Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft/Engines/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

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Archive 5

Naming

Just to start somewhere, a suggestion for naming text. MilborneOne (talk) 21:33, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Every article in Wikipedia has a name, and most aero-engine articles are named by their manufacturer, then by name and/or designation number, for example Rolls-Royce Nene, Pratt & Whitney R-1340.

Articles should always be named as generally as possible using the common name except for engines with United States military designations. US military designated engines should use the designator and not the name. If more than one engine has the same name then a suffix should be used for the least common engine, for example Rolls-Royce Trent (turboprop).

Agree - Ahunt (talk) 22:09, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely - I have not felt the need to move any articles to a different name so far. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 01:51, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Making a start

I have filled in some of the sections with initial advice, hope it is sensible and not too draconian, feel free to 'tweak' as required! What would be very useful is to promote one engine article to FA to use as a 'benchmark', it would be a WP first and a great achievement. Must repeat many thanks to RL for setting this page up. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 03:27, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Articles with more than one set of specifications?

Some engine articles have two sets of specifications, like the Junkers Jumo 205. Is this necessary or desired? The second set of specs in this article are for the Junkers Jumo 204 (redirects to 205), a very similar engine with a different displacement (and presumably different applications). Perhaps it is a sign that a new article is needed in this particular case. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 02:01, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I draw the same conclusion – this is an article that needs to be split. --Rlandmann (talk) 03:11, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Clicking on '205' in the navbox highlights about six other engines! As long as there is not a notability problem with creating these then I agree. How is the engine page looking now? Thanks for the shortcut, can quote it in 'scolding edit summaries'! Being involved in this mini-project shows the amount of work needed but it is great fun and a learning voyage. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 03:34, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Everything's looking great.

My observation is that successful guidelines are those that try to capture and crystallise what's happening "in the wild"; attempts to prescribe much beyond this are doomed to be widely ignored. I think that so far, everything that's been put forward falls happily into the first category.

I wish I had more time to put into this endeavour right now. If there's one thing that I wish I could lobby for, it would be a reduction in the level of detail that's recommended in engine specification sections. I believe that as currently modelled, it goes way beyond encyclopedic. I think that a literature review is in order to ensure that what we're asking for is not more than an encyclopedia or encyclopedia-type work should contain. --Rlandmann (talk) 13:59, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Great, I don't think that there is a lot more to add to the project page, as you say when it gets lengthy editor's eyes start to glaze over! I've made some good progress with the Russian engines today.

Yes, the specifications templates could have slightly too much detail in them and it takes a long time to complete them if all the information is available. They can unbalance a stub article like the Mikulin AM-42 for instance. I wonder if it would be useful to have an abbreviated version of the 'specs' templates for use in shorter articles, to be replaced later by the full version? True we can just add basic 'specs' to the full template but then you get people like me going round adding the {{Aeroengine-specs}} tag which is sort of a tail chasing exercise. Lightbot has been busy? Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 15:55, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Engines on display/survivors etc

Just an idle thought, the engine articles don't have a 'survivors' or equivalent section. Would we want to include this section or are the articles better without it? I don't think that we would end up with large lists seen in some of the aircraft articles. I have seen one article with an 'incidents and accidents' section which could be fair if the accident was directly caused by an engine failure and it was referenced. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 19:01, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Good idea - should list the places where you can see one on display or in a museum! - Ahunt (talk) 19:40, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think it is worthy. What to call the section? I know there was some recent debate on WT:AIR about the naming of the 'survivors' section which I think came to nothing. 'Engines on display', 'Preserved engines', 'Survivors'? I think it would be ok to include airworthy survivors of the very old or rarer engine types as well. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:21, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

We also had that conversation here. - Ahunt (talk) 20:33, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh yes, back in sunny August! I see why the conversation drifted but the proposed guidelines did get put in to the page content. So it seems it is encouraged to add these sections, 'Engines on display' fits with 'aircraft on display'. No hurry with this as we have the benefit of previous experience with this 'mini-project'. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:01, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I like "Engines on Display" - nice and clear! - Ahunt (talk) 22:10, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I have added that section to the page content guidelines, a couple of articles are using it already. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 11:44, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Looks good! - Ahunt (talk) 15:49, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Yep, I think it works. I wonder if a bot could change all the survivor headers in the aircraft articles? I'm looking at an image of an engine I took at a museum recently but I can't remember what it was, doh! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 16:46, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Not really engines but the Aircraft on display and Survivors are both valid and could be used in the same article if needed. Aircraft on display did not replace survivors just in some instances it was more appropriate. MilborneOne (talk) 17:01, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Indeed the aircraft articles can have both as detailed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aircraft/page_content#Aircraft_on_display, with "survivors" for flying examples and "aircraft on display" for museum and other similar aircraft. Under this same sort of premise engine survivors is possible, but less likely than "engines on display". - Ahunt (talk) 17:38, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Roger, I didn't look at the guideline closely before but I understand it better now, plenty to do in that area. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:35, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Packard V-1650

Would there be any interest in having a variant article for the Packard V-1650? There is an awful lot of info on the Packard-built version on the Rolls-Royce Merlin, much of it choppy, poorly written, and contradictory. I think splitting off and rewriting this info would help to better streamline the RR Merlin page. It's my unferstanding that the Packard-built Merlins differed quite a bit from the British versions, and thus probably do warrant a separate page, and we do often cover foreign license-built aircraft separately, and probably some engines too. Thoughts? - BillCJ (talk) 02:01, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

At 35kb the Merlin page is not strictly at a length yet that WP:SPLIT suggests that a new article is created but under the same guidelines it does recommend splitting if a particular section is getting large. I would think that using the V-1650 redirect page for the article would be a good move, assuming the other Merlin editors are happy. Maybe copy this discussion over there. Lumsden's British piston engines and their aircraft has quite good information on the V-1650 with details of about 10 variants and the aircraft applications for them.

He treats the Merlin like this 'Rolls-Royce Merlin', 'Packard Merlin' and 'V-1650'. He makes the statement 'there were not really major differences between British and American Merlins' although it is clear that were lots of minor differences. Another statement that might be useful is 'The engines built specifically for use in American aircraft were properly called V-1650s......' Treated this way only information on the V-1650 should be split perhaps with Packard's Merlin development and information on the contract arrangement explained in the new article. This image File:Packard Merlin V1650 7 2.jpg would be good for the infobox, Lumsden calls this engine a 'Packard V-1650-7 Merlin'. I would lean toward creating a new article for this notable 'variant'. Hope that helps. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:41, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Wow, thanks Gary! I'll wait a few days and see if we get any other comments, then I'll probably make a formal Split proposal on the Merlin talk page. If you've no objections, I'll incorporate some of your info into the split rationale. - BillCJ (talk) 17:58, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I hope that I wrote the info clearly enough. There is a little bit more, Jane's Fighting aircraft of WWII has first run dates and some other lead-in information and says that 'The original Merlin 28 was built under the designation V-1650-1' in the section on Packard. Contradicting the above it says that the V-1650-1 was fitted to Mosquitos and Lancasters (both British and Canadian built). I cant see any reference to licensing at the moment, more of a war time production agreement through necessity with Lumsden stating 'a memorandum was agreed in June 1940'. It can get murky in these situations but hopefully we can help in this case. Better have a look at what Bill Gunston says about the V-1650! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 18:25, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear! Gunston says 'the V-1650, a totally redrawn Americanised Merlin' in the RR section but slightly contradicts himself in the Packard section with 'the company mass-produced the Merlin as the V-1650'. Not helpful. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 18:33, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

So....! I went back to Lumsden's book (which is very thorough and presumably correct) and there are no non-American aircraft applications given by him for any variant of the V-1650. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 18:42, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Except....! Canadian built Lancasters according to his application annex. The mists of time! Should be useful for the new article though. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 01:06, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've proposed the split. THanks for the participation of all, whatever your view. - BillCJ (talk) 12:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Applications section

Some of the aeroengine articles, such as Bristol Centaurus, have the Applications section after the Specs rather than before it. As such, it comes right before the See also section, which might not be a bad idea. Following RL's recommendation to consider "in the wild" formats, is this a better format, or does it work best after Variants as suggested in the guidleines. (The latter format is what I have been following.) - BillCJ (talk) 12:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry that I've not been about lately, been in bed with flu and off work. 'Applications' in the upper sections more closely follows the WP:AIR/PC layout (although there is no 'applications' section for aircraft) and also leaves the lower sections (from 'Spec's downwards) identical in layout. I have been moving the 'applications' sections after 'variants' in articles where it was not that way already. Sometimes I have made a combined section 'Variants and applications' where the list is relatively short and info is available on which variant of engine powered a particular aircraft type. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 13:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Variants and then applications, all above the specs makes sense to me. The specs tend to signal the bottom of the article for readers I think, more the "technical stuff" rather than the prose descriptions. - Ahunt (talk) 15:14, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with both of you, but I wanted to see what others thought first, rather than just change it as I have been doing. So I'll go ahead and tame this "wild" format! Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 19:46, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Go Bill! Rope 'em up and ride 'em out! - Ahunt (talk) 20:01, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

To be fair there were no guidelines before this mini-project/taskforce started, I'm all for standardisation, it makes editing easier for one thing. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:19, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Project publicity?

Another idle thought (I have lots of them!). Should we publicise the engine project on the main 'aviation' and 'aircraft' talk pages? The tab has appeared and there is a short line on WT:AIR but it might not be obvious that a new sub-page has started. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:40, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Mercedes and Daimler-Benz

As far as I can tell, Mercedes was owned by Daimler when the aeroengines were produced. When Daimler merged with Benz in 1926, the aeroengines were then produced under the Daimler-Benz name. Shoukd we perhaps merge Template:Daimler-Benz aeroengines and Template:Mercedes aeroengines? This is how several other smaller templates of merged companies are handeled, such as Template:Garrett/Honeywell aeroengines. Also, Curtiss' and Wright's separate aeroengine businesses were merged in 1931 under Wright, so it's possible we could merge Template:Curtiss aeroengines and Template:Wright aeroengines too. Just asking. - BillCJ (talk) 02:35, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

As always these latest navboxes are a 'work in progress', being created only yesterday. I created them after realising that we had few navboxes that covered the WWI era engines. They were created using Jane's Fighting Aircraft of WWI as a guide, this is a reprint of the 1919 edition. It was not entirely easy as many engines at that time did not have designations or names but were known by their manufacturer and horsepower rating instead. At the same time I scooped up any engines by the same manufacturer up to WWII which are hopefully not duplicated in our existing navboxes. There have been company merges of course which makes the task a little bit harder. In the specific case of Mercedes, the company was called 'Mercedes-Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft' in 1919 according to Jane's and the articles in that navbox use only Mercedes as the manufacturer.

As a sidenote, I saw that many of the parent company articles, which are (or were) very often vehicle manufacturers, give little acknowledgement or coverage of their aviation background although they do have aviation related categories. Have noticed this before with articles like Rolls-Royce Limited. This could be improved in time.

Back to the navboxes, I am using the spirit of the advice given in the essay Wikipedia:Navigation templates. This advice would indicate that some of our existing navboxes which cover more than one company e.g. Template:Garrett/Honeywell aeroengines or contains a very large group like Template:RR aeroengines should be split into smaller navboxes. I don't necessarily agree with that, it is up to us to make the call which is exactly what we are doing here. The advice again suggests that smaller groups should be merged if it can be sensibly done, I do agree with that. Being aware of the problems of 'navbox clutter' or 'creep' I believe that this relates to the number of navbox templates in a particular article rather than the number of navboxes available to choose from. There is one piece of advice in there about the use of red links which we all seem to disagree with. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 11:41, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I do agree that fewer bigger nav boxes are better than more smaller ones. Some articles, like Beechcraft Model 18 have a dizzying array of nav boxes - that must baffle the casual reader! Of course some boxes are probably physically bigger than is necessary, like Template:USN_utility_aircraft. - Ahunt (talk) 13:04, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Love the Beechcraft example, that is classic! Sure enough if we don't sort it out soon there will be 'navbox police' appearing over the horizon, although in that case it is an aircraft rather than an engine. Too big or too small we will just have to use best judgement in each case. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 13:25, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I think you are right there. If the nav boxes get out of hand, particularly for number more than size then I think they will be attacked by some committee or project sooner or later. PS I couldn't find an engine with quite the proliferation of boxes that the Beech 18 has! - Ahunt (talk) 13:38, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

The most I can see is four navboxes in an engine article with a great number just having two, if we can keep it under this we should be ok. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 14:08, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the ideal would be two boxes - the manufacturer and the generic "aviation lists" box. That also keeps both of them "closed" and therefore less obtrusive. As long as you can keep it away from the ten boxes that Beechcraft Model 18 I think we will be fine! - Ahunt (talk) 14:11, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

(undent) When we were busily implementing navboxes earlier this year, I noted the problem of navbox proliferation on types like the Beech 18. The solution would be to make the navbox collapse in groups; so that if there were more than (say) 3 designation boxes they could collapse together into a "Designations" navbox, and if there were more than (say) 3 manufacturer boxes (starting to happen on aircraft built under licence by a number of firms), then these would collapse together into a "Manufacturers" navbox. It's definitely do-able, so since the issue's come up, I'll get to work on it!

FWIW, the USN navboxes are long by design. This designation system seems to cause a lot of confusion, due to it being counter-intuitive to those who've never been on familiar terms with anything but the USAF-style designations that became the norm after 1962. This was painfully obvious when replacing the old "sequence" parameters in the "see alsos" of Navy aircraft articles. By explicitly splitting the manufacturer codes to their own lines, I hoped it would be clear that, for example, F4B is not followed by F4C, but by F5B! That being said, if anyone can think of a way of ensuring that point is made, while reducing the overall size of the box, I'd certainly be glad to hear it. --Rlandmann (talk) 03:08, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Easier than I thought; the "shell" is at {{AircraftDesignationNavboxShell}} and you can see examples in action at Beech 18 and C-130 Hercules. --Rlandmann (talk) 03:43, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Looks good, RL. Thanks! - BillCJ (talk) 04:10, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

It does look good - less daunting to the new reader! - Ahunt (talk) 13:25, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Aeroenginecontent template

Nimbus created {{Aeroenginecontent}} to see how it would look and work in articles, and I think it works well.

RL, would it be possible to combine the functionality of {{Aeroenginecontent}} into {{Aircontent}}? The only divergent field is "similar engines". This would simplify the use of the See also section templates within WP:AIR, and enable all changes and tweaks to be made to just one template. Currently, {{Aeroenginecontent}} is used in less than 50 articles, so converting them to {{Aircontent}} now should be simple and easy. I know you're busy, so I don;t expect it to be done quickly, assuming it can be done amd that WP:AIR wants to do it. Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 04:10, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

It was a trivial addition, so I've just gone ahead and put it in place. You can see it working at Rolls-Royce Merlin. --Rlandmann (talk) 05:46, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Good fix on the navboxes. I did not think to alter the 'aircontent' template originally, I'm really not very good at all with template coding. If we replaced all the in-use 'aeroenginecontent' templates then it could be deleted as redundant. I will change it on the engine content page now. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 09:00, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Gary, I thought of changing it myself too, but by making a separate template, we got to see how it looks in the articles, and we could have decided to make further changes in a different direction. I've redirected {{Aeroenginecontent}} to {{Aircontent}} for the time being, but I am trying to change the engine articles as I come to them on other edits. There is not that many of them, so it should just take a few days even without trying hard. Then we can tag it for deletion. And thanks RL for the quick work! - BillCJ (talk) 10:17, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Great, I'm all for 'economy of effort'! Still not feeling good but I'm fit enough to type. Will have a trawl through the articles and replace the template. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 10:36, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

There are just two talk page links left to 'aeroenginecontent' now, it can be dealt with as required. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 12:49, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Aircraft rocket engines

A quick look at some of the British aircraft rocket engines reveals some problems that need fixing. The Bristol Siddeley Gamma is interesting with multiple infoboxes and the 'commons link' at the top of the article. I stacked {{Infobox Aircraft Begin}} above {{Infobox rocket engine}} in de Havilland Spectre to tidy the image position but this is causing code/display problems with the lower infobox. There was a short discussion about the 'non-standard' rocket engine infobox here: [1]. I don't believe that we have a Template:rocketspecs for specification sections which makes it harder to tidy these articles. Some of these engines were not used in 'aircraft' as such and may fall under the rocketry project (if there is one) but I am willing to have a go at tidying them given the right templates. Thoughts? Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 14:33, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I've had a good go at the Walter HWK 109-509 rocket engine article, I had to use the 'jetspecs' template which is not ideal but hopefully it looks better.Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:52, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I've just built {{rocketspecs}} based on our existing {{pistonspecs}} and {{jetspecs}} but incorporating the fields from {{infobox rocket engine}}. The only significant change in parameter names has been to change "fuel" from {{infobox rocket engine}} to "fueltype". I've left in a couple of parameters only relevant to solids. I can only immediately think of two aircraft powered by solid rockets (and they were one-offs unlikely to have engines that we can/should document), but others here may know more.

I changed the HWK 109-509 article over to this template. Note that WP:AIR is really the "odd one out" around Wikipedia in presenting specifications in this way (rather than in the article's infobox), so this template shouldn't be used outside of articles describing rocket engines exclusively used to propel aircraft...

"For the record", I think that this template provides for far more detailed specifications than an encyclopedia article should contain, but I believe the same for our piston and jet specifications! --21:20, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Walter Aircraft Engines

I just ran across the Walter Aircraft Engines article, which is suprisingly good, though it needs more citations. However, en.WP does not have an article on the Walter M601, arguably Walter's most significant engine. The only interwiki article on the M601 is at de:Walter M601, on the German WP. It seems to be a fairly good article, and while it has no citations, it does have a few ELs. I'll try to check my Gunston in the next few days, and see if it has enough to start a page, along with GE's page on the M601H-80 variant. There are two M601 images on Commons, one of which is in the German article. If someone could look at the German page, and perhaps do some translation work, that would be a great help. Thanks as always. - BillCJ (talk) 09:57, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

I've made a start at Walter M601. - BillCJ (talk) 10:39, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Good spot, might need another navbox there. Merry Christmas BTW! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:28, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Something to watch out for

While checking links to the new Walter M601 article (see above; and thanks Bill - one that's been overlooked too long!), I came across a large number of links to this and to other Walter engines that had been broken by piping them to the article on Walter Engines (ie, by doing this: [[Walter Engines|Walter M601]]), presumably in an attempt to avoid a redlink. Most of these were the work of a lone contributor, but a prolific one who seems to have done this kind of thing quite systematically.

When creating new engine articles or doing significant work on existing ones; it's worth checking the "what links here" on the manufacturer's page to try and identify this kind of pipe problem. I've seen more than one contributor doing this. There are few articles on aircraft types that need a link to the manufacturer of their engines; any that show up in the manufacturer's "what links here" should normally warrant further investigation. --Rlandmann (talk) 09:41, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, RL! The German page of the M601 was pretty good, and gave me a head start. I even borrowed their Lead, suitably translated by Google. Thanks also to Milb1, who filled in much of the text during my sleep period. It's this kind of cooperation that makes editing and creating articles fun, enough so that I stay despite the other problems I may encounter, such as this one! Merr Christmas, and Happy New Year! - BillCJ (talk) 10:02, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Just been looking at Lycoming Engines links which suffer from the same problem, rather than have a red link the manufacturer is linked. Just one question when an engine has a sub-variant I normally enclose it inside the piped link Lycoming IO-360-A1B6 but it sometimes appears outside the link Lycoming IO-360-A1B6 do we have any preference or does it not matter ? MilborneOne (talk) 10:08, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Looks better all piped I think, we could pipe to the 'variants' section if there is one using the '#' trick. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 10:22, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree that best practice is all piped; I know that when I haven't done this, it's been pure laziness :) --Rlandmann (talk) 11:16, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

I am guilty - I will fix 'em when I find 'em. - Ahunt (talk) 13:29, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Busy today!

It's all happening and I am struggling to keep up! I noted that we had not added {{US military piston aeroengines}} to all the articles yet and there is the odd redirect in there which needs fixing. I was a bit hesitant with it around some of the general aviation engines like the Lycoming O-360 and have not added it. It looks like some of those engines were not used by the military? Can't be sure. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 18:37, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we have to be carefull the military dont normally use the same designation twice, are we sure the Lycoming O-360 is a military designation as it appears to be used by the Continental O-360 (as in O-2 Skymaster). The engine companies use the same type of designations but may not be military. Perhaps we need a reliable source for the Lycoming O-360 being operated by the US military. MilborneOne (talk) 18:48, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I think Bill has catered for that with a 'C' or 'L' suffix in the navbox. My worry with a big navbox like this is that someone might question the reference source (I'm sure there was one), it might be safer to put a note on the template talk pages in future for our own peace of mind. I was bit hesitant, not being au fait with the US mil engines. I think the manufacturer's decided to name all their engines with a US mil convention as it would make sense if they were then used for a military purpose, just a hunch. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 19:04, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

You have to remember from days of old that the military are not that clever and couldnt have two things with the same description. Just a thought they cant just add an -L or -C. Unless one was obsolete, sorry not convinced I think we need a us mil documentary source. Dont worry about adding the template when it is obviously related to the nav box. MilborneOne (talk) 19:11, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Another minor worry (I am worrying too much today!) is that the navboxes often don't match the text (because it hasn't caught up yet), the de Havilland Gipsy Major was or is the L-375 apparently, I like to see that bolded in the lead to crosscheck the navbox. I think it's just a matter of time until we can fix things like that. I think Bill added the 'L's and 'C's for convenience but I could be wrong, we do have to be a bit careful with these bigger templates. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 19:18, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

On the L/C, I needed something to disambuate between the two engines, and I thought adding the company names would make the kisting too long, and detract from the others. The US military system did, and still does, use manufacturer letter codes in the engine designations, such as R-2800-P and F-100-PW. I know I tried to confirm the L and C before adding them, but I can't remember what I found. It's possible they should use a two-letter code. The whole navbox is basically listing hte US military system for piston engines, as US companies now use the format, tho there may be no one body that oversees these. Anyway, unless we were to find a definitve list of all the designations actually assigned by the US military, I don't se how we can differentiate betwwen the "official" and company-assigned designations. As far as sources for the list, most of them come from the company articles, and are really common knowledge anyway. Also, I agree with bolding the listing in articles titles under other names or designations - I think this is consistant with bolding alternate names per MOS. - BillCJ (talk) 19:31, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I have this big list bookmarked but it's not entirely clear which were actually used by the military. It might be safer to remove the obvious non-military engines for the time being or slightly more devious we could adjust the name of the template so that everything can stay, just a thought. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 19:42, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

It can be worked out to some extent by looking at the applications list, the Lycoming O-540 has the Hiller UH-12 (which is a redirect, there is no end!!) as an application for instance. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:04, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Hyper engine

I am posting this here instead of the article talk page for wider coverage. I have never heard of this term and can find no reference to it on the internet or in books. This article is four years old with no references, is that a WP record?! I fear that it is all original research but stand to be corrected. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Gary, in my edition (2006) Gunston's Aero Engine Encyclopedia, the entry on Continental has a brief mention of "hyper" engines towards the three-quarter mark of the article, and a big pic of the IV-1430 on on of the last pages of the entry. It should be in your edition too. Most of the other "hyper" engines listed are in teh book too, but without the word "hyper" used in most cases. The article certainly needs proper sources, but I think we can find some to strat anyway. Considering the article has been there since 2004, I'd be find with cutting it back to only what we can source now. - BillCJ (talk) 00:24, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I've got it now, as I read it 'hyper' relates to a type of cylinder. Are the quotation marks Bill Gunston's? As you say it only relates to Continental and the IV-1430. I still think this article is mostly OR and opinion. Been having fun with the categories, we have three for Russian engines just in case! Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 00:36, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Rolls-Royce Merlin

There is a discussion ongoing on the Merlin talkpage [2] concerning how (and how many) power outputs are given in an engine article. All friendly stuff, I just want to check that I am on the right lines with how we deal with this potential problem. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 14:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Pratt & Whitney R-2180

I created the Pratt & Whitney R-2180 page today, but have since found some information that is somewhat conflicting. Some sources state that the R-1280 was the Twin Hornet, and it was used on some designs in the mid-30s, notably the Douglas DC-4E. On the other had, there appears to have also been a R-2180-E Twin Waps E, which used the cylinders of the R-4360, and was used in the Saab 90 Scandia. Are these 2 versions of the same basic engine, or 2 differnt ones witht he same displacement? Btw, the Saab 90 Scandia ariticle could use some work to bring it inline with the WPAIR page content guidenlines, but I'm hesitant to modify it myself, as much of the work was doene by a user I've had "ownership" problems with before. - BillCJ (talk) 21:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Seems to be the same engine renamed, the R-2180 entry here helps I think. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 23:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Gary! I don't know if that's considered a reliable source, so I will see if I can find something more authoritative. Gunston mentions it twice in his Encyclopedia, but leaves the impression it's the same basic engine. So it does look like 2 versions of the same engine, with the R-2180-E basically being an updated and modernized version incorporating improvements from the R-2800 and R-4260, with "half-a-4360" being an apt description of the Twin Wasp E. I'll try to work someting in without using too much OR/conjecture! It does sound like an intriguing story,and I would liketo learn more. - BillCJ (talk) 05:54, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

It is confusing, it's difficult to see why some of the P&W range were called wasps and others hornets, in real life a hornet is bigger than a wasp but that doesn't seem to work here. Must have been confusing for the mechanics at the time. Hope that you get to the bottom of it. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 13:45, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

(Side issue): I believe that Aerofiles qualifies as reliable; major contributors include Walter J Boyne and the late Pete Bowers. There's a procedure to have it recognised as such; which is on my "to do" list! :) --Rlandmann (talk) 06:48, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Duplicate articles?

I think that Fairchild Ranger and Ranger L-440 are the same engine, extra text info in the first one but it's unreferenced. Merge? Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:20, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Although they talk about the same engine the Fairchild Ranger is just shorthand for an number of engines made by Ranger Aircraft Engine Division of the Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation. Do we know that only the Ranger L-440 was called the Fairchild Ranger? It may be better to make Fairchild Ranger an article about the company. MilborneOne (talk) 21:31, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I concur that the Fairchild Ranger article should be retooled to cover the Ranger Aircraft Engine Division/Fairchild Engine Division. I'm not certain what name is best, as Ranger was apparently used in the 30s and 40s, and Fairchild in the 50s. Perhaps Fairchild Ranger Engine Division, or even just leave it where it is? - BillCJ (talk) 21:55, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I thought we had Ranger already but we don't, Janes call the company 'Ranger Aircraft Engine Division of the Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation' which presumably was the full title, Bill Gunston calls it 'Ranger Engines Division' (established 1936) and mentions a (postwar?) Fairchild J44. The Ranger navbox has the 440 and 770 as shown in Jane's WWII, (called Ranger L-440 and Ranger L-770) no other Ranger engines given in that book. Agree to turn the first one into the company article (merging the engine text with L-440?) but I have very little on that subject. It is fun working out things that happened 70 years ago and a challenge but it is important to someone no doubt. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 23:17, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I've started the process of converting Fairchild Ranger to a company article, and even linked it in the 2 Ranger engine articles, and in Fairchild Aircraft. I still have no clue what to name it yet. I've found as many references for "Ranger Aircraft Engine Division" as for "Ranger Engines Division", some referring to the exact same events! The company appears to have been renamed "Fairchild Engine Division" sometime between the end of WWII and the 1950s, but I've found no firm date as yet. Also, Ranger engines were produced before 1936 when the Engine Division was formed, but I'm unclear on exactly who produced them! It seems to have been by Fairchild from about 1931 onwards. Anyway, I've made a start, and hopefully we can find some sources that clear up some of the ambiguity. - BillCJ (talk) 08:54, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Well done, it's a tricky one. I had a trawl through the Flight archives and found this from 1935 where they call the company the 'Ranger Engineering Corporation', another name! Some engine details in there which might be useful. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 11:25, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Here is the FAA TCDS for the '390', titled FAIRCHILD ENGINE DIVISION FAIRCHILD ENGINE AND AIRPLANE CORPORATION (excuse the caps, I just pasted it in). Ranger is not mentioned until the model name - Fairchild (Ranger) 6-390-B. It's not getting any easier! I think that Fairchild Ranger is probably the best place for the company article and overview of the engines which is what we have. Maybe a new redirect page for 'Ranger engine' (or similar) to point here would be useful. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 11:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I plan on creating redirects at Ranger Aircraft Engine Division, Ranger Engines Division, Fairchild Engine Division, and Ranger Engineering Corporation, but after a week or so just in case we want to move the articles to one of those names. Also, during Google searches, I found a number of mentions for the Fairchild J44. Interestingly, the manufacturer code is given as J44-R, not F! I'll try and get something started on that engine soon, as it was used in several applications. - BillCJ (talk) 20:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Good source

I found a page of Flight in a search of their archives that has some great info on aeroengines. The page is at [3]. Looks like there might be more info before an after this page. Some of you may have already used this issue as a source, but I'm posting it here just in case. - BillCJ (talk) 03:30, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

That's a particularly useful one as it often references bigger articles on the engine at the end of each section. I wonder if we should agree on a standard way of citing the Flight archive, perhaps create a cite template? What we are seeing is individual pages of the magazine but I tend to write 'Flightglobal online archive' in the reference tag where quoting the magazine date and page number might be better. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 00:55, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I found a similar page in a 1970 edition, so I guess this is normal for Flight. Still some great info! - BillCJ (talk) 06:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

On citing I found Template:Cite flightglobal which is only being used in one article at the moment as far as I can see. Citing the link above would look like this: ^[1]

^ "Aero Engines-1959". Flight International. Reed Business Information. 1959. Retrieved 5 February 2009.

A potential problem with it is that the year is linked (current subject of an ArbCom case), that could be fixed by someone who knows template coding. Good idea? Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 08:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

One of the problems with templating this is that the name of the journal changes, as well as probably its publisher.

That aside, since it's a journal, it should indeed be cited as such, including the date and page numbers of the articles. As far as page numbers go, the inline citation should refer to the specific page number that the fact was found on, while the entry in the References list should show the full range of pages for the article or story. See this in use here, for example. --Rlandmann (talk) 10:56, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Engine notability

I'm thinking of creating articles on some engines that did not fly but definitely existed and are well referenced, someone may ask 'why is this engine notable?' Would the essay at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Notability cover this (reading 'aircraft engine' for 'aircraft' perhaps with a note on the engine article page content guidelines referring to this? We have some already, like the Rolls-Royce Crecy. Just thinking out loud as usual! Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 00:32, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

In Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Notability#Coverage notes, it states:

It does not provide criteria for imaginary, fictional,[3] or hypothetical aircraft, but does cover aircraft currently under development as well as abandoned projects and design studies where the resulting aircraft would have been covered by these guidelines had it been completed.

I think that would be the best guideline this situation, adding that engines for the aircraft not completed would probably also be notable (such as the engines of the XF-103, and other paper designs). Also, we might add that engines designated to be used by certain aircraft, but in the end replaced for some reason or another. These would include the "hyper" engines of the 1930s and several Westinghouse turbojets (J40 and J46) which fell by the wayside while in development, leaving manufacturers scrambling for other powerplants. - BillCJ (talk) 04:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Aeroengine manufacturer links

This one might be better discussed at WT:AIR, but I think it's best for us to get on the same page here first.

My question is: When should we link to the engine manufacturer's page within aircraft articles? First mention in the text? Specs? or both? As an example, this: Pratt & Whitney R-1535? or this: Pratt & Whitney R-1535?

I don't really see any single pattern in any of the aircraft articles, and often there are no links whatsoever. In a few cases, only the manufacturer is linked, and sometimes the engine is piped to the manufacturer, as we've discussed before. I'm nont suggesting we systematically change all aircraft articles to a new standard, but when I am editing aircraft articles, I am trying to add links to the newer engine articles, and I don't really know what method would be best.

If I had to stake out a position, I'd choose putting the company link in the Specs, and leaving it out of the text in order not to have as much link clutter in the main text. Thoughts? - BillCJ (talk) 04:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that (in general) the connection between an aircraft and the firm that manufactured its engine is tenuous enough for a direct link to be just more clutter. If a reader gets curious about the engine manufacturer, it's just one more click to take them there via the engine article. --Rlandmann (talk) 05:10, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

For engines I tend to link the manufacturer in the lead and the infobox because some readers might have a different starting point in an article, aware that it could be taken as overlinking as the links are quite close together, I get round it a little bit by often piping the full company name in the infobox and using the short form in the lead. For the aircraft I would expect to see the engine linked at the first mention in the text and then once again in the specs, I would not expect to see a link to the engine company unless there was some kind of joint development relationship between the companies or other good reason for linking. By clicking on the engine link you get access to the company article pretty quickly anyway. I saw something like this yesterday: 'The Bristol Jupiter' instead of Bristol Jupiter which I would say is overlinking. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 11:49, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, that works for me. One minor point: Is there any objection to inclunding a link to the manufacturer when there is not an article on the engine? (And I don't mean piping the engine link to the company!) - BillCJ (talk) 10:58, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Garrett TPF351

I have started a page on my userspace at User:BillCJ/Sandbox/Garrett TPF351, to give myself some time to get this article ready. This engine was developed for the Embraer/FMA CBA 123 Vector, but both were cancelled. I have some books coming by next week that should give me some more info to add, particularly with dates and history data. I found some excerpts on Google Books from The History of North American Small Gas Turbine Aircraft Engines. The chapter on Garrett, and especially the part on the TPF352, seems very good, but not all the pages were visible through Google Books. The book is quite large, and relativley expensive, but since I'm now doing alot of work on aeroengine article, it is time to get it. If anyone would like to help out on the sandbox page, have at it. There also seems to be some good info in the book on Contintal's gas turbine business, so I hope to start on them soon. Most of their gas turbine engines were built under license from Tubomeca, so I'll probably be making variant articles for these engines to begin with. - BillCJ (talk) 10:58, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Consistency question

Something that is not entirely clear in my mind is how to use the words 'aero engine' here. There are several variations such as 'aero engine', 'aero-engine' and more rarely 'aeroengine'. Bill Gunston uses 'aero engine', Lumsden uses 'aero-engine' and the Oxford English dictionary gives 'Aero-' (of aircraft). I am erring toward the dashed version. Could always use aircraft engine but I think it looks better in the British engine articles. Is (or was) aero-engine a term used in the US? It's a minor thing but I thought I would ask. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:48, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. I'm not sure either. - BillCJ (talk) 02:36, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I doubt it, simply because the British spelling doesn't seem to be very popular in the US, even back then... on the other hand, for the British pages, I'd say "Go with whatever sounds right." Magus732 (talk) 06:49, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

UAV Engines Ltd

The Sikorsky Cypher used an engine made by UAV Engines Ltd. A search on WP shows that several other UAVs have used their engines. I looked at their website, and it seems quite interesting. A single article on the company, along with brief summaries of the engines, would probably work for the time being, as the engines probably aren't worth separate articles at this point. Does anyone want to tackle this one? I don't mind doing it, but I'd have to do some reading up on it, and it would have to wait a while. Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 02:36, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Boeing turbine engines

I'm currently trying to put together info for the new Boeing T50 (Model 502) article. While I was aware that Boeing had made a turboshaft engines in the 1950s, I did not realize that they had a turbine division which existed for 25 years! It's a very interesting story, with Boeing finally ending the turbine program in order to focus all of its investments in a new civilian airliner project. They probably made the right decision, as that project became the 747! The question is, where do we put the info on the turbine division? Boeing itself has several articles, but I'm not sure if this info really fits in any of them. We could make a separate article for the company, or palce all the info within the T50 article, since that was the major production engine, and all the other models were closely related to it. Thoughts? - BillCJ (talk) 23:37, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Hey that is great stuff! I would say that if that will be the only aircraft engine article on a product from them then it can all go in that one place. If there will be two or more engines from that company then we best have a separate company article or "division section" in the main Boeing article and a nav box, too of course! - Ahunt (talk) 23:54, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Navbox brings up another question: Is there a suitable navbox already, or do we creat a new one that will all link to one article? All the engines were related, basiacally Model 502, 520, and 550 (T50 and T60). Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 01:48, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I would say if all those engines are related than one article should probably do it, which the different model numbers as "variants", then you wouldn't need the nav box! It looks like the only Boeing nav box is Template:Boeing airliners, perhaps this could be modified to include the single engine article in it? - Ahunt (talk) 14:55, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, there are at least six (perhaps more) Boeing navboxes:

I think Template:Boeing model numbers, which currently covers only aircraft, could be expanded to cover other Boeing model numbers. The engines were in the 500 series, and there was/is a 600 series, which IIRC was for missiles. I once saw a breakdown of the series, but I can't recall where. I'll see what I can find out. - BillCJ (talk) 19:48, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, If added the engines to Template:Boeing model numbers, making two groups for now (aircraft and turbines). I think that will be the best fit for the engines. I also combined Template:Boeing combat aircraft and Template:Boeing support aircraft into Template:Boeing military aircraft‎, as Groups now makes the combined template more manageable than before (it was originally one template). I'm really not certain Template:Boeing 7x7 timeline is of any real use, but that's a discussion for elsewhere. - BillCJ (talk) 00:39, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

That works! It looks better that way, too! - Ahunt (talk) 01:22, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Rocket engines

In the list of aircraft engines, should rocket engines be classified as a type of jet? --Rlandmann (talk) 19:51, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

According to the FARs:

"Rocket means an aircraft propelled by ejected expanding gases generated in the engine from self-contained propellants and not dependent on the intake of outside substances. It includes any part which becomes separated during the operation."

The Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms defines:

"turbojet engine. A form of heat engine that produces thrust by accelerating a relatively small mass of air through a large change in velocity. A compressor in the front of the engine compresses the inlet air, and fuel is sprayed into this air and burned. The heat from the burning fuel expands the air and forces it out the back of the engine in the form of a high-velocity jet of hot air. The air leaving the engine flows through a turbine which extracts energy to drive the compressor."

Rocket engines are not jet engines. - Ahunt (talk) 01:40, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Agree that rocket engines are not "turbojet" engines, but that is not what is being claimed. From the definition above, "ejected expanding gases" can be taken as meaning a "jet of expanding gases". - BillCJ (talk) 18:56, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I looked around at a lot of sources to try to answer that question. The Dictionary of Aeronautical terms is no help, neither are the FARs. Transport Canada's CAR 101 Interpretation says:

""rocket" - means a projectile that contains its own propellant and that depends for its flight on a reaction set up by the release of a continuous jet of rapidly expanding gases; (fusée)"

That seems to imply in the broadest sense of the word that a rocket could be considered a "jet". - Ahunt (talk) 20:13, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it also depends upon what type of rocket engine as well... in the cases above, it's clearly a means of propelling an aircraft... for a rocket projectile, I would say "no, the motor is not a jet"... That's just my personaly opinion, but when I think of a jet, a rocket seems to fit that category, albeit only in a broad sense... on the other hand, the "jet" nozzles used on the turbofan engine of the Harrier are called "jets", but they do not propell the aircraft forward the way the main engine does... again, I think it depends upon the application of the word "rocket", not the word "jet"... Magus732 (talk) 04:22, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Continental Tiara series

Do we have existing articles on the Continental Tiara series of engines from the 1960s and 70s? I have found mention of the engines in several articles, but without any links. Continental/TCM spent a great deal of time and money developing this series, though it seems to have had few applications. I understand that there were several sizes of engines, and they could probably all be covered in one article if no articles exist already. - BillCJ (talk) 18:56, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Bill: The FAA Type Certificate database doesn't turn anything up under "Tiara" - did they have displacement designations? - Ahunt (talk) 20:07, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Is it the Continental 6-285 = http://www.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgMakeModel.nsf/0/1376f796a5b3e1d58525670e00481fc2/$FILE/E12ce.PDF MilborneOne (talk) 20:16, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

The article Teledyne Continental Motors does mention "1972 6-285 Tiara 285hp@4000 (4.875x4.625 = 406cuin) and 6-320 320hp high output engines; dropped after 1978." but it isn't sourced. - Ahunt (talk) 20:23, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Pretty drawing of a Tiarra 6-285 http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1974/1974%20-%202043.html MilborneOne (talk) 20:57, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Well that tells us somethings about it, including that the TCDS you found is the right one! It sounds like there may have been more engines in the series, though. - Ahunt (talk) 21:09, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds like the right ones. There were at least 2, perhaps 3 or 4 engines in the series. - BillCJ (talk) 00:14, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Engine variants order

Posted on my talk page:

FYI, the variant listings on engine pages are supposed to be ordered first by power output from least to greatest, followed by alphanumerical order, not the other way around... please keep these pages consistant with each other... thank you... Magus732 (talk) 22:18, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I believe that putting the variants in alphanumerical order, which I beleive is how we've done it in the past, is far more intuitive. The second way is to list them by tear, but that info is not always available. Comments? - BillCJ (talk) 00:14, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Alphabetical: Frankly, if I was looking for a particular engine in a list and it was in any order other than alphabetical (and/or numerical) I would get pretty annoyed if the list was of any length. I've done more than enough trying to find particular items in unordered lists over the years and I have low tolerance for a non-intuitive list order. If people really want to order the list some other way, perhaps it can be put in a table so that it can be sorted, but the default order should always be alphabetical. Just my 2c, of course. - Nick Thorne ^talk 02:14, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Power Output: Personally, when I look for an engine, I think in terms of the plane that it goes with, not the model number... for example, the main Wildcat versions, F4F-4 and FM-2, used 1,200 hp and 1,350 hp engines, respectively... since those models came later in the war, the later versions, logically, would have more power than earlier versions... while I'm not against an alphanumerical sorting scheme for them, it seems to me that the oldest version, i.e. those with less power, should come first, then in order of model number... I certainly wasn't trying to step on anybody's toes when I pointed it out... My preference: power output first, model number second. If others think we should go the other way, will I abide by that standard? Most certainly, yes. Magus732 (talk) 03:40, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Power is not necessarily chronological, as many newer engine models have less power than older models, espcecially when dealing with combat vs. non-combat aircraft, or engines with both afterburning and non-afterburning modles. Granted, alphanumerical order is not always chronological either, especially in US military engines with Army/AF odd numbers and USN even model numbers. Also, there will be cases where engines are separated into variants families, and I've no problem ordering those headings by the best method for that group, be it chronological, alphanumerical, or even by power (such as an afterburning group). - BillCJ (talk) 04:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree that a standard should be reached... my concern is that if they're put in an order too different from existing pages, people will get confused as to how to order them, just like I did... maybe we should put them in family groups; certain engine numbers will have water injection, for example, while another model of the same output might not... Magus732 (talk) 04:34, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I cant see any reason why the variants should not be listed in alphabetical/numerical order the same as aircraft. MilborneOne (talk) 21:14, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely! Alphanumerical order is the easiest and most straightforward choice for both readers and editors. This is essentially an index to our content. --Rlandmann (talk) 21:17, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I disagree, mostly because that's the way it's been done as long as I've been here... You look as a lot of the Wright engine pages, and they were ordered by power output before I even added to them the first time almost 6 months ago... I guess I'm just use to seeing them that way... Magus732 (talk) 05:00, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Well, the consensus is clearly for alpha-numerical oreder. Magus, you are welcome to ask for broader input if you wish at WT:AIR, or another relevant project. - BillCJ (talk) 06:35, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

No, that's alright... now that I think about it, it does make more sense... Magus732 (talk) 06:43, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Wright Whirlwind

The Wright Whirlwind article was quite a mess, being at once an overview page, while covering variants models with their own article in some detail, and being the sole page for the R-975]]. The article had been move at least two times before, the previous home being Wright R-975. I've reverted back to this page, and removed all the info of the other variants. The history is still somewhat muddled, and needs to be focused on the R-975. I'll have to do some research to work on that, but in the meantime anyone else who is familar with this variant is welcome to help out. I've recreated the Wright Whirlwind as an overview page, using the Pratt & Whitney Wasp Series article as a pattern. I've left out the complicated variant tables and applications lists, as such info is better covered in the variant articles. I anticipate that the main user responsible for adding the variants and specs tables may object at some point. He seems to be a regular editor on WP, but his main venture into WP:AIR has been with the Wright Whirlwind engines.

Also, there is no article on the Lawrance Aero Engine Company, so I'll try to do something on that in the future. - BillCJ (talk) 06:35, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Done: Lawrance Aero Engine Company‎. - BillCJ (talk) 20:15, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Object? Ha! I thank you for saving me from a bunch of work! :D

Seriously, I totally agree with your assessment of the former state of the Wright Whirlwind article. I had begun to break out individual versions into their own articles, starting with the R-790 and R-540, with specs and applications moved into the detailed articles, and I had planned to leave Wright Whirlwind as a family summary page when I was done. But I never finished the job--real life intervened with a vengeance, and then my attention was distracted by other things.

Again, thanks for your work, and sorry that you had to clean up my mess. I'm sure there are still improvements that can be made, though I'm not sure how much I can contribute at the moment, since my interest has most recently been captured by Project Mercury.

By the way, I'm not sure I'd call myself "a regular editor on WP"; "irregular editor" seems more accurate. :) --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 08:44, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome! I totally understand about "real life" intervening. I've had to leave a few projects undone myself, and as you said, there is still more work to be done on the Whirlwind series. One of the good points of WP is its colaborative nature, and that it actually does work - most of the time! Cleaning up each others' messes is par for the course here. And by "regular editor", I meant you weren't a newbie, a single-issue user, or an editor who edited for wwhile, and then disappeared completly. But "irregular editor" works too! :) - BillCJ (talk) 16:23, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Engine task force in the banner?

The question came up that the Engines task force isn't in the project banner. Is there enough interest there to create its own parameter, assessment categories and other items. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 18:13, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, judging from the feedback I got just on the subject on variant order, I'd say "yes"... Magus732 (talk) 03:50, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Engines in the banner

Engine articles now have their own parameter in the project banner. If you want to help, hunt down every engine article and switch them over from |Aircraft=yes to |Engines=yes . - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 04:18, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Aircraft engine

I have had a user asking why I removed an external link from Aircraft engine, apart from being the wrong place for a citation rather than an external link it looked as it did not appear to be relevant to a general overview article. Here is a copy of his/her message:

Hi MilborneOne. On 18 March I edited Aircraft engine by adding a link to an external website with an article about fuel mixture theory. The article is dedicated to reciprocating aircraft engines. On 19 March you deleted the link, commenting that it dont appear to be relevant to a general overview article.

I am curious as to why you did that, and why you classify Aircraft engine as a general overview article. In particular, I am curious as to whether you read the article Mixed Up About Fuel Mixtures?, or whether you simply read the title. I will assume you did not read the article before deleting the link, but please let me know if my assumption is incorrect.

In my experience, the world-wide web contains a surprisingly small amount of authoritative information about aircraft engines. I have been working closely with the article Mixed Up About Fuel Mixtures? and found it authoritative, credible, and well-written. I assume that many readers interested in reciprocating aircraft engines will find Mixed Up About Fuel Mixtures? very useful. It is certainly one of only a few web-based articles dedicated to aircraft engines that are both simply-written and credible.

You have written that Aircraft engine is a general overview. The article is certainly comprehensive, covering fuel, all manner of shaft engines, turbine engines, diesel engines, and all manner of new designs of aircraft engine. However, it also refers to hi-tech concepts such as octane ratio, tetra-ethyl lead, and others that defy the classification of general overview. I don’t agree that Aircraft engine is so elementary that it has been improved by deleting the external link to Mixed Up About Fuel Mixtures?

Aircraft engines presently has only three external links, and only five in-line citations, so it is definitely short on citation of suitable sources of information to ensure verifiability of the article. External links are valuable to Wiki editors because they enable in-line citations to be created, pointing to readily-accessible sources of information.

If you agree with me that denying readers of Aircraft engine access to Mixed Up About Fuel Mixtures? has not improved Wikipedia’s coverage of aircraft engines, I would appreciate it if you would restore the link.

Best regards. Dolphin51

Any chance of a second opinion on this please. Thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 12:20, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

To best comply with WP:EL it really belongs in the EL section in the article Air-fuel ratio, but then it is already there!! "Wikipedia is not a collection of links" - because it is already in one article, which is the most relevant place for it, I say it should not by in Aircraft engine. - Ahunt (talk) 12:58, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Concur with its removal from Aircraft engines, and I almost removed it myself when it was added. (It was gone when I looked again a few hours later.) It is far too specific a topic for a general article which covers all types of engines and uses of aircraft engines, not just recip enginess. - BillCJ (talk) 23:34, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I could see it being used in the Aircraft engine article as a reference for statements made about fuel/air mixtures in reciprocating engines, but no such statements exist. Binksternet (talk) 01:08, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Engine article redirects

As a minor contribution to revising the Piper PA-40 Arapaho article, I searched for Lycoming IO-320, expecting to find either an article at that title, or to be redirected to Lycoming O-320 or a similar title. Instead, I was redirected to Lycoming, which is now a DAB page. Checing the history of the IO-320 page, I found that the article had been AFDed in Jan 2006, with the result being Merge to the Lycoming company article (evidently it was at Lycoming at the time, but I haven't checked for fear that it wasn't!). The rub is, Lycoming O-320 was a stub article at the time, but apparently the AFDer never even thought/knew to check for it! Other than venting, I'm posting this so we can be aware that there might be some other credible engine titles out there that redirect to the wrong place. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 17:51, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Glad you found that! Good points all around! - Ahunt (talk) 21:52, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be a general lack of understanding of what to do with redlinks across WP, which can cause problems as Bill has found here, the matter needs a higher profile. I've got some glider redirects for deletion going through at the moment and the redirect project doesn't seem to understand the problem either. They say unlink the text so it is black!!??!! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 23:19, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Red links are not bad!! It is all there at Wikipedia:Red link: "A red link, like this one, signifies a link to a page that does not exist in Wikipedia. Sometimes it is useful in editing article text to create a red link to indicate that a page will be created soon or that an article should be created for the topic because it would be notable and verifiable. Furthermore, academic research conducted in 2008 has shown that red links help Wikipedia grow." Sounds like a good argument to me.- Ahunt (talk) 00:50, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

We know that but the 'newbs' don't so they fill redlinks like my dog eats sausages! On the bright side I don't think there are any major redlinks going the wrong way, must get back on to the missing engine article list soon. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 01:00, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your points on redlinks, tho to be clear, there was an suitable article to redirect to in this case. WP has a type of redirect page calle "Redirect with possibilities" for possible articles, but the links look the same as normal redirects; as such, I rarely use them, and they doo seem to be rarely used by others. To me, a different color, such as green, might be useful for such redirects. but that's something for the coders to work on. I had once suggested green for date links, as it would help to distinguish date links from regular links, but to no avail, so I'm not certain I'd get anywhere with this one either. - BilCat (talk) 01:34, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Russian Wikipedia engine navbox

This might help anyone who might be working on Russian engines [4], a little difficult to decipher but it is of some help, they don't seem to use the manufacturer in their article titles but clicking on an aircraft link helps to work out what they are! I've got a Russian piston engine book on the way which should help to expand our coverage. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 19:04, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Pratt & whitney GG4

Aero-engine Pratt & whitney GG4 ? not clear from text. MilborneOne (talk) 18:18, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

It looks like it's an aero-derivative engine, which were had been discussing here not too long ago. I am of the mind that those can fall under the influence of the aircraft engine team, but I'm not sure if there was consensus for that. -SidewinderX (talk) 18:23, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

OK I did add an aero-engine task force banner to the talk page which should be removed if it is not considered within the remit. Not sure who else looks after marine and heavy plant use of basically aero-engine designs. MilborneOne (talk) 18:41, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The GG4 appears to be a Pratt & Whitney J75 derivative. It should be at Pratt & Whitney GG4 at least. The FT4 appears to be related, so it might be best to ocver them together, but I'm still researching it at the moment. - BilCat (talk) 18:49, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Found some linkes with info: here, and here. FT4 and GG4 are related, there also being the JT3 based FT3 and GG3. FT stands for "Free Turbine", and GG for "Gas Generator", but I'm not informed enough to understand what the difference is in practical terms. These engines do appear to be classed as Aero-Derivative Gas Turbines. While there was no clear agreement in our previous discussion that Aero-Derivatives clearly fall within our purview, there was some consensus that we should look after them unil some other project claims them. If nothing else, we at least know how to clean up these articles, provide sources, establish notability, etc., so that they don't get deleted. We could call it the "Aero-Derivative Engines Workgroup", which would allow other projects to participate, and isn't as formal as a task force. Anyway, well see if any other projects "discover" this new article, and see what happens. - BilCat (talk) 19:07, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I think I found the reason for the mis-capitalization: Pratt & Whitney GG4 is on the title blacklist. I have no clue why its there, or how to get it removed from the blacklist. On possible reson is that it was a spammed/promotional article in the past. - BilCat (talk) 19:13, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I've had a little look, there is some info on the P&W website about the FT4 but not much. Also not sure how they work, GG or gas generator implies that it runs as a turbojet with the gases driving a separate turbine, makes sense as you would need a big clutch otherwise. The FT seems to operate as a turboshaft turning a generator. Just found Rolls-Royce Marine Trent which has been adopted by the ship project, chances are though that we would understand the terminology better. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 19:33, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems like, from this discussion here, that the FT4 and the GG4 could reasonably be covered in one article, as they seem to be derivatives of the same engine. At least until there is enough information to break them apart. As for the blacklist thing... that's wierd! - SidewinderX (talk) 19:52, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Turbo- and supercharging in aircraft

Should there be a new article about aircraft turbochargers and superchargers? One that brings both concepts to the same application?

I'm copying part of a thread from Talk:Rolls-Royce_Merlin#More_review_thoughts:

[I] Have not actually looked at the supercharger article yet, if it doesn't curently cover what we need then it can be expanded using all our ref sources. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 19:32, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

The supercharger article has not satisfactorily addressed the variations and uses by military aircraft for at least two years. It definitely could use some work by experts—not me. Binksternet (talk) 20:13, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Not me either although I did attend a five-week aircraft piston engine theory and practical course about 10 years ago, would have to dig out the notes! I've had a quick look at that article now, it does appear to cover the basics and has an aircraft section, it is quite thin on references though and could well be wrong in places. It's one of those strange articles that deals mainly with road vehicle applications and has a section on aircraft use. It has been tagged as coming under the aviation project and more recently been adopted by the aircraft engine task force. I suspect if we try to turn it into more of an aircraft engine related article that the automobile/car contributors would complain. It's possible that we could create Supercharger (aircraft) but then others might complain that it is an unnecessary split. Would need to be discussed there but I think we do owe it to readers by using the supercharger link that they get what they might be expecting to see i.e. much more information. There's just too much to do sometimes! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:49, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I like your idea of starting Supercharger (aircraft) or maybe with another title that includes turbo, and letting the ground-huggers have their article back. The advantage would be that supercharger and turbocharger could come together under one application. I'm not certain, but I think that there were some aircraft charging systems (perhaps on Allisons?) that included a little of both methods: shaft-driven superchargers augmented by exhaust-driven turbine chargers. If that notion of mine is correct, no article on Wikipedia appears to explain it. Binksternet (talk) 21:45, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Pasting in the latest post:

(Edit conflict) Great. I just ventured into Talk:Supercharger, very 'interesting'! I see the split proposal has been mentioned before. There are obviously a lot of misconceptions in there. Sounds like it is time for an Aircraft superchargers, turbochargers turbo-superchargers and other thingies article. Something useful I did get from that discussion relevant to the Merlin article is the use of ejector exhausts, currently not mentioned at all and should be included with a possible mention of their other use for gun heating. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 22:00, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I think the short answer is 'yes', would volunteer but I don't want to get sidetracked with the Merlin push at the moment. Perhaps any and all supercharger/turbo charger text found on WP could be put in a sandbox somewhere as a basis to start from. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 22:07, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

(Undent) I note that Turbo-supercharger is a redirect to Turbocharger, it's a device in its own right and does not appear to be mentioned in 'Turbocharger' except in passing reference. Power recovery turbine was an early British term for the turbocharger (could be made a redirect). Amazes me that these devices are not well covered in the 3,000,000 articles we have now. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 22:25, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

As I recall, about a year ago another editor used information from a book on the mechanics of aircraft engines which seemed useful; errr...back in a few minutes...yep, Circlingsky mentioned this "Aircraft Power Plants by the Northrop Aeronautical Institute published in 1955 by McGraw Hill Books" (http://openlibrary.org/b/OL6157802M/Aircraft-power-plants) in Supermarine Spitfire variants: specifications, performance and armament.

I have since seen a copy; this book has a great deal of general information which would be useful to articles on aircraft superchargers, fuel systems etc.Minorhistorian (talk) 23:50, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

As I jet engine guy, I only hesitantly offer my thoughts ( ;) ). I think an "aircraft turbo/super charger" (suitably renamed) article would definitely have a place. You can leave the brief mention of aircraft uses in the main article and include a link to the new aircraft article. My two cents. -SidewinderX (talk) 00:24, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Concur thaat we need an article dealing with thie subject as related to aircraft. As to a title, we might ask around, and do some searches - their is probablay a good umbrella title for the topic out there somewhere, which would save us trying to re-inventhe wheel. Aircraft engine supercharging might be a workable title, as, if IIRC, the technical term for compressing the incoming air prior to it going into the cylinders is "supercharging". The original term for a turbocharger was "turbo-supercharger", which was shortened to just "turbochrager"; the original then came to be used for a supercharger with both mechanical and tubine drives. Btw, GE was a well-known turbocharger manufacturer when it got into the turbojet business. They actually developed their own turbojet before receiving a license to manufacture Whittle engines, though it was not successful. Their later axial-flow TG-180 and -190 series engines were not based on the Whittle, and owed much to their turbocharger experience. - BilCat (talk) 00:54, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we need two new articles: one entitled Turbo-supercharger (turning the redirect into a real article) and one with a name that somehow encompasses all the augmented aspiration systems used in piston-driven aircraft. The latter, notional, article would, of course, draw from Supercharger#Aircraft, Turbocharger#Aircraft_applications and the not-yet-written turbo-supercharger, but would include discussion of engine design choices where decisions were made to go with one of those solutions instead of another. Binksternet (talk) 02:55, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Just found this unassessed article Centrifugal type supercharger to be considered if and when the articles get merged. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 18:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

And another: Roots type supercharger, not used in aircraft AFAIK. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 00:31, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent) Given the recent "discussions" at Talk:Supercharger#Lots of completely unreferenced material, it might be best if we put this off for several months or years. We certainly don't need tenditious editors (one in particular) interfering in any more articles than the already do! - BilCat (talk) 05:36, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, when the dust settles (which I agree could be some time!) there is a chance that there will be some useable material remaining. I did try to calm it down a couple of times, we'll give it a wide berth for the moment. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 09:55, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but since when has been trying to improve an article been tenditious or interfering? If you find it acceptable that an article completely lacks references fine. I made the original comment for very good reasons - unreferenced material can be removed by anyone for any reason, no matter how accurate. Instead of being helped in this I immediately found myself being attacked as a vandal, tenditious or interfering; considering how much I have tried to contribute to Wikipedia I find this reponse bloody insulting! I will not touch the Supercharger article again if that is what will make people happy. Minorhistorian (talk) 12:49, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe the editor mentioned is not referring to yourself. No one from this task force has criticised your input there to my knowledge, we are simply noting that the article is currently unstable and is not in a good position for us to easily split it or include it in a new aircraft oriented article. My comments on the talk page were requests for all involved editors to 'take a breather', I don't believe that I criticised anyone directly.Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 13:58, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Rolls-Royce

The main article Rolls-Royce plc has a list of aero-engines and so has List of Rolls-Royce engines. The list also tries to list every application for each engine. The engine articles also list application. Not sure we need a list in the main article and in a separate list, also not sure we need to list all the users of each engine in the list. Any thoughts, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 14:16, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Good points. I believe that the list in Rolls-Royce plc was already there when the navbox was added, I would think that the navbox is more accurate/up to date which makes the list somewhat redundant. I didn't know that List of Rolls-Royce engines existed, very few articles link to it. The applications sections of each article now include most if not all of the aircraft involved, again making this redundant. The Rolls-Royce Limited article has an ongoing problem with excess car images (article should be about the company, not just the cars or engines). There is a Rolls-Royce aircraft piston engines article which is a supplemental overview article that is useful. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 14:39, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Thielert Centurion

I've just made some improvements to the "Centurion Engines" article, icluding moving it to Thielert Centurion per WP:AIR/NC, and adding photos and an infobox. Currently, the article text has absolutely no citations, though there are some sources in the external links. I did remove a lengthy comparison section of the Centurion 1.7, Lycoming IO-360-M1A, and Lycoming O-320-D. While very interesting, again, it had no sources at all. The specs should be easy enough to source, but there was quite alot of text in the section also, much of which was probably synthesis. Also, such a comparison section, complete with an ad-hoc table, really seems beyond the scope of an aero-engine article to me. I don't know of anything like this on the mainline aero-engine articles that most of us edit. I do expect some opposition to having removed this section, including possible reverts. I'm posting this here, rather than on the article's talk page, to get the Task Force's opinion as a whole first. Some of our members may disagree with the removal, which is fine. However, such a section might be useful in the aircraft diesel engine article, suitably referenced, of course! Given our discussion above on the that article, I felt it better to start the discussion here. - BilCat (talk) 06:20, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Just had a look at it! Good work! The comparison chart was not justified there, it had to go. I'll have a run though and see what can be done to copy-edit and perhaps find some refs. - Ahunt (talk) 12:57, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Looks much better now. Also, I looked at the Thielert company page, and it's quite a mess, with lots of press releases about the insolvency, but nothing on the apparent restructuring in April 2009, per the new “CENTURION Aircraft Engines AG & Co. KG” \ webpage. Looks like we'll need a new article on Centurion Aircraft Engines, assuming this is still current! If so, a article split on the aircraft engines page might be warranted in the future, keeping the Centurion 1.7 under Thielert, and putting the 2.0 and 4.0 on separate pages uder Centurion. The more I learn about all this, the less I know! - BilCat (talk) 18:16, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

It may all turn out to be a "past tense" issue, depending how the company makes out in bankruptcy! - Ahunt (talk) 18:20, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Some of the excrement has now been removed from this article. - Ahunt (talk) 23:11, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I can check with a friend who recently did a course with them and remarked that they had gone bust just after he got back from Germany! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 23:17, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Much of the insolvency mess at Thielert is my fault. I just added the new company info there (thanks Bill!). The new company doesn't look like it is building engines, just marketing the ones being built by Thielert, from the ref cited. As usual with these complex bankruptcies what I have done is added text and refs as they become available, acknowledging that at some point in the future (usually when it is all over) that the text can then be assessed to see what proved to be important and what was just a red-herring. Hopefully then the text can be pared down and the refs retained. - Ahunt (talk) 23:28, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent) Thanks, Adam. I understand how it works, and it wasn't a criticism of anyone in particular. It had just gotten to the point were a lot was there. - BilCat (talk) 02:49, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

No problem at all - it should be criticized - it needs some work. Let me see what I can do to consolidate things there! - Ahunt (talk) 12:25, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to take so long to get to this Thielert project - I blame the delays on nice weather! Regardless I have cut down and consolidated the insolvency section somewhat, while preserving the existing refs. Please do have a look and see if more needs to be done to create a coherent story there. - Ahunt (talk) 15:09, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Continental Tiara series sandbox

I'm going to be working on a sandbox for the Continental Tiara series at User:BilCat/Sandbox/Continental Tiara series starting today. I have a book on order that should have more info on the specific model breakdown, and what's I get that info. I'll go love with the article. We had a pervious discussion on the Tiara series at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft/Engines/Archive 1#Continental Tiara series, so I won't duplicate that here. Any help or sources would be appreciated. There are some illustrations (drawings) of the engines in teh FlightGlobal archives, and I beleive we are able to use those now, though I don't know for certain. Thanks! - BilCat (talk) 15:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Are these the range that Rolls-Royce built under license? I know there was a discussion here involving the Flight 'main man' sometime ago but not sure if anything came of it, he was intending to make the archives PD. I have uploaded some Flight images tagged as non-free to be on the safe side and also only use them if I'm 99.9% certain that none of the type exist today. The Brit engine articles with no images are ones where I know they exist in museums which is a bit frustrating!! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 15:48, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I know RR built some of these under license, but they built other Continentals too, like the O-240. The Tiara series had odd designations like 4-180 and 6-285 (I'm not certain on the actual numbers), which were apparently based on number of cylinders and power output. I hope the book I'm getting will explain it more. - BilCat (talk) 15:55, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

If you can find refs that would be great! I wasn't successful finding the type certificate data sheets. - Ahunt (talk) 16:14, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I think this TDC] is for a Tiara, the 6-285. - BilCat (talk) 16:24, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Two aircraft fitted with them in the UK? [5] Seem to call the aircraft 'Tiara', can't be right. Not tried the EASA website, bit of a minefield, they might look after documentation now if they were RR built. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 16:25, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Some Robin HR100s did have the engine, according to the WP HR100 page. I've found several articles on WP of aircraft that either used the engines, or in which they were proposed. (This is the search.) - BilCat (talk) 16:31, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I finally received the book I ordered, and it has less on the Tiara series than the books I already have! So, looks like I'll be looking for more sources before going going forward with the article. - BilCat (talk) 17:20, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Just had a quick look in, I'm having minor internet connection problems but will get on it, the specs are for a six cylinder engine. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:23, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Found this accidentally in the Flight archive [6], might help. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 14:44, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Action

Remains a redlink. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 00:16, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Salmson

Some confusion caused by the current Salmson 9 article has resulted in a discussion on my talk page here which has prompted me to apply some 'love' to the range of Salmson engines! I have info and photographs to create the articles, I mainly want to confirm that the article title format (seen in the trial navbox) will be ok and that the suggested move of Salmson 9 to Salmson 9 Series (or Salmson 9 series) would also be ok. Hoping to get to the Science Museum (London) this week to get some more photos, hope the light is better than the RAF Museum at Cosford last week, the sodiums caused some very strange tints in my snaps! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:22, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Action

In progress (sort of) by me! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 00:44, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Merlin FA

Fellow engine task force members, we have our first Featured Article [7]. I am pretty well 'chuffed' to use a British expression! The process was not easy and I did not expect it to be but with some perseverance it can be done (I'm not going to do it again soon though!). Could I ask if it is not on your watchlist already to keep an eye out for 'IP adjustments'. As Jim Bowen would say 'Super, smashing, great!' Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 02:01, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Congrats!!! I'm happy for you (and us ;) ). Now you're going to run away with the October aviation contest. :p -SidewinderX (talk) 02:04, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I don't think so on the points front, FA should be 1,000 points! I'm not a woman but having witnessed three births the FAC process is conceivably harder (Mrs Nimbus might disagree there though)! I started editing the article almost two years ago, it is a very long road but when a quality article appears it is all worth it. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 02:38, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Great work, now we just need to figure out when it will be on the homepage and standby to fight the inevitable vandalism that results - great fun! - Ahunt (talk) 13:11, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Just had a look here and it appears that the featured articles don't appear on the main page automatically, there is a whole new voting process for that. We should be safe for a while yet! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:48, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Amazing - a process process? - Ahunt (talk) 21:43, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

We need more processes! Looks like some editors ask for an article to be viewed on a certain date which makes sense, beyond that I dare not look!! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:59, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Feels more like a gearbox to me - 1st gear get the article started; 2nd gear get it up to something approaching B; 3rd, 4th; maybe it's a BMW transmission with 7 gears...or a Lexus with 8! Automatic double clutch voting process? Minorhistorian (talk) 22:46, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

More like the cogs of a windmill on a calm day!! As long as it stops them getting bored then why not! Meanwhile back in 'engine land' do we have any outstanding problems from discussions above? I hate to archive things if they have not been resolved. The bot does not seem to be working or the time period is still too long. Might manually archive tomorrow (today now actually) if there are no objections. Do we have any particular neglected area of the task force coverage? I think that we are ship-shape, there are some new engine articles out there that might need updating and possibly some projects that have been cancelled, I really don't keep up with modern developments. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 23:38, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I've been trying to keep up with some of the more recent stuff... Bill and I came up with a whole list of engine development programs that deserve an article here, and that's in the back of my mind to work on, as well as several Russian jets. I keep getting distracted by the Flight Archives... I've been reading through the 1956 aero engines listing... hence my recent Westinghouse kick... -SidewinderX (talk) 23:57, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Archiving again

We do go on don't we!! I have started archiving manually, adding an action note in each post. I am tempted to ditch the bot and do it ourselves, that way we can keep unresolved posts open no matter how old they are, especially 'Fun stuff'! Only thing to watch is when a thread does get closed that it is archived chronologically with the others. I have plain deleted some minor project notices, don't see the need to archive them. Hope you folks are happy with this, cheers. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 00:37, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Tagged a few more threads with ticks, they can go to Archive 2 if you would like to help (crossed eyes here!). Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 00:55, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Aircraft diesel engine

An IP added alot of OR material to the Aircraft diesel engine per this diff. Some of the material is POV, and really hard to follow in places. I reverted it as uncited OR, but wanted others to look and verify my opinion. Perhaps some of it can be salvaged. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 02:30, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

The original creator noted that it was a 'split' and needed cleanup and that is exactly what it looks like still. No lead, no infobox, no images and concentrates on the companies and some exploits rather than describing the metal bits with pistons! Shame, as the article title is relatively high profile but the contents don't really tell the reader much. Will see if I can have a 'dabble' with it. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 00:56, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! It is looking much better. - BilCat (talk) 02:30, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I couldn't moan about it and then leave it! Does have some structure now. I know Mark Wilksch and remember flight testing of a Europa XS at my home airfield with one of his first diesels, used to leave a big trail of blue smoke in the sky!! Another friend has just done a course with Thielert as he maintains a large fleet of Diamond Stars and Twin Stars. Probably something in Gunstons 'Development of Piston Aero Engines', will have another look later. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 09:18, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I've added a bit more about the Soviet engines.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:37, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Allison J102

Just created Allison J102 but very little info. Any help appreciated. MilborneOne (talk) 19:44, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Had a quick look, it's not showing on the Rolls-Royce website or the Rolls-Royce Corporation website (which doesn't seem to have a search facility). Might remain a mystery for a bit this one! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 19:56, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Might be the same engine or closely related to the Rolls-Royce YJ102R? and possilbly related to RATTLRS !! MilborneOne (talk)

(Edit conflict) From the Flight report it seems that it was the AQM-37 Jayhawk that they were going to develop the engine for, I guess the need has passed and it was cancelled. Does the YJ102R appear anywhere? Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:24, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Plenty on the YJ102R and quite recent as well, sure to be more to come. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:33, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

The J102 was a Mach 3.5-capable cruise missle engine developed in the late-80s/early 90s by Allison as the GMA 900. There is information in The History of North American Small Gas Turbine Aircraft Engines. See this link on Google Books for the first page, then click onto the next one. The book's info stops in 1993, ~~but it doesn't mention the AQM-37 Jayhawk - that missile is propably from the late 60s/early70s~~. The J102 was considered as a replacement engine in the AQM-37, but that wasn't it's only planned application. From this Flight article, it appears that the YJ102R is probably a development of the J102. As such, we should add info on the YJ102R to the J102 page. - BilCat (talk) 20:42, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

More info on the J102 here. Also, the Google Books entry I linked to is for page 601, then it goes to p. 603. There is more info on p. 602 about the engine. I do have a print copy of the book, which is well worth the price to get one. - BilCat (talk) 20:54, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I think that if we add info on the YJ102R to the J102 page, it should be moved to Rolls-Royce J102, Given that we have more info available on it, and it is more likely to see testing, if not production. Even if the engines are not the same, one is clealry derived from the other, as far as I can tell, and the YJ102R is being developed by LibertyWorks, RR's "skunk works"-type outfit at the old Allison facilities. I'll keep searching on FlightGlobal to see if I can find something specific about the relationship between the two models. It's possible that Jane's may have info on this also. - BilCat (talk) 06:58, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Do you think we should move it now or wait to find evidence of a connection? MilborneOne (talk) 11:27, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

When I get into work tomorrow I'll see what I can find on Janes... I can look through AIAA papers as well. - SidewinderX (talk) 00:58, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Milb1, let's see what Side finds on Monday. I think the shared designtion is proof of some kind or relationship, along with the high speed design, and I would move it on those bases if nothing to the contrary is found. We can always split the article later if need be, Allison J102

Rolls-Royce J102R being the likely titles. - BilCat (talk) 04:28, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Ok, so digging around a bit on Janes... I can't find anything there about the "J102". The YJ102R is mentioned several times, but doesn't have its own article. The YJ102R is being developed for the "RATTLRS" (revolutionary approach to time-critical long-range strike) hypersonic UAV. It appears to be a combined cycle engine (a topic that I have in my mind to improve here at wiki) that is supposed to perform at Mach 4+. It apparantly has completed an initial test Jan '09 article. Some articles on google news seem to imply that it is derived from the J58, and that it will have six times the specific thrust of that engine. It appears that Lockheed Skunk Works is responisble for the vehicle. That's what I found. -SidewinderX (talk) 11:49, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Anyone have any other thoughts about adding the YJ102R stuff to the J102 article? And whether or not we should rename it "Rolls Royce" rather than "Allison" -SidewinderX (talk) 11:37, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Don't know much about this engine but it seems sensible to include any related information in one place. On naming, there is no guideline apart from the 'common name' principle WP:NAME and our own advice on the task force page. It is usual to use the first manufacturer or designer in the name which causes much fun in the British jet engine articles! One way of getting round it is including the engine in all the manufacturers navboxes, Armstrong Siddeley Viper is a good example. Rolls-Royce Pegasus is strictly an incorrect name by this thinking but I'm not about to change it, they would have built far more than Bristol anyway. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 12:02, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

My argument for changing it to "Rolls Royce", or really "Rolls Royce YJ102R", is that the YJ102R has a much larger future ahead of it (and even more available information) than the Allison J102. -SidewinderX (talk) 13:30, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm easy, just to note that Rolls-Royce is always hyphenated. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 14:01, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Advanced Affordable Turbine Engine

The Advanced Affordable Turbine Engine (AATE} demonstrator program looks to be the next big thing for US Army turboshaft engines. It appears to be an offshoot of the Integrated High Performance Turbine Engine Technology program, for which we do have a stub.

These are other possible articles:

Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP), the eventual engine for production as a drop-in replacement for the T700, 3000 shp class.
General Electric GE3000, GE's entry
ATEC HPW3000, ATEC's entry
Advanced Turbine Engine Company (ATEC), a 50/50 joint venture created in 2007 between Honeywell Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney Military Engines; PWC will not be involved [8]
Future Affordable Turbine Engine (FATE), 6,000 to 7,000 shp class, to replace T55 in the CH-47

These are some sources I've found so far:

The AATE article should probably be the first one created; the others can use materail from it as a split as more info on each of them becomes available. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 21:58, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I've found a fair amount of stuff on AATE on Lexius Nexus, I'll contribute when I get a chance. Now that you've brought it up, there are other big current projects going on that could use articles...

ADVENT (ADaptive Versatile ENgine Technology)
HEETE (Highly Efficient Embedded Turbine Engine)
INVENT (INtegrated Vehicle ENergy Technology)

-SidewinderX (talk) 00:45, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Concur. The first two are mentioned (but not covered) in some of the sources I gave. I think the J102R is related to the ADVENT program, but maybe not a part of it. I remember seeing something about it while searching for YJ102R info last week. - BilCat (talk) 01:37, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, I've started a a sandbox to make the AATE article here. Right now it is just the IHPTET article copied, but I'll start modifying it. Feel free to contribute. -SidewinderX (talk) 12:32, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

So I've basically got a decent stub going right now. However, I am starting to confuse myself with the AATE and the ITEP programs and how they're related. Basically I need to read the ITEP solicitation, which I've got, but it is poorly formatted (nj gov't :/). Can anyone shed some light for me? -SidewinderX (talk) 15:26, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Per this, ITEP is the production engine follow-on to AATE. AATE is basiclly a demonstrator engine. I don't know if ITEP will involve a competition and downselect, or if it is just for the winner of AATE (assuming ther is to be a winner - I'm not sure). Hopefully the solicitation will makes thing more clear. - BilCat (talk) 16:36, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The plot thickens... the AATE seems to be under the overall umbrella of the Versatile Affordable Advanced Turbine Engines (VAATE) program, which also seems to encompass ADVENT and HEETE. It might be good for us to make a VAATE article. ADVENT will be important too. This might be a decent source for some of this stuff [9].

Back to the topic at hand... I think the article is coming along nicely, and I'll probably post it to the wikiworld in the near future... I don't know how to do redirect pages, but we should probably set up redirects for AATE, HPW3000, and GE3000 to this page once it's up. -SidewinderX (talk) 17:52, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Ok, the article is now like here. I've looked through all the sources I have, and right now it basically encompasses all the information I could find about the program. If you can find more somewhere, please contribute it! -SidewinderX (talk) 11:55, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

(undent again) Ok, I've gone ahead and written an article for Adaptive Versatile Engine Technology (ADVENT). Can someone read through it and give me a little feedback? Thanks! -SidewinderX (talk) 14:39, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Daimler IIIb aka Mercedes D.IIIb

Does anyone have details of this engine? Despite the similarity of its name to the Mercedes D.III, produced in large numbers with variants like D.IIIa etc. it seems to have been quite different in layout. The D.III was a straight six, whereas what information we have suggests that the D.IIIb was a Vee-8.TSRL (talk) 16:46, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I've got Jane's WW I fighting aircraft which has a reasonable engine section, there doesn't appear to be any German V engines in there, Gunston doesn't mention it either. They all appear to be inline six-cylinder jobs. I thought that we had duplicate articles originally with Benz, Daimler-Benz, Austro-Daimler and Mercedes engines but I think they are actually different types. I really am not sure of the relationship between these companies, I know that we discussed merging the navboxes which might make it clearer, should be in the archive of this page. It most likely did exist, finding the info is the tricky bit!. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:05, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I just had a quick search in the German Wikipedia, the Daimler D.III appears here [10] but is described as an inline six. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:26, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

More German Wiki, this [11] suggests that the Daimler D.IIIb was a V engine, shame that they have not written an article on it yet. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:42, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I've been trying to look through the flight global archives (they go back that far), but I'm being frustrated by the lack of search options. If anyone has more patience than me, go for it! -SidewinderX (talk) 21:52, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The search engine is a bit tricky and it throws up strange results, however the release of the Flight archives was a revelation and is now a brilliant resource. The editor came to the aircraft project and stated that he would like to release all the images (or the archive) before a certain date to the public domain, I don't think that it was followed up or involved licensing difficulties, which is a shame. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 22:38, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

So here's is what purports to be the "Benz Bz IIIb" and that looks like a V8 to me. -SidewinderX (talk) 01:42, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Nice pic! Yes, the BMW case is the proof that small changes of notation don't have to mean minor engine tweaks. ThE BMW III was (Gunston) a straight six but the IIIb that Vee 8. I've had a quick scan through Kay's Junkers book (the index is not great) and cannot find the Mercedes IIIb mentioned, though there is a pic of the J9 with what seems to be a BMW IIIb. One website mentioned the Mercedes engine in passing (no sources, of course) suggesting it was not very successful.TSRL (talk) 09:35, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Getting warm there! Must be a good book about that could help with these early German engines? Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 23:25, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

One book I'd look in if I had it is Jane's AWA 1919, since it is not "time filtered" and less successful motors may not yet have been dropped. John Taylor's Jane's Fighting aircraft of WWI is not contemporary but might be worth a scan. Any lucky owners out there?TSRL (talk) 08:37, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I've got the second book, some engines get several pages of coverage including technical drawings and others get one line! All the German engines that I can see are inline sixes in there, I am confused by the BMW ref above, do we think that it is a BMW now?! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 11:15, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

No, I think he was saying that the BMW III (an unrelated engine) proves that a slight nomeclature change (III to IIIb) can actuall be a big difference. In fact, maybe it was standard procedure to name a V8 variant of an engine the "b" model..... —Preceding unsigned comment added by SidewinderX (talk • contribs) 12:20, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

The first sentence above is what I meant. TSRL (talk) 10:47, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Not a reliable source http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/aircraft/23406-hisso-engines.html mentions the Mercedes D.IIIb and a number of other engines were an attempt to develop a powerful V-8 engine with a low weight to power ratio. MilborneOne (talk) 18:02, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Any comments on or critiques of Wright R-760?

Sorry about deleting the commonscat. Since some people here are already watching the article, do you have any comments on it? I think I'm done with my edits there. I'm wondering whether people might think I took the footnoting on the different variants too far, or whether there might be too much repeated info for them. Some of the same info is repeated in "Design and development", "Variants", and the table in "Specifications". (I do hope the table of variant specs can be kept in some form, since it provides a nice overview of the different power ratings and how these related to compression ratio, supercharging, octane rating, and weight.)

--Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 06:25, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh, feel free to critique Wright R-540 while you're at it. :) --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 07:56, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I've been waatching it, and nothing glaringly wrong or misplaced has made itslef obvious as yet. I'm sort of waiting until you are finished before jumping in to make any changes as yet, thouh I don't think major will need to be done. I think the tables are fine as written, though I don't edit tables myself as I'm table-illiterate! - BilCat (talk) 21:30, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, I've finished rewriting Wright R-975 as well, and I made some tweaks to Wright Whirlwind. I now think I'm done with the Wright Whirlwind series for the present. (I suppose there might be some further improvements I could make to Wright R-790, but I'd rather move on to other things.) Feel free to critique or improve. --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 20:10, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Gas Turbine Engine Specs

I wanted to let everyone know that I have the 2009 Aviation Week source book which has a great set of specs for most modern/in-use gas turbines (fan/jet/prop). I'm currently working my way through the missing specs list, but if you're working on an article and need specs, or want to verify them, let me know here or on my talk page and I'll look it up for you! -SidewinderX (talk) 19:13, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Honeywell F124

I have just spend some time heavily updating the Honeywell F124 article from the stub that was there. Can someone swing by and asses it vs. the B-class checklist when you get a chance? Thanks! -SidewinderX (talk) 18:29, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Done, comments left on talk paqe.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:53, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I've expanded a bit and am leaving a note on the talk page, swing back by! -SidewinderX (talk) 15:14, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Salmson radials

Is there an expert on these out there? At the moment, the link to the Salmson 9 nine cylinder motor goes to a disambiguation page containing Salmson 9 (air cooled engine) and Salmson 9 (water cooled engine). Only the first exists at the moment, confusingly containing the 9Z which, as it says, was water cooled. It looks as if someone had the good idea of splitting the two types of engines, but did not follow up. It also contains apps that used the water cooled engines, e.g. the Voisin III. Even with the water cooled motors split off, the Salmson 9 group contains a lot of quite different engines and a large range of powers from 230 hp (ABC9) to the little (40 hp) AD9. Apart from a very short section in Gunston, I've no sources.TSRL (talk) 09:58, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Not an expert but I have been meaning to sort these out since September. There is some discussion on my talk page here and I started a navbox here which has some no-wiki notes in it. If I remember there was some confusion on how to designate them and I can't remember exactly what sources I was using now!! Will try to fix it over the holidays as I can see that it is causing problems. First move would be to finish the navbox and release it. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 10:48, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. There is a page or so in Ord-Hume's book on "British Light Aeroplanes" specifically about British Salmson (but think these were all French engines made under licence), with specs on AC7, AC9, AD9, AD9 (junior) and AD(R). Some useful info plus a reminder that not all Salmsons were 9 cylinder jobs.TSRL (talk) 11:18, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I am on the navbox, will release it shortly and post it here. It is helping. I am using Alec Lumsden so the articles will be skewed slightly to the British Salmson versions (he notes that the designations are reversed i.e. the The British B9 is the French 9B!!! Fantastic!!! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 11:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, released now. Should help to sort things out. Salmson 9 (air cooled engine) should be moved eventually as it has water cooled engines in it. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 11:35, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Have just created Salmson B.9 which covers the 9B, 9M and 9R water-cooled radials. Will create some more. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 13:09, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Here is the smallest one: Salmson AD.3, needs some help with applications! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 13:52, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

This is probably one of the more popular ones: Salmson AD.9, again it will have many more applications. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 14:45, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

You are really on a Salmson roll today! - Ahunt (talk) 14:50, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

It's been bugging me for a while. I just found a photo that I took at the London Science Museum of a nine-cylinder water-cooled job, only problem is that I forgot to take a photo of its label, doh! It's one of them anyway!! There is a photo on commons of a seven-cylinder water cooled job, need to track down which one that is exactly. Santa should be doing his pre-flight soon. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 16:17, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Just a thought: does the museum website list the collection? Perhaps you could identify it from that? That is how I cheat on the Canada Aviation Museum! - Ahunt (talk) 17:32, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

No! The London science museum is particularly bad at cataloguing what they have on display but they go to great lengths to list and describe what they have in storage (they have an AD.9 in storage apparently)!!

I need to revisit the early ones as they were nothing to do with British Salmson (formed in 1930), the mysteries are unravelling though. I have specs, applications and basic info on the air-cooled Salmson AC.5 and Salmson AC.7 that I found in the front of Lumsdens' book (he has two sections, British Salmson and Salmson). Running out of time and have been ordered to clear the books away for Christmas!! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:22, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Looking good! I've added AC.9 from Ord-Hume, which was another British Salmson. He gives some basic data; it's a very different engine from the AD.9. Jane's '38 also lists some French types not in the template: 9AE, 9NC, 9ND, 9NA and 9AB. I've not added these yet because I'm not sure how they fit into the British Salmson designations, though they are all 9- cylinder motors. Suggest British Salmson notation should play second fiddle here, as they only existed about 1929-38; they are noted as not manufacturing in Jane's38 whilst Salmsons were. Jane's also has data for the 6TE and a unique(?) 18-cylinder two stroke Diesel water cooled radial of 600 hp; same as your 18-cylinder 18 AB? They call it the SH 18. Happy landings! As they might have said, "Any Christmas you can walk away from is a good Christmas."TSRL (talk) 22:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, there are millions of them!! Hard to know what is a variant and what is completely different, mainly seems to be capacity differences but their designation system is not helpful. Made a dent in it anyway. Cheers and Merry Christmas Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 22:34, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Chinese Aero-engines

A project for today that I'm about to tackle is to make a nav-box for the Chinese aero-engines. Basically, it will be a better organized and updated version of our List of Chinese aircraft engines. Even though most of the information will be duplicated from the list, I like the functionality of the navboxes better. I am personally much more likely to click in a navbox and wander around than a list. Plus, the navboxes tend to be where I pick articles to create, and I think we have quite a few missing articles. I have a couple of questions about how to organize things --

First, I was going to basically follow the Template:Japan military gas turbine aeroengines that Bill just made, but this list will include both piston and gas turbine engines.... how does Template:Chinese military aeroengines work as a title? I'm pretty sure all the designations are military ones.
Second, a lot of the designated engines are copies of other engines. If we have an article for the base engine, should I link to that, or should I make a (likely) redlink to the Chinese version?

Thanks! -SidewinderX (talk) 16:24, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. On the second question I usually pipe the link to the base engine (assuming that it is not vastly different) but I at least make sure that this version is mentioned there, sometimes this is as simple as adding and bolding the new designation in the lead and running away! Someone will write the section later on noticing that it is missing! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 16:46, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, it looks like I'm making a storm of redlinks for us to clean up later. I've started trying to verify the engines on the list and figure out the manufacturer, and well, I've ended up pretty far down the rabbit hole. I've just been looking at the prop engines so far, and it seems that most the engines are not just plain copies. Most of them started as copies and then have been heavily modified, variants made, etc. Enough that I think I should make the redlinks in the idea that I'll (or someone else ;) ) go back later and try and add information to it. And the engines that are mostly copies are actually Chinese copies of Russian copies of an American engine. Wow! -SidewinderX (talk) 19:23, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

And they wonder why the parts don't fit together very well! Oh well, plenty of red links there to keep you going for a while yet!! Still a few obscure British ones to go for me. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:24, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I would stop short of redlinking the manufacturer in the lead as here because they will not get filled for a long time (if ever) and they are a bit grating on the eye. My geography is not very good but there are two Chinas I think, any refs for the other one? Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 23:44, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Fair point, I've removed that red link. You are correct, there are "two Chinas". With that in mind, would a better name for the template (and the list) be "People's Republic of China military aeroengines"? I think I got through Janes, which is basically my only source for this ATM. I'll make the navbox tomorrow, and then see about filling some of those redlinks. -SidewinderX (talk) 00:01, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Taiwan or the Republic of China is the other one, expect there will be some kind of engine industry/history. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 00:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Ok, I've made the nav box! Template:People's Republic of China military aeroengines. Plenty of redlinks to fill in... I'll try and fill in the ones that I've got enough information to make at least a stub for. -SidewinderX (talk) 19:21, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Great, note that the Aviation lists box always goes at the bottom (there is a guideline somewhere). Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 19:33, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I figured as much, but I spend 10 minutes trying to figure out how to remove the space that was messing the display of the box. Never figured out how, so I put the boxes at the bottom so I wouldn't completely mess the boxes up. It appears that you have solved the mystery! Thanks! -SidewinderX (talk) 19:46, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Amazing how an extra blank line can cause chaos! Happy navbox pasting. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:09, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

[1] "Aero Engines-1959". Flight International. Reed Business Information. 1959. Retrieved 5 February 2009.

[1]