has indicated that it prefers inaccuracy in its content. I may have to reconsider my use of my remaining life span editing articles. This is not said as a threat but rather as an observation that as I am almost 71 years old and probability my demise within a few years is high what is the point of spending my remaining time on what is doomed to be sub-standard work? What is the purpose of Wikipedia? Is it just to be just a collection of matter of low scholarship? Or is it intended to be a source of some merit? Mark Lincoln (talk) 08:34, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Notability of 777 incident article?

I am considering tagging this article, Singapore Airlines Flight 368 for lack of notability. Do you believe this engine fire incident should have its own article or be solely covered at Boeing 777#Accidents and incidents? This seems mostly minor except maybe the issue with the engine’s main fuel oil heat exchanger (MFOHE). MFOHE issue(s) have come up in multiple accidents and incidents before as I recall. Thanks, -Fnlayson (talk) 20:34, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

It is is pretty minor, damage seem to have been restricted to the engine itself. - Ahunt (talk) 15:32, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Not even a hull loss.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 18:36, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Singapore Airlines Flight 368. Vici Vidi (talk) 08:26, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Steve Wright Stagger-Ez

This article is about a homebuilt aircraft type of which only one example has been built. The article was started in 2005 and still has only first party refs (just the owner's own website). A search found no third party refs. Is anyone aware of any paper refs about this aircraft? Thoughts on what to do about the article? - Ahunt (talk) 13:28, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

It flies, therefore by Project consensus it is notable. And there seems plenty of online chatter about it. But the only written refs I can find offhand are Wikipedia scrapings. I found a dead link to somebody's "flight manual" for it. Are there not directories of private/homebuilds out there, not to mention an FAA registration database or something like that? However whether the topic deserves its own article is debatable. I don't know how much of its original Rutan Long-EZ design is unchanged, but there is surely a case to merge it in there. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:34, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

There are homebuilt aircraft directories, and I have several here, but they tend to ignore "one-offs" as there are quite a lot of them and, like this one, are often just modifications of existing designs. I like your merger idea. - Ahunt (talk) 23:49, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

I have left a prompt for more input (and some refs to meet WP:GNG) on the article talk page. Unless any refs can be found then our consensus here is to merge it to Rutan Long-EZ. - Ahunt (talk) 12:18, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Lacking any further discussion, objections or indeed any third party refs:  Done - Ahunt (talk) 12:06, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Notability of accident(s) to Chaika L-4

An editor has added a section on an accident in 2020. I deleted it on the basis of our guidance re light aircraft accidents but that has been reverted and the text scrambled, including a non-standard date format. More worrying is that two of the three refs are about accidents to different airframes. Author's justification for revert is that "it is interesting." I couled del again but another voice might be useful.TSRL (talk) 19:46, 24 September 2020 (UTC) Thanks for sorting.TSRL (talk) 14:05, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Odd detail in a 1941 airport ops photo I've recently uploaded...

This isn't an important inquiry by any means, but I was just curious what other people here think of this photo, specifically what's going on with the people in the center of the frame. It's part of a set of photos from the Library of Congress showing operations in July 1941 at the then-new Washington National Airport, taken for the Farm Security Administration.

For now, I'm not going to state any guesses, as I don't want to prejudice the judgments of others. --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 06:46, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

My first take is that the man in the centre has knocked/injured his head somehow, and the left hand man is taking off his cap and pushing his hair back to see better. (Hohum ^@) 14:25, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't know about the people in the picture but the co-pilot is in trouble as he doesn't have the AA Flag mast and flag up. AA before WW II had interesting DC-3s with passenger doors on the right rather than the left side. There was one some times at Homestead General in 1967 which was owned by a guy who was a VIP at Florida Power and Light.The guys who owned the PT-17 I used to fly were friends of his.

____

Comparison tables in aircraft articles

Hi all, a fairly new user has been adding comparison tables to transport aircraft articles. complete with national flags. I've removed them on sight, but they've been added back to Shaanxi Y-9 and Xi'an Y-20. Is this something we want? I think we've nixed them before, but can't remember when. Whichever way we go, we need to clarify it in WP:AIR/PC. Thanks. BilCat (talk) 03:04, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

The table is not too bad. Not sure, but a good place may be Military transport aircraft? --JuergenKlueser (talk) 06:21, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

That's a good suggestion. BilCat (talk) 06:34, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Ditto.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 06:43, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree, does not belong in an aircraft type article. - Ahunt (talk) 12:48, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Sounds like we have a common view on that. I am going to contact the user, and tell him our proposal. (Done here) --JuergenKlueser (talk) 18:19, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Also agree that tables like this should not appear in aircraft type articles. The comparison problem we had before was whole articles e.g 'Spitfire versus Bf109' etc. It was a long time ago and I can't remember the creating editor. The citations in this current table should be checked as they should support the comparison, not just support the listed specification otherwise it is original research/synthesis etc (and/or other bad things covered at WP:NOT!). Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:55, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Anyone who understands reality in aircraft performance is aware of the fact that performance specifications are usually misleading and in some instances down right fraudulent. They will give a top speed, range, maximum weight, etcetera even though they cannot all be achieved in the same flight. In the instance of fighter aircraft they might honestly be treated as separate items. There is a sound reason why fighters usually carry external stores to perform their mission. Do you really think a F-whatever is going Mach 1.75 with wall to wall high drags? If it tries to it is not going as fast or as far as the "specs." A fighter may go X mph, or Y miles or carry Z load but not all on the same flight. In the instance of transports top speed is meaningless. Cruising speed is seldom mentioned as is the important issue of Mach number. The airspeed at any Mach number varies with altitude, temperature and air pressure. As weight and/or speed goes up, range goes down. Anyone who intends to cruise with the Mach meter on the barber poll is going to burn more fuel. His family might be happy to see him home early but the airline's accountants are going to frown. There is a sound reason why airliners today are not as fast as the Convair 880/990 or even a 50 year old 747. There is a reason why no one is flying a supersonic airliner. There is a reason why Boeing stopped talking about the Sonic Cruiser. No airline wanted it. At best performance numbers as used in data blocks are of little real value. Compare them with great caution. Mark Lincoln (talk) 09:22, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Help a new user?

I recently declined a new editor's draft, as it had several issues with it such as potentially indiscriminate information, it being similar to the existing article on Concorde, among others. The draft is Draft:Concorde : legal aspects of the project. The user seems to be very eager, so I wanted to point him (@Nruget:) here in the hopes that one of you can take him under your wing and some more detailed notes on his draft since I'm not exceptionally familiar with the ins and outs of aircraft. One question I would like to see approached is whether or not his draft idea would work as a separate article from the main or whether he should be working on seeing if any of the information can be worked into the live article. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 08:27, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

As a person inclined to go into a certain amount of detail beyond the absolute basics it appears this proposed article is excessive. It is also vastly under documented. Because of that it appears to be personal opinion when it may not be. As suggested it appears to be a machine translation of a French article. I am reminded of the once famous early machine translation from Russian of the biblical saying "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matthew 26:41) The computer translated it as something like "the vodka is fine but the meat is rotten." The article might be worthy of inclusion if it is considerably reduced to essentials, and far better referenced. This may not be possible if it is as I suspect a hijacked magazine article. I was a reader of Aviation Leak and Space Mythology from the late 1950s and remember the elaborate machinations necessary to merge the Sud Super Caravelle and Bristol Type 223 into the Aerospatial/BAC Concorde project. A quick trip to the Concorde Wikipedia page show that the subject of the legal machinations appears covered but not exhaustively. Perhaps the author might be better off just elaborating upon the development section of the Concorde Wiki page. I do not feel that that page adequately explains the tremendous consolidation of industry on the British side nor the essentially weak position of the French industry which was still recovering from WW II.

Mark Lincoln (talk) 19:43, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

I replied in French to its contributor, Nicolas Ruget, at fr:Discussion:Concorde (avion)#aspects juridiques de la réalisation du programme Concorde. The rough translation would be Hello @Nruget, thank you for your contributions. Although a native French speaker, I mainly contribute to aeronautical subjects in English wikipedia, where you have proposed a translation of this part. However, it was not received favorably by the contributors there: indeed, it is too extensive for the specifically legal part of an aeronautical project, while Wikipedia must remain a general encyclopedia. Moreover, we understand that it is the work of a single person, with a tone not necessarily encyclopedic, and with references to your own mémoire of 2004, in contradiction with WP:SELFPROMOTE. It would undoubtedly be more suitable to keep this contribution as such, by signing your essay in a medium other than wikipedia (such as medium.com for example), to make a one-paragraph summary for the wikipedia article on Concorde - both French-speaking and English-speaking) and to reference your post then published elsewhere. --Marc Lacoste (NB: please sign your messages in the discussion pages with four tildes (~), it allows you to follow better) --Marc Lacoste (talk) 05:17, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Bellanca 77-?

Does anyone know the sub-type number of this transport version of the 77 described in https://archive.org/details/aerodigest2619unse/page/n323/mode/1up?TSRL (talk) 20:03, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

See: Bellanca Aircruiser at https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Bellanca_Aircruiser The Aircrusier and related Airbus were very popular and came in many varieties. The 77-140 was an attempt at a bomber version. The Army did not want it but the Fuerza Aérea Colombiana (Columbian Air Force) bought several as well as a float plane 77-320 Junior which had a turret instead of the open gun position of the 77-140. Giuseppe Mario Bellanc was both a visionary designer and a bit of a mavarick. His Aircruiser was an important airplane in the early to mid-1930s. It was particularly appreciated in bush operations such as Canada, and South America. I saw one in flying condition in Oregon. Mark Lincoln (talk) 09:53, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Having looked at the ref I included again I realized there was an ambiguity. The Aircruiser is at the top of the page but the version that puzzles me is at the bottom. This is a twin-engined passenger machine. There's nothing in the Wikipedia article, though aerofiles include the 77-140, a turreted bomber twin and the 77-320, on floats, with an open nose gun position. It's a 77-something, but what? TSRL (talk) 11:01, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

That is probably the Bellanca 77-140 mentioned above. Bellanca was known for its single engined designs but he did create multi engined types. Bellanca used several systems for designation over the years. During his hey day the first number was wing area divided by 10 followed by a second number which was engine horse power divided by 10. For example the Bellanca 28-92. The 92 was derived from 2 x 250hp Menascos on the wings and a single 420hp Ranger in the nose. There were other Bellanca 28 racers all of which were single engined. For example the Bellanca 28-70 and Bellanca 28-90. Early Bellancas had no designation but then he started progressive letters such as CD. Later he added horse power number thus the CH-400 "Skyrocket.” Eventually he shortened the system to two numbers. When I was a kid I had the hots for the Bellanca 14-13 Crusaire of which there were many deteriorating at airports in the early 1960s. Mark Lincoln (talk) 18:13, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Proper Nomenclature for British Airships

It appears that the Wikipedia has decided with the person(s) wishing to drop the period despite conclusive evidence to the contrary. In the previous discussion of this matter one person claimed that Nevil Shute (Norway) did not use the period in his autobiography "Slide Rule." This is quite untrue. I have a copy of "Slide Rule" and it uses the proper R.100 (and R.101). As Mr Norway was chief calculator and oversaw the completion of R.100 as well as flying on all but one the R.100's flights it seem a valid reference. Indeed it may be considered source material. A recent biography of Mr Shute "Shute – The engineer who became a prince of storytellers" also uses R.100 as Mr Shute did in his autobiography. J.E. Morpurgo in "Barnes Wallis: A biography" published in 1972 use the correct nomenclature R.100 as well as R.80, R.38, and the R. in other British rigid airships so correct nomenclature is not just a modern fetish. As it appears from the deletion of the correct usage in the R100 article Wikipedia has decided to not admit to the truth and rather has indicated that it prefers inaccuracy in its content. I may have to reconsider my use of my remaining life span editing articles. This is not said as a threat but rather as an observation that as I am almost 71 years old and probability my demise within a few years is high what is the point of spending my remaining time on what is doomed to be sub-standard work? What is the purpose of Wikipedia? Is it just to be just a collection of matter of low scholarship? Or is it intended to be a source of some merit? Mark Lincoln (talk) 08:48, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

That conversation was unresolved and looks like staying that way. May I suggest that you have better things to do with your remaining years than flogging a dead horse. Wikipedia has plenty more areas which can benefit from your expertise; but no, it does not ultimately regard itself as a reliable source, with issues such as this being just one of many reasons why not. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:30, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

How come the article's title, R101, does not have the dot while all occurrences in the article have it? I don't particularly care which form is considered the correct one, but at the very least there should be consistency within the whole article, title included. --Deeday-UK (talk) 19:13, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

How come indeed. See for example these discussions/posts:

• Talk:R100#Designation?
• Talk:R101#Nomenclature
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aircraft/Archive_46#R101/R.101
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aircraft/Archive_46#The_matter_of_British_airship_nomenclature_R.100_vs_R100

and these non-consensus edits by Mark Lincoln (talk · contribs)

• to R100
• to R101

— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:00, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

When I first edited the R.101 page a reasonable objection was made. Most people would be searching for the common mistaken name R101. This was a reasonable objection given the Wikipedia's situation of being a first resort of many people searching for information. I do not believe that changing the name of the Wikipedia article would be justified. As for internal information in an article I believe that any encyclopedic source should strive to provide accurate information. The question comes down to what the Wikipedia is. The Cambridge Dictionary defines "Wikipedia" as "the name of a large website that provides free information in many languages on many subjects, and can be changed or added to by anyone. There are experts who watch for errors, and pages on which disagreements about subjects can be discussed." Here we are doing just that. The disagreement is whether the Wikipedia should provide accurate information or not. Mark Lincoln (talk) 20:27, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

"For want of a dot, Wikipedia was lost"? Hardly. BilCat (talk) 20:35, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

No, Wikipedia is not lost. It will have only lost my efforts. It will still have your standards and efforts. I have ingrained standards. My History 401 (Historiography) thesis in 1971 was "The Military Rigid Airship 1908-1935." We were only required to submit an effort of more than four pages. That was deemed sufficient to demonstrate we had learned the course material. I ended up with 64 pages. It had grown like topsy. I received an A. The professor commented "To say this is an excellent and well researched paper is a bit of an understatement!" She also said that "When writing on such an technical subject, don't assume too much knowledge on the part of your reader," Thus my tendency to elaborate and explain. My desire to do as thorough and excellent a job has always been perhaps the greatest accomplishment of my upbringing. Thus if I am required to do slip-shod work I would rather not. I am almost 71 years old and could spend my declining years reading more and writing less. This is not a pique. It is just a matter of if I can not do a good job why do it? Mark Lincoln (talk) 22:33, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Why no dot?

I hate to see editors disheartened after inputting hard work, one way or the other this situation should be resolved. Wikipedia:Requests for comment is available but may be excessive for this problem. Most importantly editors have to abide by the outcome. In the links provided above I only see arguments based on 'it appears in this source with a dot and that source without a dot'. We use reference sources to find and cite facts but don't necessarily have to use the exact same format or spellings.

The R.101 is not alone on Wikipedia for losing its dot, it is explained at our abbreviation article that the full stop is used to signify a shortened form, in this case I believe the R stands for 'Rigid' hence R.100. I would surmise that the full stop was not painted on the craft as the shortened name was not part of a sentence.

Other cases of 'dot loss' are the de Havilland aircraft types (DH.82, DH 82 etc) and older Rolls-Royce aero engine types where 'RB' designations lost their dot. Rolls-Royce PR material no longer uses the dot, the Royal Air Force has also dropped the dot from aircraft marks eg. Hawk T.1 ('T' for trainer) is now Hawk T1.

What I believe has happened is the use of the full stop to denote an abbreviation has been dropped over time (in British English at least). The dilemma is do we use old forms or newer forms? We do know that it is 2020 and the majority of Wikipedia readers won't be aware of older uses of language and may have puzzled looks when they read them (we are not allowed to say or write aviatrix or actress any more for instance).

I know we (aircraft project) have spent time on the de Havilland dot problem before, what we need to make progress is some guidance in our style guide that everyone can follow, there may be something in the Manual of Style, I haven't looked. A very good reason to resolve this is the perennial problem of one editor adding dots to articles and navboxes and another editor removing them, a more difficult problem is pages being moved to the 'correct' designation without discussion.

The alternative is to ignore this problem (and others), shrug our shoulders and carry on, which I have to say I do quite a lot!! Hoping that this can be resolved one way or the other. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 08:56, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree that this needs solving in a general manner with guideline material that will be uniformly applied. Do we need to start with a list of areas where it arises? - Ahunt (talk) 12:26, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Where best to discuss it, in Aircraft or Aviation project space? Might the Aviation Style Guide's own talk page be a good place, as that is where the outcome would be added. Or, should we widen this discussion to include related vehicles within the scope of WP:MILHIST and WP:TRANSPORT? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:09, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

The three examples I gave were aircraft type names, aero engine type names and the R.101/R101 is an individual aircraft name though it appears to stem from a type series convention. I would have thought that Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (aircraft) would be the best place to discuss aircraft type article names. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) has very comprehensive guidelines on article naming, it looks like every iteration possible for ship names has been tried in the past. Can't think of any other 'dot' problems, possibly the early British aircraft types. The 'dotted' style has been applied consistently at Category:Royal Aircraft Factory aircraft. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 16:52, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

To get the widest input, how about we hold the discussion here and then enter the consensus results at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide? - Ahunt (talk) 17:03, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

It seems that many feel that Wikipedia is not intended to be accurate. That editors should simply do anything they feel like regardless of reality. Is that what Wikipedia should be? A wild post what you feel regardless of reality forum? I check out a number of such ephemeral sites such as “4chan /b/“ and while I find them "informative" on what ever goes, I do not find them anything aside from that. The question I present is essentially this: is the Wikipedia to be the best encyclopedia it can be within the restraint that are necessary to avoid anarchy? Or is it to conform to the least standards its editors feel to please themselves? I have just ordered a hard bound copy of Morpurgo's "Barnes Wallis: A Biography" to replace my decades old paper back copy so that my citations on several Wikipedia pages might be able to specify the pages for citation which will be available to any person with access to a good library. I am willing to put money where my mouth is on the question of veracity in the Wikipedia. Perhaps I am a fool. Mark Lincoln (talk) 19:22, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

What on earth are you talking about? We have started a discussion here to resolve this "dot" issue, which will be decided by a collected consensus of the best references available, considering the history of the issue and how use, or non-use, of British designation dots have evolved over time. It is a factual question, which will have a factual answer. It is not some ephemeral philosophy question. If you have actual references to contribute to the discussion then great. If you prefer to debate existential philosophy then WP:NOTFORUM. - Ahunt (talk) 19:28, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

It appears the OP is not reading this thread thoroughly. I was willing to help but it seems fruitless if complaints continue regardless. I had a quick scan through other British types, they are mostly consistent (dot or no dot) with the odd article in a series not following the convention, probably oversights. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 19:42, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Mark, it seems to me you're wasting your own mental efforts in a crusade for an imagined "accuracy" where none can exist, because there never was a single well-defined, widely followed standard for the typography of these designations. In 1930 when the airship variously designated at the time as R.101, R101, R 101, R-101, and so on was built and flown, people weren't as consistent about the exact typographical forms used for such designations as they would be in later eras. I've found all of the aforementioned forms in printed materials from around 1930 via Google Books, making sure to check the actual scans, not just the OCR text. Try this Google Books search and this one to confirm, for instance, and also note this Google Ngrams graph for the relative frequency in scanned books of four different forms of the phrase "airship R101" from 1920 to 1940. I've seen similar inconsistencies from this era in the designations for airplanes and aircraft engines: for example, is it the "Douglas DC-3" or "Douglas DC3"? These days we generally agree on the former form, but you can find a fair number of examples of the latter form in material circa 1940, including the U.S. government type certificates. Since these machines are constructed by group efforts, there simply is no single source you can unarguably point to as the "canonical" designation. Manufacturer and government may not agree, and different branches within either institution may have their own ways of doing things. Do you pick the type certificate? The approved flight manual? The manufacturer's public advertising? The emblem on the machine? An argument can be made for and against each. Even a single source may not be consistent! And many people who work on such things, frankly, don't care that much, which is one source for this inconsistency. It's not like these designations were made to be processed by computer programs which enforced hard rules on exact syntax. --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 23:31, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

/*I understand that computer languages have strict syntax*/. Computers are idiots and require perfect clarity. We are discussing an encyclopedic entry written in English. I readily concede that British airships were often misnamed in common usage from "Mayfly" on. I am also aware that they each only had one proper name. Just as the American fighter aircraft the Curtiss P-40 was known to its manufacturer as the Model 75, Model 81, or Model 87 depending upon significant details which were known as the XP-40, P-40-P40C, and P-40-D through P-40-Q by the US Air Corps and the US Army Air Forces. Those were the Manufacturer's and Army's official names. I could go on to name oodles of "popular" names and foreign designations including Hawk, Tomahawk, Kittyhawk and "Flying Tiger." But the Curtiss fighters had only one official designation, XP-40 through XP-40Q and three Curtiss designations Models 75, 81 and 87. The official designations of British airships was much simpler. The first which never flew was officially His Majesty's Airship Number 1, or simplified as HMA No. 1. The next nomenclature was HMA No. 9r through HMA No. 25r. After that all British rigid airships were designated R.26 through R.101. All other designations from "Mayfly" on to R101 were just nicknames. If folks wanted to call the P-40 a Kittyhawk or Flying Tiger that does not make it the proper name. The question simply put is the Wikipedia supposed to be a factual encyclopedia or is it just a collection of what ever people decide to post? I am disinclined to engage in sloppy work. If others desire to do so, and it appears that there are many who wish to do so, that is their business not mine. Go ahead, call the P-40 a Flying Tiger and the R.101 the "Royal Airship Works Cigarette Lighter" if you please.

Mark Lincoln (talk) 10:34, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

The registered name is "Royal Airship Works Rigid Airship R101" and also note as a civilian airship the naming hasnt really got anything to do with the the early military sequence that ended at R80. Interesting to note that it was painted as "R 101" on the actual airship. MilborneOne (talk) 08:18, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

The official registered name was not as you insist. It was "His Majesty's Airship R.101" not "Royal Airship Works Rigid Airship R101" which is absurd. See: Mowthorp, "Battlebags," "Appendix A Royal Navy Numbering," pages 157-158. The official investigation of the loss of the airship is titled "REPORT OF THE R.101 INQUIRY." The certificate of airworthiness for R.101 is available at https://www.airshipsonline.com/airships/r101/R101%20Cert.pdf His Majesty's Airship R.101 is perhaps best covered in "To Ride The Storm The Story of the Airship R.101" by Sir Peter Masefield. Nevil Shute, who was deeply involved in the design and flight testing of R.100, in his biography called the R.100 and R.101 by those names but what did he know? The tomb of the dead from R.101 and the marker of the crash site read R.101. You may have an opinion based upon misinformation or some personal desire but I have the facts. Your personal obsession devoid of factual nature may reveal why this matter is pending. Thus I challenge you to prove that the name of the airship was as you assert "Royal Airship Works Rigid Airship R101." If you cannot cite anything reliable and verifiable then please stop what appears to be obstreperous obfuscation. Mark Lincoln (talk) 18:02, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

@Mark Lincoln:. That is no way to address a fellow editor. Please take proper cognizance of our policies on WP:POLITENESS and WP:GOODFAITH. If you persist, sanctions may be taken against your ability to edit here, and nobody wants that.

1. On the aircraft's title, both of you are right. Its formal designation was HMA (His Majesty's Airship) R.101. But it was made by the Royal Airship Works at Cardington, so in a technical trade context it is the Royal Airship Works rigid airship R101. However the context in which Wikipedia presents it is an editorial decision, and here we must follow WP:COMMONNAME, which effectively leads us to omitting any such prefix.
2. Then, there is the R bit. The R designations were politically motivated, with the two airships to be the first of a new breed, seen to be leaping ahead of the old R types to the hundreds; the R 100 was the very first and the R 101 to appear as its successor. Thus, the designations were chosen for political reasons and not historical or technical.
3. Finally, the punctuation. I will reiterate what others have said here, that the period after the R was at the time the correct syntax for the abbreviation R for rigid. The modern idiom is to omit it. (Your and my copies of Slide Rule evidently reflect the intervening period (sic) of change. You have not produced one iota of evidence to refute that understanding.

On the above basis, Wikipedia should use the period only when directly quoting from a text which uses it. It is now abundantly clear that only one editor is arguing for the period and the majority consensus is to do without it. We can wrap this up now and move on, there is plenty more needs fixing on this encyclopaedia. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:57, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Anyone who claims to be here to champion WP:THETRUTH would be advised to read that linked article. - Ahunt (talk) 19:38, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Historical source: “Historical source (also known as historical material or historical data) is original source that contain important historical information. These sources are something that inform us about history at the most basic level, and these sources used as clues in order to study history Historical sources include documents, artifacts, archaeological sites, features. oral transmissions, stone inscriptions, paintings, recorded sounds, images (photographs, motion pictures), and oral history. Even ancient relics and ruins, broadly speaking, are historical sources. - Wikipedia

The Wikipedia provides the following information:

Historical source

Primary source

Secondary source

The University of Cambridge Faculty of History provides the following information “Getting started: Reading Primary Sources” https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/getting-started-reading-primary-sources “No statement about the past can carry conviction unless it can be supported by reference to the historical sources.” - ibid I believe I have supplied more than adequate source material within the guidelines provided by Wikipedia and usable within Wikipedia. Are we suppposed to providing historical information or what ever we happen to have as an opinion?

Opinion

After researching airships since the third grade I do have opinions. I am careful to keep my personal opinions out of my edits of historical subjects. I agree that my request that another editor put up or shut up is rude. So is being vapidly obstreperous. Mark Lincoln (talk) 21:32, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Although I should not respond to personal attacks and the accusation I made stuff up the official name I quoted comes from the entry for G-FAAW on the Civil Aviation Authority website. Not that it matters as we use the common name and the consensus is unlikely to change on that. MilborneOne (talk) 06:54, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I think we are veering into WP:DEADHORSE now. - Ahunt (talk) 21:51, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Aeroprogress T-501 Strizh? Notable or Not?

A very stubby article for this Russian turboprop trainer project of the 1990s has just appeared, but it is unclear whether any hardware ever got produced before the project was abandoned - I'm not convinced that the project is notable - opinions?Nigel Ish (talk) 20:21, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I was looking at sending it back to draft space, but would be keen to hear what everyone thinks here. - Ahunt (talk) 23:09, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

The airctaft made Jane's all the world's aircraft 2008-2009. It also made Brassey's World Aircraft and Systems Directory 1996/97.

So reliable sources have reported upon the aircraft. I have turned up more information on it.

T-501 Strizh

Crew: 2

Wingspan: 11.0 m

Length: 9.66 m

Height: 4 m

Wing Area: 16.5 m2

Wheel base: 2.88 m

Wheel track: 2.88 m

Empty Weight: 1,990 kg

Maximum TO Weight: 2,670 kg

Fuel Load: 500 kg

Maximum Speed: 570 km/h

Take-off Distance: 160 m

Landing Distance: 190 m

Climb Rate: 1,260 m/min

Ceiling: 7,000 m

Maximum Range: 1,800 km with drop tanks

Engine: One Glushenkov TVD-10B turboprop of 754 kW

Weapons Load: 500 kg

Armament: 6 x light weapons, gun pods or rockets

The T-501 was designed as a basic trainer with armament capability for a Russian Air Force requirement. The crew was seated on lightweight ejection seats. The wing had no anhedral or dihedral, and the aircraft was capable of carrying two drop tanks. To reduce costs inexpensive materials were to be used in construction. Manufacturing of the first of two prototypes and one static test airframe reportedly began in 1992 at MAPO-MiG after an USD 22 million contract was signed in April that year. Production was to be undertaken at Khrunichev. The T-501M Bumerang was a proposed modernised version.

Source: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/soviet-coin-and-light-shturmovik-projects.50/ A Russian source tells me that it was considereed by tehe Russian Air Forces. It also provides a three view. http://www.libma.ru/transport_i_aviacija/aviacija_i_kosmonavtika_1995_06/p24.php. It looks to have been a legitimate project if not a great commercial success. Should it be in the Wikipedia? I am the sort of person who is of the opinion that it is better to include than exclude. Mark Lincoln (talk) 20:52, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

What sources actually say anything substantive about the aircraft - The 96-97 Brassey's covers it, in not great detail, and suggest that work may have started on at least one of the prototypes, but owing to changes in Russian Air Force requirements the type was already delayed from its original planned date of 1993. By 1999, the 1999/2000 edition of Brassey's merely refers to the T-501 as one of a range of military concepts that had not progressed to hardware. The 2003-4 Jane's merely has an index entry pointing to the 97–98 edition as being the last edition with any coverage. It looks like one of a large number of fairly sketchy design proposals that were knocked out by Russian aircraft companies following the breakdown of the Soviet Union, most of which never stood any chance of being built. The article actually needs sources that talk in more detail about the type and what happened to it for the article to be sustainable.Nigel Ish (talk) 22:32, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Comment. This WikiProject has a longstanding consensus that if it flew, it is notable. This Russian-language page says (courtesy of Google Translate) that a "model" was "demonstrated at the MosAeroshow-92 exhibition" and includes an apparently genuine photo of it in flight. But I am not sure whether that is a mistranslation of "prototype" or a photo of a flying scale model; much clearer images elsewhere depict a model with no crew on board. Our WikiProject consensus does not apply to models. Also, a Secret Projects discussion offers various facts and myths about its sibling projects. Given all that, there does not seem enough to sustain the present article. I'd suggest we do need one on Aeroprogress, where this one can be merged (or moved and re-purposed). — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 05:46, 9 October 2020 (UTC) [updated 06:10, 9 October 2020 (UTC)]

From the 1999/2000 Brassey's : "Details and photographs (of models) relating to military concepts that have not progressed into flying prototypes can be found in the 1996/1997 edition of WA&SD, pages 66 and 67, including the T-501 basic trainer,..." which makes it clear that a flying prototype wasn't displayed at MosAeroshow-92 - although possibly a fairly realistic mockup was - Aeroprogress did display some realistic mockups of some of their unflown civil types.Nigel Ish (talk) 09:06, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Just to note I have just created Aeroprogress to describe the company's projects. MilborneOne (talk) 10:41, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

As a none flying project I have redirected it to the new Aeroprogress page. MilborneOne (talk) 06:58, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

(Title redacted)

(unacceptable post redacted — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:22, 11 October 2020 (UTC))

I am not sure whats with the personal attack but it is not tolerated here and if you continue you will be blocked. I dont know why you cant find the register entry for G-FAAW it only takes a few seconds but just to help https://siteapps.caa.co.uk/g-info/ MilborneOne (talk) 18:34, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

CorVette

This is a new page by a new editor. I have concerns about the subject's notability and the article's lack of references. Thoughts? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:44, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

The "new user" probably a paid contributor. See here. BilCat (talk) 20:02, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Looks like unsourced COI spam to me, I nominated it for speedy deletion. - Ahunt (talk) 23:36, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

I would suggest merging back into Turbine Legend, the type which the subject of the article is apparently based on, if any references can be found to confirm that.Nigel Ish (talk) 08:35, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I would certainly support that, if there were any refs! - Ahunt (talk) 12:36, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

By the way, I flagged the photos of the aircraft on the Commons for lack of permission. If no action is taken in the next week, they will disappear. Two were taken from the sky, which strongly suggests they were taken by professionals. The claim of ownership for those two put the claim of ownership of the other two in doubt. I also tagged the editor's upload of the presumably-trademarked logo with "pd-textlogo" and "trademark". Thankfully, it looks too simple to have a copyright attached. See the uploader's talk page on the Commons and this edit to the logo file for details. Courtesy ping: @Rabiulprimetechbd:. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 15:31, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

You can note that my "speedy" was assessed by an admin and the article has now been deleted. - Ahunt (talk) 15:34, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

A220

A user is edit warring over a challenged addition to add the original name randomly around the article, comments welcome at Airbus A220. MilborneOne (talk) 17:23, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Recon/Scout overlap

I've noticed that several of the articles on recon aircraft seem to be a fragmented and rather frequently overlapping on one another: Reconnaissance aircraft, Scout (aircraft) and Scout plane seem to be particularly egregious examples - The latter two are also assessed as stubs. Perhaps there should be a merger or consolidation in this area, perhaps the first article (or another candidate?) ought to be the recipient? Kyteto (talk) 20:37, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

These are really 3 different types/roles, though there is some overlap, as you pointed out. I do think they need to be covered separately. - BilCat (talk) 20:43, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

The original term for a fighter aircraft in WWI was a "scout"; aerial reconnaissance was a different role with different machines developed for the job. So Scout (aircraft) should definitely not be merged, rather it could do with some improvement.

On the other hand Scout plane seems to be a PoV ramble with no sensible focus; for example the Supermarine Walrus is not normally referred to as a scout. It is also unreferenced (bar one aeroplane) and could just be deleted, with the page redirected to scout (aircraft).

— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 05:40, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

McDonnell Douglas Phantom in UK service - data

Just to note that I have proposed McDonnell Douglas Phantom in UK service - data for deletion, while clearly suitable for an enthusiast web site it is not really encyclopedic. MilborneOne (talk) 09:40, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Concur. Since the Prod has been removed, we should send it to AfD. BilCat (talk) 12:10, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Good grief, totally non-encyclopedic stuff! Yes please send it to AfD! - Ahunt (talk) 14:24, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Light aircraft

We are having a discussion about adding an obscure design to the examples of light aircraft in this article. Interested editors are invited to participate at Talk:Light aircraft. - Ahunt (talk) 22:12, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

National Aerospace Laboratories

I've just left an Advert tag on the National Aerospace Laboratories article - while the subject is clearly notable, being India's aeronautics research centre, and a major designer of aircraft, if all the promotional and/or unsourced tet was removed then there would be nothing left. The article needs major work.Nigel Ish (talk) 16:51, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for deletion of FedEx Express Flight 1478

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/FedEx Express Flight 1478. - Ahunt (talk) 22:29, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for deletion of Fly Aeolus

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fly Aeolus. - Ahunt (talk) 15:43, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Flight International Archives

Remember FlightGlobal stating the archives would be available soon? Yeah well it's been one year and nothing happened. Fortunately archive.org has many pdfs still available. If you want to update the references you come accross, just add https://web.archive.org/web/2019/if_ before the unavailable url, eg for https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1972/1972%20-%202020.html, just replace by https://web.archive.org/web/2019if_/https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1972/1972%20-%202020.html

Better yet if you want to link directly to the relevant pdf, without the useless html frames, replace pdfarchive/view by FlightPDFArchive and the .html at the end by .pdf, eg https://web.archive.org/web/2019if_/https://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1972/1972%20-%202020.pdf

Cheers!--Marc Lacoste (talk) 19:25, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, good to note! - Ahunt (talk) 19:38, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

A caveat; I have found that only a small proportion of pfs are archived - more often that not the thing fails. So please check the particular page before updating the link to another dead one. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:14, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Surprisingly, I don't see anyone contesting facts cited by the dead links, we can live in hope that they eventually spring back to life and that not too much work is involved to edit them if needed. Many of the citations give the year, month and page number of a hard copy magazine, even without a scan to read it's as good as any one of us citing a paper source that is not easily accessible to verify. Using the Wayback Machine might actually complicate the process of editing the links. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:25, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

If the archives are ever restored, I'd expect them to be behind a paywall. Right now, we get 5 articles to read a month before having to have a subscription to read more, which is frustrating. I think I preferred the old ownership! BilCat (talk) 07:15, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Even if they're not easily or freely accessible, the refs are still good as they are basically printed material. Those accessible through archive.org seems to be the ones linked by wikipedia (one can imagine the archive.org bot is an avid wikipedia reader). To circumvent the 5 articles/month limit, just use a browser in a private mode (Ctrl+Shift+N to open a page with Chrome). I preffered the previous ownership too, but hey, they need to be profitable to survive!.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 07:38, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

• Oh, I understand the need to be profitable, or else it wouldn't exist. And I do use the private viewing workaround too, but it's annoying, and I felt like complaining. :) BilCat (talk) 19:59, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

L'esprit de l'escalier: to browse FlightGlobal without the limit and without opening a private mode browser, just prevent FlightGlobal to save cookies; in Chrome: click the padlock icon left of the url, then "cookies" and select "block".--Marc Lacoste (talk) 10:10, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

(ec) The trouble with the internet archive back ups is that it only archives the pages that were directly linked - so if someone links to the first page of a 5 page article, that is the only page that can be accessed.Nigel Ish (talk) 09:02, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Early copies of Flight for 1909-1935 are available directly under "The Magazine Rack" at archive.org. For those, while we might not want to update deadlinks, we can verify the source and be sure the reference is complete with date and page GraemeLeggett (talk) 08:59, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Nakajima navbox?

We appear to have two identical Nakajima navbox templates, Template:Nakajima aircraft and Template:Nakajima military aircraft. I'm not clever enough to work out what is happening but if the intention is to create separate navboxes I would strongly oppose that due to the long established naming format that can be seen at Category:Manufacturer-based aircraft navigational boxes.Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 10:16, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Petebutt only just created the second one today. They appear to be in the throes of changing the template scope and name, to remove the "military" qualifier. There are a few minor differences to the templates, notably the allied reporting names. I'd suggest we wait a while and see how it turns out. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:42, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Regardless, there is no need or precedent for two separate navboxes.Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 12:50, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

H'mm, looks like the page move went a bit astray. I think it will need an admin to reconcile the page histories and clean up the move. I have asked for an update on the user's talk page, here. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 14:29, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

The move was marked as a minor edit where a page move is not minor, no edit summary to give an insight and no pre-discussion.Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 15:24, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

No need for discussion the Template only has military aircraft in it so changed the name.--Petebutt (talk) 15:28, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Why are you contesting the speedy deletion? I have done my bit! if you don't like it then do it yourself!--Petebutt (talk) 15:31, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

I would check again. Regardless, even if it did contain only military aircraft there is no need to move it and cause redirects in every article listed. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 15:34, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

I can't correct it, it will need an admin to fix as the history and attribution are missing.Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 15:45, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

@Petebutt: Your change of template name is being contested, as it goes against longstanding practice. @Nimbus227: Petebutt moved them to the new template, yes I am pretty sure we need need an Admin to move them back. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:13, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

I've moved the original back. I still don't understand why Pete recreated the navbox at the original title if he wanted to change the name. Odd. It would be helpful if these things were discussed beforehand, but after 10 years, perhaps another solution needs to be sought. BilCat (talk) 19:18, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Douglas XNO-2

Just for information the unflown Douglas XNO-2 has been proposed for deletion. MilborneOne (talk) 11:04, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

I removed the PROD. - Ahunt (talk) 12:47, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

A bridge too far?

Is Aircraft stores configuration for the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet really a type of article we need? Thanks. BilCat (talk) 16:46, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Wow, that is about three orders of magnitude a deeper dive than Janes would do! AfD? - Ahunt (talk) 16:50, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Looks like User:The Bushranger has WP:PRODed it. - Ahunt (talk) 17:32, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

What do you know, a PROD actually went off! - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 16:30, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

PROD has been known to succeed! - Ahunt (talk) 16:34, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Template:Most-produced aircraft

Is that a template we support for inclusion in articles? --Denniss (talk) 06:30, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

That is a very good question. I think we need a debate on that template's usefulness to readers. It seems to fall into WP:INDISCRIMINATE and there are also some thoughts at Wikipedia:Avoid template creep. - Ahunt (talk) 14:16, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

There is also a List of most-produced aircraft. We really do not need both. I'd suggest a WP:TfD; any debate can be had there. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:39, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

We could send it to TfD to avoid having this debate twice. I am not convinced that it needs to be deleted or kept, but I think we need to have that discussion. Anyone want to send it to TfD? If not I can. - Ahunt (talk) 15:50, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

very happy for you to do the legwork, I am a bit busy at the moment. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:34, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

 Done - Ahunt (talk) 17:48, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for discussion of Template:Most-produced aircraft

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 November 28#Template:Most-produced aircraft. - Ahunt (talk) 17:48, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

List of missiles by country

Not sure its related to this project but List of missiles by country is a good example of a really badly formed article (green highlighting makes no sense!) MilborneOne (talk) 18:26, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree, lots of issue there. Suggested action? - Ahunt (talk) 19:05, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Not sure it looks a bit scary, just needs the lists tidied up into something that makes sense, whoever created it thinks the Five Eyes is some sort of fighting alliance! and the European bit makes no sense. If nobody else has a go I will have a look at it but I may not get to it for a few days. MilborneOne (talk) 19:10, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

You seem to have a good idea what needs doing, so you might be best to tackle it, whenever you have the time to do so, unless someone else makes a start on it first. - Ahunt (talk) 19:15, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

We have a list of missiles. before we proliferate List of missiles by colour of nosecone and date of last known night-time firing, might it be better to refactor the main list as a sortable table with a column for country of origin, and merge the horrible green-striped thing into it (without Sir Percy's "purest green")? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:37, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

That does seem a good idea Steelpillow. MilborneOne (talk) 20:24, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I'd support that plan! - Ahunt (talk) 20:33, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Chuck Yeager

Chuck Yeager passed away on Monday evening US time. As with any such notable death, the vandals have shown up. If any admin is watching here, could we please get a semi? Thanks. Perhaps one day the wrong dead person's article will get vandalized, and all hell will rightfully descend of Jimbo and the rest of the WMF until they fix this garbage. Until then, if you know someone famous who dies, tell the family not to visit their Wikipedia article for a few days after the death. BilCat (talk) 06:49, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

edit war at Sukhoi Su-30

Just a heads up - there appears to be an edit war at Sukhoi Su-30 and Bangladesh Air Force about whether Bangladesh has Su-30s on order or not (the 2020 Flight International included the prospective order, the latest Hoyle, Craig (2020). "World Air Forces 2021". Flight International. Retrieved 2 December 2020. does not. Discussion of the issue appears to be limited. More eyes (and possibly involvement of Admins) may be helpful.Nigel Ish (talk) 11:06, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

It appears the removal is correct, however one editor is at 3RR already... - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 16:51, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Help with a draft

Hi all, I've just joined this wikiproject, and I am looking for some help writing an article (Draft: Aero Dynamics Sparrow Hawk) Any assisstence would be appreciated, if this is the right place to ask. Thanks Sides-Daren? (talk) 00:14, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your post here; sure this is the right place for this subject. I had a read of what you have there which isn't much so far. All articles on Wikipedia need at least two independent third party references to meet WP:GNG. Right now you have none in the article, just the FAA registry and a photo website. I did a search and found very little, some more user contributed photos and the FAA registry showing three aircraft registered. Do you have any third party refs, like flight reviews or media reports or profiles? - Ahunt (talk) 00:25, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for replying so quickly, unfortunately I can't find any other references, I was hoping someone here would have access to some. Please could you link the FAA registy source for me. Thank you for your help :) Sides-Daren? (talk) 00:55, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

The new FAA reg site cannot link to individual aircraft results anymore, unfortunately, but I found it at https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/MakeModelInquiry by putting in Model name = SPARROW HAWK MKII. The article will sit in drafts for up to six months and then, if there are no proper refs will automatically be deleted. - Ahunt (talk) 01:02, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Here is a photo from 1988: https://1000aircraftphotos.com/Contributions/BankaBob/12163.htm and here is another example https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_Dynamics_Sparrow_Hawk of unknown date. Not reliable sites in their own right (e.g. we can't cite the date), but if the registrations from the FAA can be identified then I would hope that the photos themselves can be accepted as reliable. So at least we could describe it from these. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:10, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

The index for the 1988 Jane's All the World's Aircraft refers to an entry on in the 1985–86 edition (on page 574)Nigel Ish (talk) 12:24, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

N8728A also appears to have been called the "Highland Sparrow Hawk" and the FAA Website says it was Amateur built by "Hamlin Kenneth" as the "Hamlin Sparrow Hawk". there also appear to have been one British built one G-BOZU. Seems to be very little about the design other than a few images. MilborneOne (talk) 18:46, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Fed G-BOZU into the G-INFO database https://siteapps.caa.co.uk/g-info/ and we can at least confirm that it is a single-engine fixed-wing homebuild design with a typical MTOW of 700 kg. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:36, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

New aircraft page CorVetteCLA

This was recently moved from Draft:CorVette by the author, who is new to Wikipedia. The page has very few references and I am concerned about its notability.

If this is NOT notable, it should be deleted. If it is notable, and you know some good places to hunt for good references, please either add them or put them on the talk page. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 🎄 14:57, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up! It is pretty obvious COI spam and the second time he has created this, as it was deleted in October. None of the external links he put in as refs are about this aircraft variant, but refer to the baseline Turbine Legend instead, so it is not notable. I have tagged it for speedy deletion as spam and left him warnings. Hopefully it will be gone soon. - Ahunt (talk) 15:13, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

...and it is gone. I will keep any eye on it for any attempted recreation. - Ahunt (talk) 15:58, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

But actually, Jingles...this isn't, technically, spam. It's a WP:HOAX - the aircraft doesn't exist. The only hit for "Corvette Aerospace" is a 'This business is incorporated in Indiana' page and there is nothing about 'CorVette CLA'. Not one single hit. This is somebody liking the Turbine Legend and making up their own version one day to post on Wikipedia about. (The fact they list four different engines is another clue...and I do wonder what GM's lawyers would make about the aircraft's name!). - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:37, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Surprise surprise, all three images they uploaded as "own work" to illustate it are copyvio Turbine Legend images too. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:43, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, that is a fascinating development. It can't be spamming if the product doesn't exist. I may have to apologize for tagging his talk page with a COI warning, too. You can't have a conflict of interest with a hoax, now can you? Unless, maybe if you found a way to monetize it, by, say, selling delivery positions for a non-existent aircraft and the customers were confident enough to put their money down because it had a nicely illustrated Wikipedia article. Naw, it couldn't be something like that .... - Ahunt (talk) 22:54, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Gee, if only he had left it in draft and edited it every 5 months, it might have stuck around for a decade or more. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 🎄 23:57, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for deletion of Austin–Bergstrom International Airport runway incident

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Austin–Bergstrom International Airport runway incident. - Ahunt (talk) 20:26, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Need some eyes on Saab 17

User:Tomaten05 is blocking formatting corrections with blanket unexplained reversions a whole host of improvements - some other eyes are needed, thanks. I posted a comment on his talk page but no reply as he would prefer to edit war over spaces. - NiD.29 (talk) 15:35, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Watched. - Ahunt (talk) 15:49, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Linking of country of origin

Due to a disagreement with someone intent on having an edit war with everyone on this matter at Saab 17, I looked through the aircraft project archives and I can't find any consensus - or even a discussion regarding the linking of the country. Worse, a quick survey showed no consistency, as some are not linked (especially the big US and British types), while many others are. I for one don't think this falls under overlinking as then we would have no links at all in the infobox, which would defeat the purpose, on the other hand, there is little reason to provide a link to major countries such as the US and UK, but it might be useful to some for a link to smaller countries. Thoughts? - NiD.29 (talk) 20:22, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

It's a wiki-wide guideline, MOS:OVERLINK recommends that well known countries are not linked, amongst other things not to link.Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:33, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Given that it recommends not linking "well known countries" (well known to who?) I'd honestly suggest applying consistency and linking them - people from smaller countries may find the link useful, and it'd be consistent across all infoboxes in the project (which undercuts arguments against linking them because that's exactly why they insisted on changing the capitalization of bird names some time back). - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 20:57, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

It's useful to readers to have the country linked. Even if you know where Upper Volta is (or was), in English you can never tell where readers are from and someone reading in Africa or Asia may not know where Canada, Brazil or Cuba is. I can't see any drawback to linking in the infobox and it may actually help some readers. - Ahunt (talk) 23:03, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

I can see no harm in linking the country in isolation. It becomes overlinking for example if the country name comes after airport name, city name, state name etc. as it happens in the infobox of accident articles. --Deeday-UK (talk) 00:10, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

In fact the more I think of this the "don't link well known countries" thing feels more and more like a particularly insidious form of systemic bias - how do you define "well known"? What is being implied by a country not being considered "well known"? Somebody with more time and daring than I might want to point that out at MOS... - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:43, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

For most of the aircraft articles overlinking shouldn't be a problem, but I also agree that when accompanied by multiple other locations it makes little sense to link - but the discussion was for just aircraft pages and not all aviation related pages which is a wider more complex discussion. Frequent surveys seem to find that the average American has trouble locating almost any country outside of the US on a map, so it would be hard to say if it is useful or not. Would any visitors be using that link? Agreed that we shouldn't impart unneeded bias by arbitrarily choosing to link some countries and not others. I also notice that the armour project is similarly inconsistent in linking the country of origin. - NiD.29 (talk) 03:23, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

The country may be linked each time in the infobox, but the first sentence of the lead section may prioritise other links: For me, the order of importance for your saab 17 example seems to be 1. it's a military aircraft 2. its role is to be a reconnaissance aircraft and a dive bomber 3. it is Swedish (The country is less important for civil aircraft, or even for military aircraft exported widely beyond its origin as it's less a matter of sovereignty) 4. it was developed by ASJA then produced by SAAB AB 5. its size (single engine, two seats).--Marc Lacoste (talk) 08:32, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

The inconsistency comes from some editors following the guideline and others not, this is nothing new, it has been happening for years (both linking and unlinking). I would suggest that the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Japan are well known countries in the English-speaking world. No wiki guideline wording is perfect, sometimes they are left deliberately vague to allow exceptions or standardisation. The place to discuss the intent of the guideline would be Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking, there are 20 pages of archives there where the topic has likely been discussed before. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 09:41, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

The "well-known to whom?" issue very obviously resolves as well-known to readers of the English language. This is explained in the guideline as "major examples" of countries, with Japan and Brazil instantiated. I would suggest that we can take a "major example" to be a country name which should be familiar to everybody who has English as their first or second language. If we are to go around overturning a wiki-wide guideline for reasons unconnected with aviation, then we should argue the case on the guideline talk page and get it updated; a specialist project like ours is not the place to do that. Until then we should seek to respect the guideline as it stands. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:06, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Which is explicitly why I said somebody should bring it up at MOS... - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:25, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Most readers like having a lot of links, to judge by the many "holy" IP users who repeatedly add them. (The same with flag icons, which are heavily featured in most other Wikipedias.) While I understand "sea of blue" issues, arbitrary terms like "major geographical features" really are too vague to be very useful. It would be helpful to at least have a list of some sort, even if it's systemic bias. (Even having a MOS at all could be considered systematic bias, as could neutrality, etc.) BilCat (talk) 01:11, 31 December 2020 (UTC)