Talk:Concorde aircraft histories

Alpha Delta Nose

I removed the entry about AD loosing her nose cone when hit by a truck due to it not being notable. The uploader has added it back with the comment that it was notable enough for the New York Time and fan websites to mention it. In the thirty year history of the aircraft it is not really notable, aircraft even museum aircraft loose bits all the time. Being in the New York Times for one day does not make it notable. I will not revert again but welcome any comment from others. MilborneOne (talk) 13:48, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Reverted edits on Pepsi blue Concorde

@JzG: My edit was just reverted

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Concorde_aircraft_histories&oldid=prev&diff=815892707

"In 1996, this aircraft carried a promotional paint scheme (blue with logo and white wings) for Pepsi. It was restricted to flying at most 20 minutes at Mach 2.02 and otherwise Mach 1.7 (the plane requires a white livery to fly supersonic, because of the heat) around the Middle East and is estimated to have cost Pepsi $20 Million"

reverted to

" In 1996, this aircraft carried a promotional paint scheme (blue with logo) for Pepsi. It flew subsonic flights (the plane requires a white livery to fly supersonic, because of the heat) around the Middle East and is estimated to have cost Pepsi $20 Million. "

However the statement in the article as it is now says that Concorde only flew subsonically when painted with the Pepsi colours and that it was not permitted to fly supersonically. There is no source provided for this as far as I can see.

I searched to try to find good sources on it - and the ones I used were the best I could find. Everyone I found said that it was permitted to fly at Mach 1.7 and briefly at Mach 2.0 except wikipedia. Of course it could be that all the Concorde enthusiasts who build and maintain these sites such as Heritage Concorde are wrong and Wikipedia is right. However these sites are very detailed. They included the names of the captain, first officer, flight engineer, routes and dates of all 16 flights by the Pepsi Concorde in the second cite I gave here: [1].

This is another page that gives the same information about the sixteen flights, from the Heritage Concorde project [2]

Here is another that gives the same restriction of 20 minutes at Mach 2 and otherwise Mach 1.7 from Jalopnik [3]

I think it is unlikely that such detailed pages should be mistaken, without another source to back up the Wikipedia information. Do you have a source to back up the information in this article? If not, perhaps we can add a citations needed tag and link to this post? Or indeed, just remove the statement about it being restricted to subsonic flight (though that would be a shame as it is interesting information that the colour of the paint restricted the speed it would fly)? Or perhaps, if there are no WP:RS to settle the question, use the new text but with a citation needed tag? Robert Walker (talk) 00:21, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

I see where you went wrong. These were the best you could find, they are self-published, so unusable on Wikipedia, but you decided to use them anyway, when you should have removed the content instead, as being a trivium that has escaped the notice of reliable independent sources. Guy (Help!) 00:28, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

@JzG: Yes I agree that I should have checked the sources more carefully - especially the book. It was because I found it in Google Books but I should have checked that it was not self published.

Anyway the main thing is, what do we do now? I don't feel the existing material should be deleted, because the guideline for material without citatiaons is to add a citations needed tag rather than to delete it.

I think that the second link I gave, to the Heritage Concorde project[4] may possibly count as a WP:RS. If you look at the list of contributors on the "About" page [5] then there are only 12 members of the project. of them are Concorde engineers,

"Having delivered on some high-profile projects since our formation in March 3rd 2010, Heritage Concorde has achieved respect and media attention as a serious Concorde engineering group: a group that can also boast the expertise of having time-served Concorde engineers at our core… one of whom has the record for being the longest serving Concorde Engineer in the history of the aircraft."

They include Alex Jolivet who they say "is in charge of the team of engineers who look after F-BTSD in Le Bourget, France" - that's the same model that was painted Pepsi blue so you'd expect him to know about its history - and there are others involved in writing and curating the site's content with a great deal of expertise.

Does this seem like a WP:RS on the Pepsi Concorde to you? Robert Walker (talk) 02:17, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

I've added a cn tag for now. Robert Walker (talk) 09:49, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

No response to request for citations yet. I think the Heritage Concorde is as good a WP:RS as we are likely to get, because it is written and curated by experts on Concorde such as Alex Jolivet (expert on this particular Concorde too). If there are no other comments I'll correct this statement to match the Heritage Concorde page, as preferable to an unsourced statement, and add a citations needed tag to encourage others to add their cites if they have more information about it from other sources. But I'll leave this for a few days for further comment first, perhaps until after Christmas now. Robert Walker (talk) 23:37, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

The two sources proposed are a self-published book and a website with no evidence of credentials or robust editorial process. Neither looks like it meets WP:RS. I can't find anything by Cramoisi that is not self-published. Given the vigour of the aviation press and the number of niche books that find reputable publishers (Dad had shelves of them on the most mind-boggling minutiae), you can colour me skeptical on this. Guy (Help!) 22:52, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

@JzG: Oh maybe there's some confusion here? I agreed with your criticism of the original cites I used.

My proposal is to cite the Concorde Heritage Project page here as the only cite: [6]. This has expert editors as you can see from their "About" page. It's written by a small team of a dozen editors, most of them engineers who maintain and restore Concordes and one of them is the chief engineer Alex Jolivet who they say "is in charge of the team of engineers who look after F-BTSD in Le Bourget, France" - that's the same model that was painted Pepsi blue so you'd expect him to know about its history. Seems pretty obvious to me that Alex Jolivet would have either written this page or at least checked it as one of only twelve people who work / worked on the project (one of them now deceased)[7].

My basis for saying this is acceptable is based on this exception on user generated content for WP:RS in Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Exceptions

"Content from a collaboratively created website may be acceptable if the content was authored by, and is credited to, credentialed members of the site's editorial staff."

Would you say this is an acceptable cite? If not I could just correct it without a citation and add a citation needed tag - I think information based on this website is far better than the unsourced material we have at present which all the evidence so far points towards being inaccurate. I have not yet found a single source to support it of any type, even unreliable blog posts. And I don't want to just delete the unsourced material. Robert Walker (talk) 13:28, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

As you say there surely are more specialists sources we could use, including past copies of aviation magazines, and niche books. But nobody has yet come up with such a source. And if they do then the Concorde Heritage would still have the advantage that it can be read online to verify, and is not behind a paywall or only available in hard copy, so I would suggest including it too so long as it is agreed it is a WP:RS by the wikipedia guidelines on acceptable online collaboratively edited content. I didn't find anything of that nature in Google books with my searches except that self published book. I know the page is not signed by any editor but with only 12 authors (1 deceased) most highly expert Concorde engineers then I propose for consideration that this is sufficient for a WP:RS, in this topic area... Robert Walker (talk) 17:11, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

References

Number of British Airways Concordes

On the British Airways fleet article, it mentions that there are eight British Airways Concordes, whereas here, it says that there are seven. Is that a discrepancy? Yourlocallordandsavior (talk) 05:29, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

I believe only seven were flown commercially by British Airways per this article, cant check the reference used for eight on the other article as it is paywalled. Perhaps some confusion as one aircraft flew as G-BFKW and then G-BOAG with the airline. MilborneOne (talk) 10:06, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

@MilborneOne G-BBDG was bought by BA in 1984 but never flown by them. Instead it was used as a source of spare parts and for static testing (for example of security doors following 9/11). Robertm25 (talk) 21:34, 27 April 2024 (UTC)