Wikipedia:Peer review/Lympne Airport/archive1

Lympne Airport

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… I would like to get this to FA status. The article has had a copyedit as part of the GA process, and it is now GA rated. The airfield had a strong involvement in the development of aviation navigation and aviation safety during the 1920s and 1930s. It was also involved in the development of package holidays as part of the tourism industry in the 1950s and 1960s. It served in both world wars, basic history in this article, details of units operating from RAF Lympne are in that article.

Thanks, Mjroots (talk) 06:17, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Thanks for your work on this interesting article. While a lot of work has clearly gone into this and it has a huge amount of information, I worry about its organization and that in some ways it would not meet the comprehensiveness criterion at FAC. Here are some suggestions for improvement with an eye to FAC.

Establishment

I think in terms of comprehensiveness that some more material is needed here. Some of it is about the infrastructure of the airport itself - there is a lot of material on uses of the airport, but relatively little on the airport's physical plant - how big was it (area)? How long was the grass landing strip? What sort of hangars and other buildings were there? At least some of this is in one of the current External links (canvas hangers, huts for airmen, other structures added later).
I also wonder if there couldn't be a bit more background on the site - why was there a large open area there suitable for an airfield? What is the etymology of Lympne? Even basic descriptions of its geography on the coast and the Channel, between France and London would help the reader understand why it got the traffic and attcks it did.
I would also mention the First WOrld War explicitly here. It is in the lead, but needs to be in the body of the article too (and not just a reference to after the end of the war as it is now)
Be consistent on little things - so is it "120 Squadron" or "120 squadron"? Both are used...
The lead (and article) uses the word Lympne an awful lot - I know some of this is unavoidable, but can other terms be used - the airfield? the airport? the aerodrome? even the facility? You get the idea.

Civil operations 1919–29

I understand that each paragraph in this section corresponds to a year, which is one way to organize the material. I have to confess though that it seems pretty choppy and disjointed to do it this way. It is your call, but I wonder if a thematic arrangement would work any better. So, for example, there could be a paragraph or two on customs and overseas commerical flights, while another paragraph could be on the various signals and aerial lighthouses used. Still another could be on its proximity to the Channel and France and all that involved. I am not sure if that would work or not, but it might bear consideration
Even if it is not organized in this way, I think there could be more organziation to make things clearer to the reader. So the 191 paragraph could start with something like even though the RAF had left late in the previous year, the ban on civil flying was not lifted until May 1, and Lympne had its first plane fly in that day. Then perhaps talk about customs starting that month.
I guess the thing that I am trying to get at here is that the story gets lost to some extent in a strictly year by year recitation of events. I think that the average reader will find a thematic approach, or even one that provides more context easier to follow, than having to remember that this also happened last year and some years before that.

1930-1939

I would try to avoid needless repetition wherever possible. For example some variant of No. 601 Squadron RAF had there annual camp there appears 10 times. I do not think the name needs to spelled out each and every time, nor do we need their aircraft spelled out each time. So again if this were organized more thematically, there could be some overarching statement that the RAF began using the airfield for camps in YEAR. Then something like In late August and early September 1926, 601 (County of London) Squadron AuxAF [spell out?] held its inaugural camp at Lympne. The squadron was equipped with Avro 504 and de Havilland DH.9A aircraft.[53] 600 (City of London) Squadron, which flew the same aircraft, joined 601 Squadron for the camp in August in 1927 and 1928. Late in the 1928 camp, Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill and Under Secretary of State for Air Sir Philip Sassoon inspected both squadrons and were entertained at a dinner.[68] 601 Squadron returned to Lympne eash August in 1929, 1930, and 1931. In the August 1933 camp 601 Squadron, now equipped with Hawker Harts, were visited by the Marquess of Londonderry, the Secretary of State for Air.[86][87] etc etc I think this would trim the size a bit and make it flow better.
In a similar vein, avoid WP:OVERLINKing. Royal Air Force is linked quite a few times, when the convention is to link once in the lead and perhaps once more in the bosy of the article.

General comments

I also wonder if some of the separate sections after History might be better as subsections in History - so for example there is a section on the Cinque Ports Flying Club, but there is more material on the club in the paragraphs on 1928, 1938, during WWII, and also a mention that it was restarted in 1946, foleded in 1948 (these last two are duplicates) and then the history that it was restarted in 1964 and moved in 1984, which is not in the section on the club at all.
Seems odd that there is more detail on things in the 1920s and 1930s than on WWII and especially the 1960s, 70s and 80s. How many passengers flew out of here when it was a commercial airport? The FLickr photo (below) gives a passenger number for the new terminal built there in the 1960s.
I would consider spinning some of the material off into daughter articles - perhaps a list of accidents, and another on racing?
A map showing some of the other airports and places mentioned prominently might help
I like the one photo of an aircraft - could more be added?
I also note the external link to the Kent County COuncil website has some photos of RAF buildings still standing - could modern photos of these be obtained?
There is a great aerial photo of the airport in the 1930s here and here - perhaps fair use?
As far as comprehensiveness goes, I expected more on the closure of the airport and on its modern use as an industrial park. The latter is only in the lead really
Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:07, 24 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]