Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft/Archive 41

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Category:Greater Romania

An anonymous editor has been adding many Romanian aircraft articles, already catalogued under Category:Romanian type etc aircraft, to this cat. Inappropriate?TSRL (talk) 16:04, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Greater Romania appears to be an idea rather than a country, either wayt it is not relevant to aircraft articles that have the Romanian cat tree already so should be removed. MilborneOne (talk) 16:14, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

After I removed a few and got to a Vickers aircraft I realised they were probably trying to categorise by user, something else we dont do. MilborneOne (talk) 16:19, 1 January 2016 (UTC

Thanks. Looks clear now.TSRL (talk) 17:17, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

New Mikoyan-Gurevich I-7 article - did this aircraft exist?

A search in Google books turns up no references at all about the Mikoyan-Gurevich I-7 [1], and a straight Google search returns mainly Wikipedia mirrors. Did this aircraft actually exist? @Buster40004: can you provide references for the article? Nick-D (talk) 00:23, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

It appears that it existed - see three-view and (more tellingly) the I-7U is mentioned in the part of MiG Aircraft since 1937 that's snippeted on GBooks, along with Soviet Strategic Aviation in the Cold War. Now where the rest of the stuff in the article is coming from is a very good question... - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:32, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

• Have you tried Buttler. Soviet Secret Projects: Fighters Since 1946. ISBN 1857802217.)? If it exists it'll be in there. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:39, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

It appears as I-7U in Gunston's "Osprey Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft 1875-1995" on p.210. The U stands for Uragan radar, he says. There is a detailed description, with full specs and a 3-view.TSRL (talk) 15:54, 1 January 2016 (UTC) I've not compared the Wiki article with Gunston line by line but a few dips into the specs show exact agreement.TSRL (talk) 15:59, 1 January 2016 (UTC) It made 19 flights and was modified into the I-75F, the second prototype of the I-75 TSRL (talk) 16:09, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Nick-D, thanks for questioning the existence of this aircraft. I have just returned to Wikipedia after a bout of serious medical issues that prevented me from doing much, and I spent my down time researching little known or unknown experimental aircraft, particularly those of the previous Soviet Union. The secrecy surrounding these programs has severely reduced their visibility in the west, and many doubts of their existence due to scarcity of published data.

I believe these aircraft will disappear if they are not brought to the surface. I have updated the links to my source, an internet site (in Czechoslovakia) that has published many previously unknown details of these aircraft. I do knot know if actual paper records exist for any of the Soviet experimental aircraft. They are likely as hard to find as actual paper records for American experimental aircraft of the same vintage. Searching the internet may not be helpful, as these records were destroyed before it existed. Lastly, I believe there is a veil of credulity regarding aircraft that are not from the west, and I am not referring to hypothetical projects such as the Nazi Bell Die Glocke or other similar projects that exist only in imagination or on paper. Many of these proposed aircraft (such as the Silbervogel have been published on Wikipedia without doubting their existence (or lack thereof.) Buster40004 Talk 17:28, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Welcome back, Buster40004; I'm sure everyone involved with the Aviation Project welcomes a push in the area you have in mind. If you can get hold of the book by Gunston mentioned above, you'll find a lot of info that only surfaced post-USSR and it has the advantage, for the English WikiP, of being in English. Not essential but welcome, providing a kind of core reference. Buttler's book (I don't have it) may cover similar ground for fighters and may have an advantage in focussing on the post-war period but Gunston covers other types as well. Good hunting!TSRL (talk) 20:50, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Soviet experimental designs are well documented in the multitude of books by Yefim Gordon, especially his histories of the various Soviet design bureaux. Gordon is Buttler's co-author and does indeed cover the I-7U/K/I-75.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:24, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks very much User:Buster40004 for creating the article and adding refs. And to the others of course :) Nick-D (talk) 22:15, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Lily and Clover

I have created an article about Lily and Clover which were floating airfields developed by the Royal Navy at the end of the Second World War, probably not strictly an aircraft subject and even possibly could be a Ship! but if anybody has any other information on them and improvement to the article would be appreciated, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 22:28, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

List of aircraft of the Pakistan Air Force

The List of aircraft of the Pakistan Air Force contains a huge mini-article on each type listed. This goes firmly against the Project's list guideline WP:AVILIST, which says that Notes should be minimal. How much of it all is encyclopedic enough to be worth moving to a better home, and how much should just be pruned? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:56, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Most of it is not really needed and if it is important it should be in the aircraft articles not in this list. Most of the stuff on aircraft upgrades would be better in the PAF article. MilborneOne (talk) 18:57, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree, everything in the note section should be moved to its specific article and only one or two references should be added as a note. - AHMED XIV (talk) 14:58, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I also agree, it needs chopping to the barest minimum, it is way too verbose right now. - Ahunt (talk) 15:06, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

One issue in particular - there is a lot of information about block deliveries. Does Wikipedia normally document such information or is it too detailed to find a home anywhere in this encyclopedia? i.e. should I be looking to find a new home for it or to just delete it? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:53, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, there is absolutely no point of knowing the date of delivery of every single aircraft. There is already a (No.) column for the total number of aircraft taken on over the type's service lifetime, and there is a (In service) column for the number currently in service. - AHMED XIV (talk) 16:45, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

WP:TRIVIA, just delete it. - Ahunt (talk) 17:42, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Aviation Week and Space Technology

In case anybody has not seen a new resource, AWST have made 100 years worth of issues available at http://archive.aviationweek.com/ MilborneOne (talk) 15:10, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

I have added it to our list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Resources - Ahunt (talk) 15:33, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. That's an awesome resource to have! - BilCat (talk) 12:14, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Boeing BTX-1

Boeing have recently (17 December) registered seven Boeing BTX-1 aircraft, 00001 as N381TX, 00002 as N382TX and 00003-0007 N791TX to N795TX. Presume these are the Boeing submission for the T-X program, may be worth a article at some point if anybody has anythis else on the BTX-1. MilborneOne (talk) 20:05, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Laister LP-15 Nugget

I am having some problems with an editor continuously adding unsourced text to this article and removing sourced text and refs. Basically he keeps trying to add "stuff he heard". I have started a discussion on the article talk page and also left several notes on his user talk page, but he isn't communicating. Some more eyes on this article would help. - Ahunt (talk) 18:15, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Watching - TSRL (talk) 20:11, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Spam ?

Cant really call it Spam as it appears to be an ill thought out idea from somewhere in wiki land, coming to all our aircraft pages soon Template:Research help under references, for an example refer Airco DH.6. MilborneOne (talk) 20:02, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Research help/Proposal it is a temporary experiment in which MILHIST are participating. Let's hope it doesn't last too long. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:13, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi both, thank you for discussing the project and the proposal. We would welcome feedback at Wikipedia talk:Research help about why you find it a problematic/poor choice. We plan on shifting away from a template eventually -- perhaps integrating the data elsewhere in the interface. We are trying to collect as much information/feedback as possible, through both the survey linked on WP:Research help itself, and through comments on the talk page. Thanks, Astinson (WMF) (talk) 15:29, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

"No." column in military lists

The distinction between the column headings "In service" and "No." is not clear, as both are numbers. I have restarted the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aviation/Style_guide/Lists#No. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:01, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

GippsAero GA8 Airvan

A new editor has cut & pasted this article to Mahindra Aerospace Airvan 8, changing the existing article to a redirect It seems to me that the cart & the horse are in the wrong order here: the aircraft becoming known as the Mahindra Aerospace Airvan 8 when GippsAero was taken over. Thoughts?TheLongTone (talk) 14:32, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Looks like another editor has already fixed this! In reveiwing the issue it looks like the aircraft is still being built by GippsAero, but that in 2009 that company was bought out by Mahindra Aerospace. It should remain at GippsAero GA8 Airvan. - Ahunt (talk) 15:24, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

See also GippsAero GA10, which the same user cut/pasted to Mahindra Aerospace Airvan 10. - BilCat (talk) 15:33, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Well thanks for fixing those both! Even Mahindra doesn't call it that, so no reason we should do that. I think this applies here. - Ahunt (talk) 15:49, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

The Mahindra Aerospace website does list the aircraft as the Airvan 8 and Airvan 10, so we should probably update the articles to reflect that. Per Common name guidelines, however, the article titles should not be changed yet. - BilCat (talk) 16:00, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Sure those are just variants. - Ahunt (talk) 18:18, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

It seems to be a rebranding, and if so, that needs to be mentioned in the article. I seem to recall reading something about that last year, perhaps on FlightGlobal. I'll see what I can find. - BilCat (talk) 23:42, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Found it here, and one on AvWeek here . - BilCat (talk) 23:49, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Okay I stand corrected then, it looks like they are rebranding it. So do we change the name or wait? - Ahunt (talk) 00:15, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Classification of triplanes

I have started a discussion at Talk:List of triplanes. Comments welcome. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:50, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

GF-1 Fighter Jet - hoax?

An article on the GF-1 Fighter Jet - an alledged Malaysian supersonic jet fighter has recently been created. It is completely unsourced, has been largely copied from the article on the JF-17, and appears to be fictional, with nothing in Flightglobal, despite the fact that is claimed to have first flown in 2003, have appeared at Farnborough in 2010, and entered service! A candidate for speedy perhaps.Nigel Ish (talk) 18:41, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Definitely a hoax. It's also been duplicated on the user's userpage, a practice of several Malaysian based sock farms. The user has also created Draft:DefTech PROTO X-1, again totally unsourced,and likely a hoax. - BilCat (talk) 18:52, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

The tank article is a rejigged version of the T-90 article with different photos.Nigel Ish (talk) 19:10, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Aircraft Maintenance Engineer

Project members can note we have a problem with an editor edit-warring to include a large mount of unsourced, dubiously sourced and non-encyclopedic text in this article. He has made it clear on the talk page that he is here to add POV content to raise the status of his profession. Attempts to have him propose changes on the talk page for discussion have not been successful. This could use more editor input, plus some admin help, too. The latest is that he is now making threats. - Ahunt (talk) 01:25, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, been busy. Will pop back and help as much as I can. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:27, 19 February 2016 (UTC)do

Thank you. Some ongoing admin oversight would be helpful there as well. One visiting admin popped by and assessed his additions as vandalism and reverted already. - Ahunt (talk) 14:58, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

LRB-B article renaming

Long Range Strike Bomber was moved to B-21 Bomber earlier without discussion. The aircraft designation B-21 was announced by the US Air Force today. The LRS Bomber article has been a program article. So I don't think this move should have been done. I think a separate aircraft article, such as Northrop Grumman B-21 should be started instead. Or at least move "B-21 Bomber" to "Northrop Grumman B-21". What do you think? -Fnlayson (talk) 17:31, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Well B-21 Bomber is certainly the wrong title for it as per WP:AVIMOS. We also usually have separate articles for programs and aircraft types, such as Joint Strike Fighter program and Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. - Ahunt (talk) 18:08, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

• Another user moved B-21 Bomber to Northrop Grumman B-21 (thanks btw). So the article naming is good now. -Fnlayson (talk) 19:18, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I went ahead and made the move to the correct title, as moving it back to the program article might cause more problems. We do need to decide if we want a program article in addition to the aircraft article. If the F-35 article is any guide, the B-21 article will grow very large in a few years. Complex aircraft always have problems, and the B-21 (a really stupid designation, btw - should be B-3!) won't be any different. The current article can be moved back to Long Range Strike Bomber by an admin, and a new aircraft article created at Northrop Grumman B-21. - BilCat (talk) 19:27, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Actually, Long Range Strike Bomber program is probably the better title for the program article, and that's still open to move to. Long Range Strike Bomber would still redirect to the aircraft article. Any objections to moving this and creating a new aircraft article today? - BilCat (talk) 21:04, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Sounds like a good plan to me! - Ahunt (talk) 21:05, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

 Done - BilCat (talk) 21:12, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks to those who helping on the new article, especially in cleaning up my mistakes! If anyone has access to the hidden section headings (Development, Specs, etc.), it would be easier to copy them over rather than write them from scratch. Thanks again. - BilCat (talk) 21:54, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Status values in general lists

I am proposing to add "Discontinued" to the default status values. Please pass on your views in the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aviation/Style_guide/Lists#Status_in_general_lists. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:41, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Could do with some more views here. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:40, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Ordering of columns in general lists

A change is proposed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide/Lists#Ordering of columns in general lists. Comments welcome. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 14:13, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Could do with some more views here. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:40, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Airline articles nominated for deletion

Could do with some more voices at:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aviostart
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Baltic Jet Aircompany
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aero Charter

especially the first of these, where the discussion has expanded more. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:27, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

USAF Infobox Aircraft - F-35

Hello everyone, and individual added the F-35 to the infobox for the USAF with the citation saying that two operational (not IOC) units were delivered to the 338th Fighter Squadon at Hill AFB (http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/616055/first-operational-f-35as-arrive-at-hill-afb.aspx?source=GovD)

However an individual removed it as it had not been given IOC yet. I personally feel that since it is now part of the operational Air Force (Air Combat Command and Training, no longer just test and evaluation) that it should be added to the infobox, but was wondering if Wikipedia has an official policy on the matter.

Thanks. 24.192.250.124 (talk) 23:52, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

There is no official policy other than anything that might be questioned should be provided with references from reliable publications - which means until it gets mentioned in print it has to wait. I am sure the USAF will make an official announcement when that occurs, particularly given the bad press the F-35 program has gotten. - NiD.29 (talk) 07:01, 4 March 2016 (UTC) 2600:1007:B012:892D:996:59CB:CA58:421C (talk) 12:14, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

thank you. Would you consider this official link enough? And thanks to the individual for bringing this up. Would this be under Air Combat Command at a minimum? 2600:1007:B012:892D:996:59CB:CA58:421C (talk) 12:16, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

List of STOL aircraft - criteria for inclusion

There is a discussion here. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:36, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Raptor Aircraft Raptor

What do we do with this recently-started article? As I have noted in the tags and on the talk page, it is a proposed aircraft by an unknown company and and unknown designer and the article has only primary refs (compnay website). Much of the article is not referenced. This doesn't meet WP:GNG or Wikipedia:Notability (aircraft) at all. Do we wait, send it to WP:AFD or what? Suggestions welcome. - Ahunt (talk) 17:18, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

It appears to be more a promotion for some crowd funding which is not really something we want to encourage. Might be worth a one liner in Velocity XL as a proposed variant but not a stand-alone article. MilborneOne (talk) 17:34, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

That could be easily done, with a redirect to Velocity XL. - Ahunt (talk) 17:44, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

It is no more than a minor proposal "similar to" the Velocity XL, there is nothing to mention in that article. Google shows no hint of notability. This is a spam article and deserves to be prodded, or if possible speeded. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:51, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

The editor who started it is a regular here, so not likely intended as spam, but it may just not be at all notable. - Ahunt (talk) 17:55, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

I have found a third party report and will put it on the page. Arrivisto (talk) 11:29, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

That would be great! - Ahunt (talk) 15:23, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Sadly it is only a promotional announcement of future plans and does not demonstrate notability. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:19, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Yeah it is a company press release. - Ahunt (talk) 17:30, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

List of X-planes and images

Should the List of X-planes include images? I have started a discussion here. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:03, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Problems at Concorde and Air France Flight 4590

Rebel in retirement (talk · contribs) is persistant in adding and re-adding a paragraph to the Concorde and Air France Flight 4590 article blaming the accident on Air France using retreads and overfilling the aircraft's fuel tanks, based on an "off the record" comment, alledgedly by the head of governance of BA. These claims seem to be well into WP:REDFLAG territory, thus requiring cast iron sourcing, not rumours and gossip. More eyes are needed on these articles.Nigel Ish (talk) 17:14, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Pointless stylistic changes to reference sections

Recently an editor has started to reformat the references sections in many aircraft articles in the same way with a references section header with citations and bibliography as sub-headers. I reverted him, saying that this was merely a stylistic preference, that I didn't like, and was reverted in turn a different editor who said it was a very common format among aircraft articles. So what? How is that important? The project has not addressed these sorts of picayune stylistic issues like it has for the general format of aircraft articles, so I feel that their concern for consistency is irrelevant.

Rather than go to 3RR, I'm bring the dispute here as I feel that this is change for foolish consistency and that both editors could more profitably spend their time actually improving the informational content of Wiki. I'm happy to admit that I don't like the change in format as I prefer simple reference and bibliography headers (the less typing in general, the happier I am). However, I generally don't go around changing articles to my preferred format unless I'm going to overhaul them in a major way. And since I'm not the originator of the article or the fellow who formatted these sections for the first time, I'd revert myself if anyone objects, just like I would if I had improperly reformatted the bibliography. Similarly, I feel that these editors should respect the existing formats, just like they should for bibliographies according to WP:CITE or the type of language used (WP:ENGVAR). So what say you?

WP:CITEVAR says, "it is normal practice to defer to the style used by the first major contributor or adopted by the consensus of editors already working on the page, unless a change in consensus has been achieved. If the article you are editing is already using a particular citation style, you should follow it; if you believe it is inappropriate for the needs of the article, seek consensus for a change on the talk page. If you are the first contributor to add citations to an article, you may choose whichever style you think best for the article." So yes, you are correct to challenge these editors and thank you for bringing it to our attention. This seems an opportune moment to see if there is any Project-wide consensus, which we can then roll out across the relevant articles. Local consensus could still beg to differ, if it had good reason for a particular article. The first question which springs to mind is, do we actually want to standardise the style of listing across aircraft articles? Why would we want to do that, or for that matter not to? I have started a new subsection below, to try and draw that out. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:34, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

I saw this yesterday, I re-visited the various relevant sections of the MOS as an edit summary of 'updated deprecated formatting' was being used. I could find no recent updates to the guidelines to cause this. The guideline is that editors are free to use whatever terms they want (within reason!) and that changing established style (as with WP:CITEVAR) should not happen without a very good reason. There is (or was) another editor who was fond of changing the right placed 'Commons' box template to left-placed inline format with the external links (Commons is not deemed an external link but is placed in the last section, probably confusing people). We have another editor adding targets to the Commons template where they are not needed (to keep them out of a category invented by someone that shows articles with no target set, was subject to CfD and amazingly kept!). It does lower your enthusiasm level, perhaps a more positive approach with these editors is needed but I have questioned editors' actions on their talk pages and they carry on regardless, no point having guidelines and policies when that happens. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 09:51, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

The change was not pointless, even if you failed to see the point. There are very good reasons for having a similar format for common elements, and there is no similarity to randomly adding commonslinks or moving stuff from one side to the other. The deprecated formatting is covered in my reply below - simply put, the old formatting cannot be read properly by readers used by the hearing impaired, and so the change is necessary to be as inclusive as reasonably possible. The change doesn't affect the content, but it does make it more obvious when there is a section missing - such as inline citations, and in addition, most pages were already migrated before I started, and there was a move to do them over a year ago. - NiD.29 (talk) 11:20, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

One other point - User:Sturmvogel 66 (who didn't bother signing his initial post) seems to spend 99% of his time reverting other editors, rather than actually adding content or improving articles, and while maintenance is laudable, maintaining mediocrity isn't - something he has been taken to task to before, by others. - NiD.29 (talk) 12:06, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

While I did forget to sign my post and I have been rather quiet these last few months, I'll put my 500+ GAs and 60+ FAs up against any editor's contributions, including yours. LOL!--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:16, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

• WP:CITEVAR is about formatting of citations. I don't believe it really applies to formatting in the References sections. -Fnlayson (talk) 14:46, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps WP:FNNR is the better choice here. Sorry about that. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:38, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Consistency of list styling

This subsection is to air the pros and cons of a consistent styling of citation lists across aircraft articles, and to see if any consensus emerges.

On the one hand, if the WP:CITE guideline is happy to leave it up to the originating editor's personal style, then why should we differ. On the other hand, the WP:OTHER essay may have a point in that it helps if all aircraft articles follow a similar style. If a consensus for consistency then emerges, we will then need to draw out a similar consensus for the listing style. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:34, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

• Be consistent: It just makes life easier for everybody - readers become familiar with the format from aircraft to aircraft, while editors are saved from the kind of "my way" to-and-fro that brought on this discussion. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:34, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Quite frankly I am confused as to why anyone would think there are ANY cons to having a consistent style.

There is also an issue with the old style of (which most pages followed at one time):

==References==

;Notes

;Citations

;Bibliography

This is unreadable with automated reading software as used by the hearing impaired, so there is a good reason for changing it to:

==References==

===Notes===

===Citations===

===Bibliography===

A consistent format makes it easier to do searches or automated updates, and for users to find the relevant information - while I don't agree with the research link being placed within the article, their bot messed up because many pages don't follow a consistent format - as will any other bot that attempts to make similar changes, or even a search engine. In addition, by following a standard format, it is more obvious if there is a missing section - particularly if a page needs references - with an empty section, the page doesn't need to be tagged for it to be obvious that something needs to be added.

MOST of the pages follow one of the two formats above, but it seems some folks want "their" page to follow a random format.

There is also a problem with a number of pages with NOTOC tags or TOC limit tags - no aviation article should ever use them as there should always be at the minimum a design section, specifications, and a reference section.

The only variable I expected any comment on is the use of notes for citations - on pages without noted comments, the citations section is randomly named either notes or citations - some clarity as to which is preferred would be useful - although I am dead set on them being merged as has happened on a minority of pages. - NiD.29 (talk) 11:14, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Let me be clear, I have no objection to anyone removing the deprecated semi-colon for headers and have never restored them if someone's removed them.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:16, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Right, the guideline is MOS:FOOTERS. The change to level three headers for sub-sections with no level set or an incorrect level (Notes, citations, bibliography, works etc) is appropriate but changes to the header wording is not without good reason. No objection at all to this change (linking to the guideline here and in edit summaries would have helped). No idea who added all the NOTOC templates, spend my life removing them. Not all aircraft articles will have the structure mentioned, many stubs and start class articles won't. Please also bear in mind that a WP guideline is just that, does not have the same meaning as a WP policy. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 11:59, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

If you go back far enough some of the templates we used when we had to create lots of missing articles had the NOTOC in it by default, it was meant to be removed when the article moved on from a stub but sometimes it just was not done although it was not deliberate. MilborneOne (talk) 14:33, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

I'd forgotten about MOS:FOOTERS, but it does not support NiD.29's changes. It only refers to using level 3 headers when sub-dividing one type of appendix, in the example given when splitting articles from books in the bibliography.

When it is useful to sub-divide these sections (for example, to separate a list of magazine articles from a list of books), this should be done using level 3 headings...

I find the issue of consistency rather trivial and a bit disingenuous for this sort of thing as readers are accustomed to various terms for these elements in their ordinary reading and it is no great leap for them to make. While MOS:FOOTERS is indeed a only a guideline, it's a requirement for FA-class articles and carries a bit more weight than most guidelines. By now I've internalized the MOS when writing articles as I might decide to take any of them to FA at any time and there's no point in not following it when I'm doing most of the (re)writing as I'd otherwise have to do it later on anyway.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:16, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

So what you are saying is that the vast majority of aviation project pages do not adhere to the wider wikipedia standard, which seems to be to not use level 3 headings except for those rare occasions when someone wants to split those sections up further - something that rarely seems to occur due to the paucity of sources for many aviation pages. I am well aware that our readers can understand if alternate terms are used - however by using the same terms regarding sources on all pages, it increases the likelihood that an editor creating a new page will include that section, since they are already seeing it with a degree of consistency - when a new editor is creating a page, they most likely will look to other pages for ideas as to how they are supposed to format the page, and if there is little consistency, then that is as good as no guideline at all, which has resulted in some pages having nothing at all, and some with both level 2 and level 3 headings but not in a logical manner - some have a level 3 section for the bibliography but not the citations, some merge them all together. I can live with them all being level two, or being level three under a level two References section although I think the latter makes more sense since it groups them all together - it worked better in one respect under the semicolon system since it broke the section up without creating a mess in the index. - NiD.29 (talk) 21:51, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Right. Strict adherence to the MOS is not a requirement until you get to A-class or FA-class articles, which very few of our articles have done. I do it just as a matter of habit and because it's actually my preferred style as it involves less typing (I really wasn't kidding about that). I generally don't bother to do it for articles that I'm not planning to overhaul/expand as time is precious and I suspect that most other editors don't really care. Thus our disparate formats.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:37, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

List of surviving Supermarine Spitfires

Should a list of surviving aircraft list aircraft that have not survived? and if they did for a while how do we define that, any opinions at List of surviving Supermarine Spitfires, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 20:01, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Focus article: Saab 37 Viggen

Hello all. I felt it was about time to finally tackle an article that's been on my to-do list for roughly four years - the Saab 37 Viggen. This article really needs citation work, as there are tons of uncited paragraphs (more than there are cited ones!); there's lots of Design information but it's clear that it's going to be a difficult task to get it all checked and sourced. I've got a pretty good text on the aircraft ready which I intend to integrate the content of with the present article, along with other materials to search through for cites; if anyone would care to help during this overhaul, it would be really appreciated. Kyteto (talk) 21:40, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Hey all, thought it was about time for an update. Thanks to the users who have contributed so far, particularly that extensive editing/pruning of uncited accumulated statements by John. I've just passed the landmark of doubling the article's number of citations, which is a much more reasonable number considering the amount of content contained, and have also wrote up at least a third of the article's overall content direct from various sources. However, there's still quite a few tags to address; would anyone have any good sources for the Variants and Operators sections (the various squadrons/wings need citing really)? Kyteto (talk) 22:30, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Speedy category renaming

Some editors may have seen this diff, it has affected all the Dassault aircraft. It was moved unopposed, presumably because nobody was watching the category. The move of category was to the wrong title anyway as Dassault Aviation is the main article for the aircraft. Category:Piaggio aircraft engines has also been nominated (to move to 'Aerospace'), I expect there will be more nominations. WP:C2D (aligning category names exactly with parent article) appears to be trumped by WP:C2C (aligning category names with existing long-established categories in a tree). Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 09:02, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

So why don't we tag it for Speedy renaming and get it automatically moved back again. Or just recat and reverse the redirect it. GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:09, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Categories are difficult to deal with, I think it can be moved but all the contained articles have to be re-categorised manually. I think categories can't be redirected either, needs admin help. The nominator did not inform the creator or the parent project, not sure if that is a requirement of CfD but some etiquette would not have gone amiss as well as a reasonable time period to allow discussion. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 13:30, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Future aircraft acquisitions

Many articles on aircraft users, both civil and military, have information about orders placed or planned byt not yet delivered. I recently a whole table of what I saw as WP:CRYSTAL. My own view is that purchases are often cancelled or modified for one reason or another and that until the craft are delivered they are not usually worth recording. OTOH some deals are just too big to ignore, such as Britain and America's plans for the JSF. Where should we draw the line? Do we have any firm guidelines? Do a couple of announcements covered by the national press make an order significant, or do we need say a verifiable discussion of its significance in independent media? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:31, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

From what I've seen, there seems to be a convention to generally only include aircraft in "future acquisition" tables and the like once a contract is signed - which makes a lot of sense to me, especially in articles on developing economies where there's often a large gulf between reported procurement plans and what's actually ordered (this is less frequent in developed economies which tend to have more logical and transparent defence procurement practices, though even then it's not unusual for the contracted number of aircraft to differ a bit from those initially planned to be purchased). I agree with your reversion of that speculative table. Nick-D (talk) 10:46, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Its probably a judgement call case-by-case based on the nature of the sources covering the proposed procurement. Waiting until the aircraft are delivered is probably a little over cautious to me, but I certainly agree we should be guided by WP:CRYSTAL. Media speculation probably no, announced plans by a government in a policy document or somesuch probably yes (even before a contract is signed), and some grey areas in between. I can see value in covering stated future procurement plans and I imagine many of our readers would be expecting to be able to find that information here. Of course care is needed to ensure the wording is reflective of the state of the procurement though (i.e. if its "ordered" or if its only "planned" or whatever). Nick's point re the difference b/n developing and developed economies makes sense to me, as does Steelpillow's comments re some deals being too big to ignore. I guess that is what I'm trying to get at re it being a judgement call. Anotherclown (talk) 11:42, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I agree this is complex and can be confusing. I would ignore "expressions of interest" and the like and list them only once a contract is signed to procure. - Ahunt (talk) 12:35, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I agree. There seems to be a tendency for defence ministers and senior commanders in some countries to announce that they're seriously considering buying some kind of hardware, or for the hardware's manufacturers to claim this, and no sales ever eventuate. Once the contract is signed the acquisition becomes very likely to occur. Nick-D (talk) 09:56, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

This is an excellent question, and it has implications that go beyond just potential aircraft purchases. There are the tentative equipment purchases of all branches, of all militaries ranging from handguns to warships. And, this also goes beyond military planning. On the one hand, we have to be wary of CRYSTAL, on the other is well sourced, encyclopaedic content, which is what WP is all about. As far as aircraft and other military equipment is concerned, I'd say that once any significant money has been spent, it's worthwhile for inclusion. Even if actual contracts aren't signed or products not yet delivered, there are situations where the government approves some serious dollar amounts for studies, RFP's, R&D, prototypes, etc., etc. I don't think we can draw a hard line though. I believe someone above said that we should judge on a case-by-case basis and that's probably the best way to go. - ^theWOLFchild 13:18, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

New supersonic airliner

A new supersonic airliner has been announced. Is the Branson-Scholl Boom notable enough for an article yet? More details from The Guardian. Mjroots (talk) 08:59, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

An article for the company was created at Boom Technology last week. To this point, we don't really have enough specific information, including specs, to warrant a separate aircraft type article just yet. Since there is a company involved, the correct title per MDN format would be Boom Technology Boom. - BilCat (talk) 13:48, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Couldn't we just shorten it to "Boom Boom"? Is the chairman called Basil Brush? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:24, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

JF-17 Thunder possible issues

Hi all. I have placed a new, greatly revised figure on the in - service total of the type above. I have sourced it using the 2015 flight global yearly airforces of the world listing and a dec 2015 citation from what seems a sound Pakistani publication. About 66 in service seems a reasonable estimate for now. However I am being reverted by editors who insist on a mythical 250 figure, which appears to be the projected production for the entire programme. Can colleagues go and take a look and/or keep an eye out on the article. I am in no mood to grapple with a delusional teeenie edit - warrior! Cheers Simon. Irondome (talk) 15:31, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

List of racing aircraft

Hi, The List of racing aircraft is a bit of a mess. I have started/refreshed some discussions at Talk:List of racing aircraft on things like the scope and format of the list. All comments welcome. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:21, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Overhaul of Aero L-39 Albatros

Hi WP:Aircraft. This month, I'm keen to dramatically improve the Aero L-39 Albatros article. One of the key changes that I intend to make is the separation of Development and Design information, along with the addition of relevant material to these sections, a lot of citations have been required here for some time. The Operational History is a bit sketchy as well, with some operators only being sparsely covered; while the Operators list is typically without evidence for its entries. If anyone has the inclination to contribute, I would be greatly appreciative. Kyteto (talk) 10:49, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Update: I've managed to clock up some hard time on the article today, which can probably been seen if you view its state a week ago compared with the current version. The number of citations used has been doubled, the Design section is separated and fleshed out to properly spin it off, both it and the Development section have been cited well (my thanks to NigelIsh for his help on this), the Operational History has also been expanded a bit. although a huge amount of work has been done, there still room for improvement: a section for Aircraft on display has been created but has no entries as of yet, all help to populate this would be appreciated; there could also be more nations in which an Operational History section should be dedicated to, to which I would implore your contributions on as well. Thank you. Kyteto (talk) 22:23, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Lists of aircraft in a given role

Hi, I have proposed that we create a default format for tabulated lists of aircraft in a given role. You are invited to join in the discussion. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:50, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Notability concerns over lists of gliders

User:Petebutt has recently created a number of lists such as List of gliders ( Turkish miscellaneous constructors). While I can appreciate that we an alphabetical list of gliders, for example, is useful, I am not sure if creating lists of gliders or other airplanes by constructor nationality is helpful. Shouldn't this be covered by categories? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:40, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

There may be a case for nationally-based list articles, for example to highlight red links which would not show up in any Category. But I certainly think that some are wrongly conceived, for example "List of gliders ([nationality] miscellaneous constructors)" is too nerdy to be a good idea. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:12, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Don't bother, they won't be there long!!--Petebutt (talk) 13:39, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Name changes

When an aircraft type is redesignated, do we stick with the original designation or change to the new one? The particular case in question is the Hybrid Air Vehicles craft once designated HAV-304 and evaluated under the US LEMV project, but now refurbished and, as far as I can tell, redesignated the Airlander 10 (or maybe it both, the HAV-304 Airlander 10). The present article is wrongly named after the sub-scale prototype, the Hybrid Air Vehicles HAV-3, so it needs moving to a new home either way. But what is the rule - new or old name? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:02, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

We usually handle it on a case-by-case basis, bearing the Common name rule in mind. Either way, as an aircraft type, it needs to use the manufacturer name in the title. HAV Airlander 10 would probably be acceptable. - BilCat (talk) 19:09, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. The closest fit to our naming conventions would be Hybrid Air Vehicles HAV 304 Airlander 10. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:53, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for deletion of Aeroprakt A-32 Vixxen

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aeroprakt A-32 Vixxen. - Ahunt (talk) 11:31, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Overhaul of Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet

Helll WP:Aircraft. I've decided to undertake some work on the Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet; I seem to be focusing on trainer aircraft right now, and this is certainly one I've been meaning to get around to. I feel like this article could benefit from a considerable amount of work, it's far smaller than the article for its traditional rival, the BAE Systems Hawk; it would be nice to balance this out somewhat. I'll be creating a Design section for the article shortly, but the Operational History is going to be really tough to restructure and cite - if anyone is inclined to help out on this, it would be appreciated by myself. Kyteto (talk) 09:40, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Glider types

Just to note that I have proposed Glider types for deletion as a duplication of already existing articles, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 12:02, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Assistance with A-10 "Warthog" article

A lot of text was added to Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II today with much of being quoted or possible close paraphrased text. Help summarizing and rewording text is needed. Thanks for any assistance. -Fnlayson (talk) 22:50, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

I see that the editor in question has decided to cause as much trouble to the article as possible and is determined to get the article delisted from GA class.Nigel Ish (talk) 17:53, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it definitely seems that way since others not fully agreeing with the user's edits. -Fnlayson (talk) 20:11, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Role-based lists of aircraft

There is a new discussion on whether to include the number of aircraft in role-based lists of aircraft here. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:18, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Antonov An-225 Mriya

I have started a discussion about whether we should include the first time this aircraft lands in each country or not here. Project members are invited to voice their opinions there. - Ahunt (talk) 12:29, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Aircraft manufacturer as a reliable primary source

Primary sources aren't normally permitted, but the certification process is an independent validation of aircraft performances. Can we use aircraft manufacturers as a reliable source when an aircraft is certified by a reputable authority? (FAA, EASA, JCAB, CASA, TCCA...) Most specs would not be sufficient, secondary sources for wikipedia. And I don't think aviation secondary sources (Flight, Aviation week, jane's...) could have the resources to verify performance with flight tests, they rely on manufacturers too. --Marc Lacoste (talk) --Marc Lacoste (talk) 08:29, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Per WP:PRIMARY, primary sources are indeed permitted. What is not permitted is to give their data context or interpretation (such as establishing its significance) without reference to secondary and/or tertiary sources. It is OK to present information from primary sources for what it is, just not to pass unsourced comment on it. Some aircraft will have properly certificated performance figures - the rival manufacturers will see that no exaggerations are published! But other, less well-known types will have less official figures, possibly massaged by the marketing department: this happens sometimes with new types from small startup companies. And yet others will have only estimates because for whatever reason nobody ever pushed it to its limits to find out. This is a problem endemic to all reference works such as trade directories and encyclopedias. If we can validate a figure from secondary sources it does not matter about the ultimate truth (seeWP:TRUTH) because we have verified it from a reliable source. If we rely on the manufacturer's primary material for figures we need to make this clear, for example in a citation for the figures or figure, by captioning it "Performance (estimated)", etc. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:25, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

I agree with User:Steelpillow, there is nothing wrong with using manufacturer's data for specifications and in fact these are normally the only source for specs. Certification documents, aircraft reviews and third party specs are normally all based on manufacturer's data, so in many cases there is no other source for these. If the manufacturer's data is good enough for certification authorities then it should be good enough for Wikipedia, and, in fact WP:PRIMARY allows just that. - Ahunt (talk) 14:33, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

I concur also. Marc, do you have some specific instances where you believe the manufacturer data to be problematic, or is this just a general question? - BilCat (talk) 18:10, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

I created the Diamond Dart 450 article but soon an edit added the Template:primary sources, and it made me search about primary sources admissibility in aircraft articles. WP:AVIMOS#SOURCES is vague, I do think certified types specs should have an express Primary source admission, and it should even prime over secondary sources which are often problematic (out of date, rounding errors, incomplete, etc.). --Marc Lacoste (talk) 07:57, 24 May 2016 (UTC) (note that it shouldn't apply for the example : the dart 450 is in development)

I read the insertion of that tag in the Diamond Dart 450 article as a need for secondary sources more to establish notability than anything. - Ahunt (talk) 11:43, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

The Template:Notabilityshould have been used, then. But I don't really care about it, I just saw the first flight news on FG, I searched the type on WP to know more about it, saw that there wasn't anything and created the article. I wouldn't mind if it was removed. But the Template:primary sources made me think about sources in aircraft articles, in particular the specs, as I recently revamped many of these. --Marc Lacoste (talk) 14:35, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Despite the general dislike for primary sources I cant see a problem using company specs for factual information the problems come using these sources for opinions and such like, we dont need a secondary source to tell us how long it is for example but it does no harm if one exists. MilborneOne (talk) 15:28, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

RfC on production numbers in lists

Thgere is an RfC discussion on numbers of aircraft built in lists. You are invited to join in. Please do, as few have yet done so. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:00, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Focus article for overhaul: Fiat G.91

Hi WP:Aircraft. I've wanted to perform one of my overhauls on the Fiat G.91 article for some time now. There's effectively no coverage of Germany's operations of the type, which something I'm keen to fix and already have a specific book lined up to make a start on such a subsection. Ditto for the non-existent Design section, the same book should help create a suitable fledging section for this, but I could use help. There are also major shortfalls in citations, particularly the Operators and Variants sections. Any attention that can be spared shall be appreciated. Kyteto (talk) 20:39, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Pod plane

I just ran across this newly-created article, and don't really know what to think of it. Any thoughts? - BilCat (talk) 02:22, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Someone has been watching too much Thunderbirds? In all seriousness, it probably belongs as part of another article. Now if I could just figure out what that article is... This Fieseler Fi 333 is related so as it's in Category:Modular aircraft perhaps a new article is needed for topic. GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:00, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Template:Green aviation

An editor just created this navbox. I am not sure what to do with it. For instance it has two aircraft, of the hundreds of electric aircraft that could be in the box. Should it be fixed or just deleted as too vague a subject for a nav box? - Ahunt (talk) 11:59, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

If you want to add more aircraft, devise a standard for which aircraft should be listed, or even remove the aircraft section entirely, go ahead. You haven't identified any problems with the rest of the sections that would begin to justify deleting the whole template. —swpb^T 12:16, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Given the large number of aircraft listed at Electric aircraft I don't think we can list some, all (far too many) or even a few. So I think the aircraft have to go from the box. My main concern overall is the vagueness of the template. What is the criteria for inclusion in the nav box? Should it include any aircraft that is more fuel-efficient than its predecessors? Or only electric aircraft or none? Fundamentally it is what is "Green Aviation"? Then there is the issue of what purpose this nav box serves? - Ahunt (talk) 13:33, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

I presume with such a wide remit we can include the numerous aircraft that have done biofuel trials like the Virgin Boeing 747 and I am sure KLM have used an Embraer, we can also add all the gliders that are very environmentally friendly. MilborneOne (talk) 20:45, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Hang gliders and paragliders are all "green aircraft", too provided that you don't drive to the launch point in a gasoline-powered car. - Ahunt (talk) 23:54, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

I saw it yesterday, and it's definitely too broad a topic for a navbox. While undoubtedly created in good faith, I don't see that it really needs to be kept. Send to deletion. - BilCat (talk) 00:45, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

A nice idea but WP:TOOSOON. It needs to await a world which can sustain an article on green aviation and associated subsidiary articles on green aircraft, green airports, green legislation, etc. etc. Meanwhile, the deletion hammer seems the kindest approach. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:07, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Commons already has a (useless?) category for Green aircraft - I'd love to see that deleted :-) PeterWD (talk) 16:56, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Agree that 'Green aviation' sounds too vague and loosely defined to warrant a navbox. The box itself pipes 'Green aviation' to link Environmental impact of aviation, which is not exactly the same thing. --Deeday-UK (talk) 23:00, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

I think that this discussion has come to a conclusion with the consensus that this template serves no purpose. - Ahunt (talk) 13:00, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for deletion of Template:Green aviation

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2016_July_11#Template:Green_aviation. - Ahunt (talk) 13:00, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

The template has now been deleted and clean-up completed. - Ahunt (talk) 13:21, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

List of aircraft re-org

Hi guys :)

Looks like a page re-org to the main List of aircraft a few months ago led to very major fragmentation. I don't have a strong opinion either way (it's been too long since I've been involved), but one of the container articles is now up for deletion: List of aircraft (0-A). We should probably have a think about how best to structure that list... Rlandmann (talk) 06:48, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi RL! Good to see you around again! - BilCat (talk)

Ditto on the hello. I see that as a result of re-organization we know have situation like List_of_aircraft_(Cg) and List_of_aircraft_(Cp) which now list 1 manufacturer and 8 and 1 aircraft in each respectively. Which seems an over-reaction to the list of aircraft (C) as of the 19th July

Thanks Bill, Graeme! FWIW, I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with a page as long as C was. But if the page needed breaking down, it wasn't into individual pages for all letters that might follow "C". Did you guys discuss this at all when it was happening? Reverting it all would be a PITA now, but certainly do-able... --Rlandmann (talk) 11:58, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

I was aware some changes were happening to the C's when they appeared on my watchlist recently. I assumed I'd missed a conversation about making changes - it was only when I saw your note that I went back and spotted just how small some of the new (sub) lists were. GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:07, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

[added] So far the re-org has only got as far as C. So if required it would be fairly easy to roll back the changes. None of the new sublists has (the ones I looked at anyway) got a talkpage nor (obviously) a WP:Aviation imprint upon that talkpage. GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:12, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

[PPS] The List of aircraft has only links to the letters, and all the Further reading and all the external links for 'all the sublists. Which since in the case of some external links, it's not obvious which Letter (let alone aircraft) they apply to, is confusing. GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:15, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

I noted this when the particular editor did it all. There was no discussion at the time that I saw. I would be happy it it was all re-merged as it is a mess. - Ahunt (talk) 19:22, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

OK, so here's what I propose: let's re-assemble the lists into their pre-fragmented scopes (0-A, B, C), assess them for size, and then (if necessary) figure out better subdivisions. I'm willing to do the heavy lifting of the re-merges unless anyone else is particularly eager! --Rlandmann (talk) 20:53, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

I can understand that consistency is an aim, but deleting such articles is purely disruptive. If we re-assess and determine a better silo scheme, fine. In the meantime, the deletion would be counter-productive. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:08, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Creating stubs is not constructive either. It's more a question of a revert to an earlier point in time, and reassessing the position. BRD. GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:15, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

It's a shame that this project wasn't consulted better or more involved in this decision. Obviously deleting now would be overly disruptive. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:18, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

• This was a spinoff from another AFD: List of aircraft by date and usage category. That's a better list than the alphabetical fragments, IMO. Andrew D. (talk) 16:44, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

  Note: this was not a spinoff, it was a pointed nomination about an article which is not related to the aforementioned "date/usage" nonsense article. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:15, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

• A bit of background: Something had to be done as the individual letter pages were/are getting too big to be sensibly editted by browsers. I have found that anything over 100 Mb causes real problems. I shall carry on splitting large List of aircraft pages. There is no reason why small page clusters can't be joined later!!--Petebutt (talk) 04:50, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Further to the above List of aircraft (L) exceeds 100Mb so is a candidate for splitting as it is becoming difficult to edit!!--Petebutt (talk) 04:59, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Please do continue to split pages as they become too large (WP:TOOBIG suggests 100kb as "almost certainly" needs splitting, but note that its focus is really on prose articles, not lists like this). But please don't pre-emptively split letters into 26 separate lists for each second-letter combination. A split down the middle into two 50kb lists will work just fine. If you're not confident about how to do this; please just ask for help -- there's no shortage of folks here who are able and willing to lend a hand. --Rlandmann (talk) 11:45, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Page information for List of aircraft (L) gives size as about 100Kb. (info). And opening it for editing doesn't seem to be a problem for me, it's also sectioned which makes editing entries easier. It might benefit from a TOC though. GraemeLeggett (talk) 09:40, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

I had just opened it to edit and it displayed the same symptoms, i.e. VERY sluggish to do ANY editting.--Petebutt (talk) 11:26, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

If editing a 100kb article is causing your computer to become very sluggish, there's something very unusual about your particular setup. That's to say: it's highly unlikely that many other folks are having this problem, and we shouldn't be making choices about article structure to service the needs of just one editor. In any case, there isn't normally any need to edit the whole page at a time: every section has its own "edit" link, which opens just a tiny fraction of the page that you can work on in isolation. That won't tax even the oldest/slowest hardware or internet connection. --Rlandmann (talk) 11:45, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

So, I just split L into two chunks of roughly even size; La-Lh and Li-Lz. Took 15 minutes including fixing the navigation template and footer. --Rlandmann (talk) 12:02, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

I've started re-merging "0-A". Each re-merge takes about 2 minutes (and I haven't had to deal with any complicated page histories yet). So about an hour to undo one of these multiple splits. It's easy to say "There is no reason why small page clusters can't be joined later!!" when somebody else is doing the actual work. --Rlandmann (talk) 13:14, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Salvage of letter "A" complete. The situation was, if anything, more nonsensical than it appeared at first. Two articles (Ao and Ax) were literally devoid of any content at all other than navigation templates (I guess like the 0-A article that triggered the AfD). I just speedied them as G6. Out of the whole mess to make the "A" list easier to edit, remarkably little had actually been done. There wasn't a single subpage with more than a couple of minor edits to it; nothing significant enough to make a page history worth saving. Anyway, I reorganized the 165kb "A" into three lists of about 55k (0-Ah, Ai-Am, An-Az) which should keep things manageable for the forseeable future. When the AfD closes, "0-A" should move to "0-Ah", but it causes problems to do this while the AfD is still in progress, so I've left it for now. Now we just have B, C, M, S, and T to do! --Rlandmann (talk) 14:10, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

That's letter "B" fixed. 170kb into three subpages. This time, I speedied 13 content-free lists. --Rlandmann (talk) 23:50, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Overlapping lists

This is related to the item above. We seem to have at least three lists which seriously overlap:

• List of aircraft
• List of aircraft manufacturers
• List of civil aircraft

The List of civil aircraft is very, very incomplete. The List of aircraft is quite complete and includes a list of manufacturers, as each entry has the manufacturer listed and linked. Is there any reason why the latter two should not be just merged and redirect to List of aircraft? Are there other lists that should be? - Ahunt (talk) 19:41, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

The list of aircraft is more fully a list of aircraft by manufacturer. It is unquestionably the most sensible ordering for an umbrella list of aircraft.

I think the list of aircraft manufacturers is useful. It is much easier to browse for interesting manufacturers than the entire list of aircraft is. I would like to see it include the notable design houses and wannabee manufacturers who don't have any actual machines to their name (such as Sänger), maybe with a move to a suitably revised article name, but that is a different issue.

I can see no value in the list of civil aircraft: too many civil types have been adapted for or dragooned into military service, and military types ditto in civilian use, for it to be usefully distinct from the main list of aircraft. Now is the best time there will ever be to stop wasting effort on it. I'd suggest it go up for AfD (I'm very busy or I'd do it myself).

— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:49, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Steelpillow about the desirability of a quickly browsable list of manufacturers. I also agree that in its current state, the list of civil aircraft is problematic, in a similar way to the List of aircraft by date and usage category currently on AfD. Rather than drag it through that process, I'd be happy to see the civil list redirect there (if it survives AfD). But the opportunity here is to make the civil list meaningful by coming up with some useful criteria for inclusion. Any suggestions? --Rlandmann (talk) 02:00, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Any opinions on List of gliders? Some, but not all of these aircraft also appear in List of aircraft, as they should.TSRL (talk) 15:25, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

That is another one, total overlap, it should be merged into List of aircraft. - Ahunt (talk) 15:44, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

The trouble with the main list of aircraft is that it does not distinguish between gliders, rocket planes, rotorcraft, airships, etc. etc. To highlight different areas of interest, a list needs to be a sortable table in a single article. Things like the list of gliders and list of rotorcraft sit uneasily between the two. If they were changed to a single-article tabular form along the lines of the otherwise contested List of aircraft by date and usage category, would that be better or worse than what we have now? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:59, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

How about merge the lists and use categories to distinguish between roles? That is really what categories were designed for. - Ahunt (talk) 17:18, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Maybe the best way. My instinct is to keep it simple: if you don't known what the role of your target aircraft is, the splitting by role would require a search. Ideally, perhaps, a sortable table which presented a particular group (or all of it) on a button-press would be better, but at the moment no suitable templates seem to exist. And Ahunt's approach would save a lot of work! TSRL (talk) 19:16, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Jettison (aviation)

Just created Jettison (aviation) to explain the aviation use of the term, like to add something on JATO and other such systems. Appreciate if anybody can help improve this please, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 17:28, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Cross check

Could someone please point me to article content that discusses this? The Cross check disambiguation page and maybe some hatnotes are in order too. Thanks. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 10:53, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

What aircraft context are you thinking of here? To "Cross-check" is an everyday phrase in English, meaning to compare one source with another to confirm the facts. A dictionary is more appropriate than an encyclopedia. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:08, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

You know when you are on a plane, you hear that broadcast "cross-checking". I am sure people search it at Wikipedia. It directs to a hockey page. That needs a hat to the dab page. The dab page needs an entry to the paragraph at the right airplane article. From what I see on the net, the term means arming and disarming doors or something. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:11, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

The phrase is usually "disarm doors and cross check" or some variation thereof; as Steelpillow says, "cross check" is nothing special. If there is any discussion, then its natural home would be evacuation slide, but I am not sure there even should be any mention of it - as far as I know there are no articles covering "there is a mouthpiece for further inflation, and a light and a whistle for attracting attention" or "cabin crew be seated for takeoff" or double chime a few minutes before turning off the "fasten seat belts" sign or "there is a lavatory at the front reserved for business class passengers" or "cabin crew prepare for landing" or "what's that noise under the floor of the plane before it takes off" or.... YSSYguy (talk) 12:36, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Fair enough. Thank you. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 21:42, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi YSSYguy. Well, "mention of it" and having an article are two different things. Actually, this still leaves me not knowing what it is. If this is searched for at Wikipedia, it probably should be covered, even with a sentence or two. I've never heard "disarm doors and cross check" but maybe I wasn't paying attention. If they say that, then they are two different things. So, what is it? I've also posted at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science#Cross check for input. Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 21:59, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

What it means is that the emergency escape slides, which inflate automatically if the cabin doors are opened with the slides armed to deploy, are disarmed; and the cabin crew then cross-check each other to make sure the disarming has been done properly. There is also the command "arm doors and cross check" when the aircraft starts to move at the beginning of a flight, but thinking about the flights I have been on I think that for some airlines the procedure is that the 'plane moving is the prompt, rather than any actual verbal command. It's just one of the many procedures cabin crews go through, like locking the lavatories' doors; checking the galley drawers are locked; checking the refreshment trollies are locked in their hutches; checking that everyone's seat belts are fastened; in the good ol' days checking that everyone had their electronic shit turned off....The arming and disarming is covered in the evacuation slide article, the verbal command, as far as I can see, is not mentioned. I don't know if you would ever actually find a reliable source for the verbal prompt, it will probably be mentioned in an aviation discussion forum somewhere or perhaps on Yahoo Answers and the like, but I could just copy-and-paste what I have typed here at such a place, which is no good as far as sourcing goes. About all I can think of is that maybe it will be mentioned in a glossary of aviation terminology. YSSYguy (talk) 23:05, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

That clears things up a lot. It is odd that we don't have an in-flight check article. I see Preflight Planning Dispatch Checklist, which is a bit of a mess.

So, I like what you wrote. Why not stick it into an article and we can add it to the dab page and maybe hat that hockey article. Thank you so much for the informative reply. It is appreciated. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:36, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

By the way, Pre-flight, Pre-flight checklist, and Preflight checklist all redirect to Preflight Planning Dispatch Checklist. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:47, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

If you are suggesting that those should not redirect to whence they are now, I heartily agree, but I have only just seen your reply and have no idea if there are more suitable targets (there are two separate concepts, "pre-flight" being an inspection of the aircraft and the other two being different names for the same in-cockpit procedure). As for putting what I have typed above into an article, all of it is original research. YSSYguy (talk) 00:00, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Well the first one was easy; I changed the entry on the dab page Pre-flight to lead to the article Walk-around. YSSYguy (talk) 00:10, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

I like what you've done. I'll look more. As for orignal research, if you know what it is for sure, it should be fine. Wikipedia is about verifiability. The content can go in, and if challenged, then we dig like mad for a source. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:50, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

I have read through Preflight Planning Dispatch Checklist and it is all strictly a "how-to". There is almost nothing encyclopedic there, so I have WP:PRODed it. - Ahunt (talk) 14:42, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

• That's probably the best plan, thanks. -Fnlayson (talk) 16:17, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

As an update, the PROD was removed, so I edited the article down to remove the how-tos and unsourced text and the resulting very short article had nothing left on the title topic, so I moved it to Preflight checklist. Not sure that this is an improvement at this stage or not, so review and further editing, etc would be appreciated. - Ahunt (talk) 12:16, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Missing lead at Preflight Planning Dispatch Checklist

Preflight Planning Dispatch Checklist has no lead at all. A simple one-sentence defition would be a good start. Many thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:15, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Looks a bit like a "How-to" and therefore falls under WP:NOTHOWTO. GraemeLeggett (talk) 09:55, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Fixed now. - Ahunt (talk) 12:17, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Tomark Viper

There's been editorial activity here today, much of it producing an unusually long and clearly promotional lead. I've reverted this but there remains a section "Panels and colours" which is probably not useful but certainly contains some partial comments. I decided to get a second opinion before deletion.TSRL (talk) 12:43, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

I did some work on it and warned one editor for WP:COI, but this needs some more eyes on it. - Ahunt (talk) 13:28, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for that. It remains on my watchlist.TSRL (talk) 14:08, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

I'll be watching it on an on-going basis as well. - Ahunt (talk) 14:10, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Light fighter article and recommended future fighter effectiveness article

See below for summary. PhaseAcer (talk) 13:50, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

The light fighter article has been expanded (a lot) recently, but - in my opinion - it lacks in the area of the Soviet (Russian)/Eastern bloc approach to the subject. Also now I think on it, the period between the wars - Poland, Czechoslovakia, French (all of whom surprise me when breakout of my UK-centric view and read about the aircraft designs they produced) and other European nations. Are there any editors with knowledge, resources, etc who are in a position to contribute to the article, or look over what is already there? GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:55, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Is this article really neutral? It seems to be a densely-worded argument for why the light fighter (defined rather broadly) is superior to all other types of combat aircraft. Nick-D (talk) 12:10, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

I think there's a degree of repetition of that point (that in the current circumstances a light fighter is largely more effective than the latest all-singing-all-dancing fighter) which gives that impression. Without the repetition I think it would come across as a more balanced (as in weight of text applied rather then strict NPOV terms) article.

Nick-D: I temporarily undid your deletion of the text box on Me 109 surprise factor. That box is not meaning to imply the Me 109 as superior to the P-51. The P-51 gets its full due in the article. The point is that as the smallest area fighter in the war (250 square feet planform) it does play to the element of surprise by which about 80% of kills are achieved, and that using surprise even a superior fighter like the P-51 can be often defeated. It also allows conveniently noting history's highest scoring ace flew the Me 109 and was a huge believer in the use of surprise. Another of Hartmann's quotes was "90% of the pilots I shot down never knew I was in the same sky as them".

A major point of the article is about how the light fighter appears to be the best use of budget, as in achieving most kills per unit of budget. All references I can find addressing this issue and using real data come down on the light fighter side (if you have references with hard data saying otherwise, please bring them). As an example, the United States spent over $10 billion from 1955 to 1982 on beyond visual range technology (radars and missiles). In that era it took big twin engine fighters like the F-4, F-14, and F-15 to carry the big radar and the heavy missiles. The net combat results was 73 radar missile kills total and only 4 BVR, out of a total of 528 air to air kills. That's $137 million per radar missile kill (most of which could have been obtained with much cheaper heat-seekers), against mostly obsolete MiGs with an average value probably less than $1 million each (a new MiG-21 was $0.5M to $2million depending on when, and a lot of these were old MiG-17s and MiG-19s that could be bought for ~$0.1M each). You could buy 200 F-5A's or 60 excellent new F-5Es for that same budget you used to buy one old MiG kill--and each F-5E is a better fighter than those MiGs. Or, if you count the BVR cost as only the BVR kills, that's $2.5Billion per kill. You could have bought a whole Air Force of 1000+ F-5E's for the amount spent to shoot down that one old MiG beyond 5 mile range. That seems to be the straight truth of it. PhaseAcer (talk) 21:45, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

OK, so you freely admin that the article is a POV pushing project then. You appear to totally misunderstand the purpose of Wikipedia. I've just reverted your changes to the article on this basis, and I'd encourage other editors to join the discussion of the content. Nick-D (talk) 11:21, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

The content is dominated (due to E-M theory and OODA loop) by the work of the fighter mafia. By bringing in content that relates to that body the light fighter article ends up with a heavy reliance on sources focussed on Boyd, Sprey etc and the arguments that they made at the time they were most active. Given that it was partly political, there is possibility that we are looking at history written by the winners (or those who portray them as the winners) GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:55, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

The reasons for making the changes to the Light Fighter article are as follows: 1. Light fighters, like all fighters, are weapons systems. Their effectiveness as weapons systems is therefore a key issue, in fact the main issue. 2. To review and present their effectiveness, impeccable scientific data based on combat results and extensive trials was presented. 3. The hard data presented was backed by sourcing the work of the finest experts in the field. These included air strategists, fighter aircraft designers, military analysts, reports from the graduate training of serving officers who had access to the detailed military record, and high scoring aces.

It should not be summarily erased on the false charge that it is simply a "point of view" that is being pushed. The apparent factual truth based totally on data is being presented. If any editors have other HARD DATA that in any way contradicts this data, that should be presented as well. That will take care of any concerns that a POV is being favored. I don't think you will find much such data, since the record seems to show the heavy fighter is an inferior strategic idea based on factual results. I have read over 2000 pages of pertinent books, professional military reports, declassified high level military briefings, and scientific papers looking for such data, and I have not been able to find it. But, if any that is worthy of being shown can be found, then it should be presented. I'm totally open to the heavy fighter getting its fair due in comparison to the light fighter.

Nick-D, I have thus temporarily undone your erasing all the new data. If you have any data that contradicts what is in the article, I request you bring that instead of summarily erasing over 100 hours of editing work that is backed by hundreds of hours of review of the professional literature. I further request you leave it in place long enough for this work to receive a fair review. If any data is found to be flawed or contradicted, it can always be removed later. But, if simply deleted then it cannot receive a fair review.

Other editors, I request you download and review the Pierre Sprey report on fighter effectiveness. It is probably the best thing in print on the subject as a whole, and it really helps in understanding both the historical and scientific basis of fighter effectiveness. You can get it at http://pogoarchives.org/labyrinth/09/08.pdf PhaseAcer (talk) 17:10, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

An alternate reading of Sprey's paper is that it is constructed to deliver, and reinforce Spray's views on the matter; to prove he was right at the time of F16 development. Spray is not without critics. This is why it's always better to have a wide range of references? GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:38, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, Sprey's view is in favor of the light fighter as the superior weapons system when all factors are considered. But, he is one of the strongest professionals on the subject, and he provides a ton of data to support his point of view. That data comes from detailed files that he had access to as a senior advisor to the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense. It is the best of insider information, and more hard data than any other single source. However, I verified its content against other sources as well as possible (there are none I know of that are as detailed and scientific as Sprey). I have only found one possible and relatively minor error in his assertions, which was Sprey implied that the F-86 had a superior record against the MiG-21 in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1972, but he did not give actual numbers. Other sources only indicate one or two MiG-21's lost to F-86's in that conflict, with the bulk of Indian losses to F-86s being MiG-17s and Hawker Hunters. As these smaller MiG-21 losses are not really enough to count as a statistically significant trend, I removed the sentence that the F-86 had a superior combat record when directly going against the MiG-21.

I am only aware of one hopefully high quality source that might give more data favoring the heavy fighter. That is the book "Military Reform: The High Tech Debate in Tactical Air Forces". It is reported by Stevenson as being relatively balanced, and coming down on the "quality" side. I don't know if that means "quality" as in a sophisticated light fighter like the F-16 as opposed to a really cheap light fighter like the F-5, or heavy fighter vs. light fighter in general. I have a copy on order and was planning on reporting any genuine high quality data as soon as it arrives and I can read it. PhaseAcer (talk) 20:59, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

While I currently do not have an opinion on this issue, the list of notes seems quite long and some of them seem to be things that are a reference. Furthermore the reflist is under Citations while References only contain books, is this done the right way? Redalert2fan (talk) 16:25, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

I got my answer on the article talk page. Redalert2fan (talk) 22:57, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

SUMMARY Aug. 2, 2016: With limited referencing in general, and without modern referencing, the light fighter article was out of policy, not informative to the large amount of literature of the last 20 years, and actually giving some incorrect conclusions. Its unreferenced conclusions had the appearance of personal POV based on an outdated perception of what a light fighter is. No doubt it is unintentional, but it is the result of not taking into account the large body of modern literature. It is policy for Wikipedia articles to be based on summarizing references and to give more weight of coverage to more important issues, and for a science or technology based topic to emphasize more modern references. That is what the article now does. Force effectiveness and budget are very top level issues regarding fighter aviation, issues which dominate modern literature on the subject, but have been almost totally missing from Wikipedia. The modern references and the historical record strongly indicate that light fighters (by the modern definition and if well designed) tend to have higher effectiveness per plane and much higher per budget. That is why this information, so far not conveniently referenceable within Wikipedia, is for the existing structure of fighter aviation articles most logically introduced in this particular article on light fighters. However, because this article is then having to carry the weight of the missing information from the current set of articles, it makes for a somewhat long article to have it all here. Many articles are longer (see how long the F-5 article is with all the detail on different users), and many are much more complex (see Jet engine and Radar), but it is probably more desirable long term to reduce the weight of information and reference summary this article must now carry alone. It would thus be even more logical to plan to generate a new article on fighter effectiveness, and then reduce the light fighter article by referring to the new effectiveness article for a summary of literature on this key topic. As weapons to be carried and their effectiveness are critical to the design of all fighters, and not currently well summarized in Wikipedia, an article just on weapons effectiveness so that the fighter effectiveness article does not have to carry all that reference summary as well is also worth considering. For editorial convenience we might first do a combined fighter and weapons effectiveness article, and then later split out the weapons effectiveness article in order to expand it further. Other fighter articles could then refer to the fighter effectiveness and air-to-air weapons effectiveness articles in order to bring those key issues into consideration with respect to particular aircraft. I am happy to work with the other editors to create and refine such an article or articles, and can generate a first draft or drafts to get them going. This would be in compliance with modern references and Wikipedia policy, would allow a more typical "light fighter" article, and would be a significant improvement to the body of other Wikipedia fighter aviation articles as well that may then reference these new articles. PhaseAcer (talk) 14:47, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Hum that was a bit long it may help to put your ideas in smaller and sections so we can digest it. I am not convinced having articles on effectivness of different weapons is particularly encyclopedic we dont as a rule do comparison articles. The light fighter article as it is written like an essay and probably not the way to go in an encyclopedia. Some of the more heavy weight stuff we would normal just reference out to better sources than try and turn wikipedia into a complex novel. MilborneOne (talk) 16:30, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Sure Milborne, here's the simplification. The bottom line is that the strategic impact of fighter and weapons design options is a first order issue. The very well developed body of modern literature says that well designed light fighters do everything needed a little better than well designed heavy fighters, for about half the budget. The references devoted to the subject treat light fighters not just as equipment, but as a top level policy and budgetary issue, where national security and tens of billions of dollars in budget difference are at stake (hundreds of billions when stealth enters the situation). Several times in the past it has been an issue at the level of national survival, such as the Battle of Britain, and it may well be again. As I understand the Wikipedia policy, the articles are supposed to summarize references, and provide issue coverage proportional to importance (due weight). What issue about fighter aircraft has more weight than this one? I am not asking to write a novel about it. I am asking if policy can be followed in getting some decent coverage of the issue into Wikipedia. PhaseAcer (talk) 22:28, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Military Operator Maps

User:Jurryaany has been adding maps showing the location of military operators, not sure they help the reader at all but I have reverted the addition on what would be classed as a civil aircraft like the AgustaWestland AW109, adding a map just for the military operators in my opinion is misleading as civil aircraft are far more widespread. Anybody have an opinion on these military operator maps particularly on mainly civil aircraft articles. MilborneOne (talk) 17:51, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Not relevant to aircraft types. Might be appropriate to the operator's article, but even then I have my doubts. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:30, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

I have been watching these appear, too. I supposed they are of some limited use. My one question is will they be maintained as operators come and go over time? - Ahunt (talk) 20:16, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for deletion of A.I.R Engineer

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A.I.R Engineer. - Ahunt (talk) 20:31, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Focus article for overhaul: Vickers Wellington

Hi all. I've recently been doing overhauls on a number of bomber aircraft from WW2 - RAF bombers seemed to be more poorly developed than the German or American counterparts it appeared. One in particular stood out to me as being underdeveloped, despite me throwing a fair bit of effort at it recently: The Vickers Wellington. The claims to notability for the type are numerous, being the most numerous British bomber of the war and being the mainstay of Bomber Command during early half of the war. From an engineering point of view, the geodetic airframe employed is a remarkable difference from most aircraft. It just seems to be a real shame that the article covering it has little detail on its Design and Operational History sections (it didn't even have a Design section a week ago!), in comparison with the Lancaster or the B-17 it can be easily agreed upon to be tiny in comparison; if anyone has the inclination and the sources to contribute, I'd encourage you to do so. Thanks in advance for your help Kyteto (talk) 18:27, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Notice to participants at this page about adminship

Many participants here create a lot of content, have to evaluate whether or not a subject is notable, decide if content complies with BLP policy, and much more. Well, these are just some of the skills considered at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.

So, please consider taking a look at and watchlisting this page:

• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Optional RfA candidate poll

You could be very helpful in evaluating potential candidates, and even finding out if you would be a suitable RfA candidate.

Many thanks and best wishes,

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:46, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your note here. I should note that I am opposed to how admins are currently chosen, the lengthy character assassination they have to go through, so don't participate in the process. - Ahunt (talk) 10:19, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

F-5 variants

Should HESA Azarakhsh and HESA Saeqeh really need to be separate articles? Seems like they should be combined. -Fnlayson (talk) 22:07, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

While they could be combined as variants, both articles seem to have enough text and refs to support different articles. We certainly have different articles on other variants of other aircraft that have more commonality than these two. - Ahunt (talk) 23:16, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Images in list tables

I thought that it was decided that small images in tables that are used in aircraft lists were removed a while ago, but I notice that at least List of military aircraft of the United States still displays images. Did we have a consensus on this or is it just my memory playing up? MilborneOne (talk) 18:21, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

You are correct, see WP:AVILIST for details. As far as I know, the only article where local consensus has agreed to override the default and include such images is the List of X-planes. There are a lot of lists of aeroplanes and a lot of work still needed to tidy them all. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:40, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

OK thanks for reminding me Steelpillow and thanks for your hard work on this sort of thing. MilborneOne (talk) 18:44, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Canadian International Air Show‎

This article could use some more eyes on it for the next while. The article has been vandalized every year for the past five years during the airshow, which was this past weekend, but it is always quickly reverted. It has been going on so long that the press has now noted it and I have included a para on just that, with the refs. The latest step is that the vandals are now trying to include their exact vandalism wording in the article as "cited in the refs" in the article. Obviously this will lead to more vandalism to get that quoted as well, in a bootstrap fashion, plus the vandals are actually now in a WP:COI, since they are the subject of the article or at least one part of it. - Ahunt (talk) 15:50, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

On my watchlist.TSRL (talk) 16:26, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Variants order

Hello, in the Boeing 777x article I put the order of the variants -9 first then -8, as in the preliminary acaps, which is the only Boeing documentation, because the basis variant is the -9, the -8 is a shrink -and outsold 5 to 1. User:Fnlayson reverted that explaining "variant subsections are usually in numerical order", which I agree. But it made me think about what is the most informative order, not only in this article but more widely in airliners. I think a numerical order, as an alphabetic one, is only good when there is no other meaningful order.
For airliners, a chronological order makes sense : the basis variant came first, then its derivatives. Numerical order is often the same as the size order, which could be a meaningful order, but it's because stretchs are more frequent than shrinks (as the 737-500 is smaller than the basis -300). In Airbus A320 family the order is chronological, as the A350XWB variants. The A330-300 came before the -200. Numerical order makes more sense in the specifications tables, though. --Marc Lacoste (talk) 06:21, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

I was going off memory of the numerous airliner articles I've dealt with. The order of the variant subsections won't matter that much if the text is clearly written with dates listed. I don't think we should be rearranging sections without an important need. Chronological order is generally more important for the Development and Operational history sections, imo. -Fnlayson (talk) 07:05, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

List of active indian military aircraft with photos

Just to note I have marked List of active indian military aircraft with photos for speedy deletion as a duplicate of the one without images! MilborneOne (talk) 15:06, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Sigh. Btw, List of military aircraft of the United States still has photos in multiple tables in the second half of the article. I'm not proficient at working with tables, so I can't remove them myself.- BilCat (talk) 20:05, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

I have removed a few in-table images from List of military aircraft of the United States to see what happens. but really, mixing bullet and table lists is horrible and it needs a decision which to run with. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:29, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Clipper Victor

Just to note that the article on the Boeing 747 Clipper Victor has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Clipper Victor. MilborneOne (talk) 19:19, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Aircraft Electronics Association

A new user has created Aircraft Electronics Association that uses only sources related to the subject. The user has repeatedly removed Notability and primary source tags. Any help in addressing the issues would be appreciated, as I'm 3RR in restoring the tags. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 20:59, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

The user has confirmed a conflict of interest here. - BilCat (talk) 01:01, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

I added some more tags, but the article is pure WP:COI WP:SPAM, so I have sent it to WP:CSD. - Ahunt (talk) 01:06, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

And it has been deleted. Given that it was created by the PR person for the subject of the article, I expect it will be re-created, though. - Ahunt (talk) 13:43, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Military aviation task force

I reverted a removal of an aircraft project tag on Talk:List of active Indian military aircraft by User:Petebutt but he has removed it again as he claims that it is part of the aviation project through being tagged for Mil Hist, now as far as I know Mil Hist and the Military aviation task force are related and mainly the same people working on them but not the close that we need to remove the aircraft task force tags. As far as I know they are separate projects with different goals so I cant see why a list of aircraft cant be claimed by this project, I pretty sure other military related article stuff has both projects mentioned - anybody make any sense of this, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 16:41, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

The Military Aviation task force is under the Military History project; this task force is related to the Aviation project but not connected. There's nothing wrong with having overlapping project banners on a talk page. -Fnlayson (talk) 17:22, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Depends on the context. A list of military aircraft does not need an aviation banner, but an article on an airbase would, and so on. You can have both, but I will continue removing those that are not required. If somebody feels differtently after I have removed a banner, they can re-instate it, no big deal.--Petebutt (talk) 08:52, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Or you could not remove them in the first place. And I am aware that this may sound like "Whataboutism" but suggestions of superfluousness in articlespace from someone who creates so many redirects is a bit pot/kettle. GraemeLeggett (talk) 10:39, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Pete's time would be better spent providing sources for articles he creates, such as Yakovlev Yak-152, as he writes them. - BilCat (talk) 15:37, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

I tagged Yakovlev Yak-152 for no refs and for notability, but I have to note that it gives my no pleasure to do so, as all aircraft types are notable because they get media coverage. The article creator must have read about the existence of the aircraft somewhere, so why not just cite it? - Ahunt (talk) 15:45, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Okay, refs have been added now. - Ahunt (talk) 15:50, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Help needed with A-10 article

The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II article has been a Good Article since 2010 and is undergoing a Good article reassessment now mainly due to a lot of added text earlier this year. Try to help address the comments at WP:Good article reassessment/Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II/1. It looks like too much there for me. Thanks. -Fnlayson (talk) 03:24, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Glenn L. Martin Maryland Aviation Museum

I just discovered an old draft article at Draft:Glenn L. Martin Maryland Aviation Museum. It has potential, but I've no experience in working with museum articles. Would anyone be interested in helping update and revamp the draft so we can move it to mainspace? Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 15:28, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

It looks okay the way it is, just needs some third party refs and the aircraft list linked. - Ahunt (talk) 15:30, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. The aircraft list may be outdated, so we'll need to check that. - BilCat (talk) 15:33, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

The list should be referenced to the museum webpage, that will confirm what they have on display. - Ahunt (talk) 15:37, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

 Done - Ahunt (talk) 15:56, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

There's a third party piece about the museum in Bob Ogden's "Aviation Museums and Collections of North America". This has a foundation date and notes a large collection of company archives, models, docs and photos. He gives a (2011) aircraft list, with a note about their display status eg public view, research available etc, and whether they fly. More detail than we need but useful to bear in mind. I'm happy to have a go, TSRL (talk) 16:36, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

That sounds like it would be ideal to establish WP:N. - Ahunt (talk) 16:40, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Work in progress at the moment - hoping Ogden +Gunston can replace some of the museums info. Interupted for now.TSRL (talk) 18:57, 10 October 2016 (UTC) Ogden should do for WP:N; I've off-loaded as much as possible from the museum page to Gunston and Jane's; and updated the exhibit list from the museum's page. With so many loans, it will keep changing. The archive is really the core of this collection, not the planes. Is it ready to become an article?TSRL (talk) 22:01, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I just added the infobox. I think it looks good enough for "start class" now and can be moved to mainspace. - Ahunt (talk) 22:05, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Is that just a simple move?TSRL (talk) 22:16, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

That should work! - Ahunt (talk) 22:24, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Done -TSRL (talk) 22:37, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks all! It looks good now. - BilCat (talk) 22:49, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Draft articles

Now that we've rescued Glenn L. Martin Maryland Aviation Museum from draftspace, I'm wondering how many more draft orphans are there in draftspace. Does anyone know of a simple way to view a list of these? Is there a category for aviation-related draft articles, and if not, can/should we make one? Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 20:50, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

By searching for "Draft:Aircraft", I've found several drafts with promise. These are Draft:Aireon, Draft:RUAG Aviation, and Draft:Trump Force One. - BilCat (talk) 21:10, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

The RUAG one needs work, while the other two look ready for prime time. - Ahunt (talk) 21:16, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Here are a few you might be interested in: Draft:Wickham Model C, Draft:Wickham Model E, Draft:ParaPlane PSE-1, and Draft:ParaPlane PSE-2. - BilCat (talk) 21:21, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

The first two need serious work. The second two are copied from an article I started and which is in mainspace: Paraplane PSE-2 Osprey. - Ahunt (talk) 21:33, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Trump Force One has been to mainspace and out again via AfD. I guess the draft is left over from a copy-to-mainspace instead of move-to-mainspace. The RUAG draft is the work of FFA P-16 with someone moving it back to draftspace because of his appallingly bad English. YSSYguy (talk) 01:56, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

- Ahunt (talk) 02:15, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

I knew the RUAG page was created by the Swiss fanboy, but it's still a notable topic. I didn't know about TF1's AFD. Looking at the history, the article was AFDed in mid-May, and the draft created in late-June. I don't know if there's a tag for it, but the draft page needs to note it was AFDed. - BilCat (talk) 02:28, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Salone and Lucas parachute

Has anyone come across this system, fitted to at least one French tourer in 1930, or better still understood it? It looks from photos in NACA Aircraft Circular 153 as if the 'chute was stored in the fuselage and deployed by pulling it out through a hole in the side, but I'm not sure. There was emphasis on automatic 'chutes in those days, driven by a notion that one would pass out in free fall and not be able to pull the release. Was it aimed at the civil market? Any info very welcome. Cheers,TSRL (talk) 20:34, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Current 747 operators list

Both at the 747-400 article and list of 747 operators, is carrying incorrect information, missing operators, wrong number of aircraft, its quoting Flight Global and thats an unreliable source as I have found inaccuracies in their their data off and on over the years, a more reliable online source is needed. inspector (talk) 23:20, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

The lists could be cited by the Flight source, but not actually matching the source. I suggest checking the source(s) and correcting numbers where needed. -Fnlayson (talk) 01:39, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Note that Flight is a reliable source and is prefered over the online mainly fan created websites. MilborneOne (talk) 19:58, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I dont have flight global available, anyways the list is missing 747 operator Air Atlanta Icelandic and Eaglexpress charter, its also not includedMalaysia Airlines who have three 747s stored, but it shows Iran Air with one stored 747SP in there, the FG article ref is from September IR stopped flying the 747SP in June, even if its still considered part of fleet, why has Malaysia Airlines not made it? they havent removed the 747 freighters and one passenger aircraft from register, just stored them. inspector (talk) 19:56, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

The Flight International annual airline survey is still a reliable source, you have to remember as an encyclopedia the information doesnt have to be up to date, just dated and cited. MilborneOne (talk) 20:09, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Found a pdf of the FG concensus, its exactly as he has posted missing Air Atlanta, Eaglexpress and Malaysia Airlines/MASkargo, it shows myCargo as having just one 747 when in reality they have atleast five or more. inspector (talk) 20:35, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Overhaul of de Havilland Vampire

Hi WP:Aircraft. For five years, I been wanting to overhaul de Havilland Vampire at some point and it's been sitting on my to-do list all that time, so I figured for my 150th overhaul it is finally a good moment to tackle this entry and solidly scratched it off that list. I've made a start on this areas, and will be going through the rest of a pretty good book in the coming week, it'll take some time to go through the material I have here. If anyone could contribute, particularly to the Operational History and Design sections, this would be greatly appreciated. Kyteto (talk) 00:40, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Time to take my copy of Buttler British Secret Aircraft Projects off the shelf and have a check methinks. I believe he's got a revised edition of Secret Jet Fight Projects out this month, that might have something relevant. GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:32, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm a fan of his work, I don't own many of his books unfortunately; I'm glad to know you're looking into it though! Kyteto (talk) 17:33, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

I have always thought it was strange that we mix up the DH.100 Vampire and the Vampire Trainers (DH.115) in the article as they were not that directly related as the article implies, the 115 was based on the two-seat night-fighter Venom Vampire (DH.113) rather than the second-world war designed Vampires, so was really a different aircraft other than name and general appearance. MilborneOne (talk) 19:51, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

AJ Jackson's Putnam book on DH aircraft separates these two types; clearly right.TSRL (talk) 20:40, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

According to David Smith in the excellent Aeroplane Special, "Vampire", (Kelsey Pub. 2014), the 113 and 115 used the same wing and tail as the single-seater and retained the same name. Whether we treat them within the main DH.100 sections or separately is surely just a matter of editorial judgement based on the nature of the related content. SNCASE Mistral redirects there but the variant is barely mentioned and France is not even listed in the operational remarks. This is a far worse shortcoming in my opinion. I'd suggest we take the standard approach - keep improving the article as we see fit and, as and when a particular subsection grows beyond the reader's convenience, consider forking it off as a standalone article. That might be an article on the two-seaters or on Vampire variants, or operations, or several such splinters, or whatever. Beyond the general approach we take, detailed proposals should be discussed at Talk:de Havilland Vampire and not here. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:58, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Wassmer aircraft naming

Hello, the aircraft listed on {{Wassmer aircraft}} have varying naming styles. Some use manufacturer + designation and others use manufacturer + name. Should these be standardized a bit better or is there a reason that they're as they are? I came across this while doing lengthy AWB runs. Dawnseeker2000 00:29, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

It seems that the ones with no names in the nav box were not given names by the manufacturer. - Ahunt (talk) 15:09, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

That's right. The WA23 was a one-off development of the Javelot line, the WA50 was the prototype of the AW5x line, with the WA53 a project only.TSRL (talk) 15:20, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Roger that, and thanks for the detail. I'll be keeping my eyes open during my AWB runs, so there may be others that come up down the road, and I'll post again if I find any. At more than 60,000 articles, WikiProject Aviation has (by far) one of the largest collections of articles that I've worked on. At WikiProject Earthquakes we only have about 2,300 articles, so our collection of articles is pretty tight as far as standardization of names goes. I imagine the different approaches, lack of communication, and drive-by editors making random and undiscussed changes could be challenging. Just looking for inconsistencies and other areas where there may be room for improvement. Dawnseeker2000 03:44, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

@Dawnseeker2000: I support efforts to increase the uniformity of the encyclopedia, and I certainly agree that it's challenging when editors make random and undiscussed changes, especially on a massive scale. It can take some time to clear up. Burninthruthesky (talk) 09:23, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

The consensus was that my edit are improvements. Dawnseeker2000 13:19, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Largely, they are improvements. Some aspects of this are against policy, because redirects to sections of articles pages should never be bypassed. Will you stop doing this? Burninthruthesky (talk) 13:31, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, of course. {{section link}} is perfect in those situations. It tells the reader right up front what they're getting (a section vs an article). Dawnseeker2000 13:37, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the first part. I'm not sure where you're getting the rest from. As it says in WP:NOTBROKEN, "Updating one redirect is far more efficient than updating dozens of piped links." So, if it survives RFD (which I expect it will), the redirect you unlinked here will need to be reinstated. Burninthruthesky (talk) 14:22, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Part of the reason for the requirement to get consensus for large-scale edits before rolling them out is to prevent problems like this before they become widespread. Burninthruthesky (talk) 15:53, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Only you see a problem here. With regard to the section links, don't create them in the first place and there will never be a need to update them. I don't have problems finding sections in articles without them. Dawnseeker2000 16:27, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

@Burninthruthesky:, please hang tight while I draft a message. I'll post to your talk page in the near future. We need to start working towards improving our relationship. I don't enjoy disagreements on WP and would rather just continue editing. Hang in there though; I'm not a counselor. Dawnseeker2000 21:39, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

As far as I know, the two edits above haven't been discussed elsewhere. I thought this might be a good opportunity to form a clear, project-wide consensus for the systematic changes you are making. That way, everyone can work together. I don't enjoy disagreements on WP either. My talk page is open for discussion, but I have no need of a "counselor", thank you. Burninthruthesky (talk) 09:34, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Would you stop. I was not offering one. It was a joke. Dawnseeker2000

There was me about to join the discussion. Subtle jokes among strangers seldom go down as expected. Now I have to wait until I figure where does the joke begin and end. Please stay with the flow. Sorry to be so anally retentive, that's just how some of us deal with problems. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:45, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. I do appreciate it. I just think that I didn't see how that read. I am trying to resolve this so obviously no harm was intended. Yesterday I offered to post on the other editor's talk page. I may or may not do that, but if I do, it will be my last statement. Dawnseeker2000 19:21, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

WP:R is the relevant guideline here. WP:RPURPOSE is clear that linking to a section is a valid reason for creating a redirect (indeed, it is itself an example of such a section redirect). As has been pointed out, WP:NOTBROKEN means that linking to such redirects should not be bypassed. Whether or not a fancy template is used is neither here nor there, as long as the principle is respected. The burden is on anybody who disagrees to overturn the wider consensus first and not to start unilaterally challenging this Project's section redirects. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:30, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

No problem exists with section redirects. That portion of the discussion was over days ago. Thanks for the clarification though. Dawnseeker2000 15:34, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for acknowledging that you have got past your problem with section redirects in the way that you had here. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:03, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Alright, well the tone with that message sure is strange. I think this conversation is over. Dawnseeker2000 13:44, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Tecnam MMA

Just came across the article on the Tecnam MMA as it reads like a press release I was looking to see what could be done with it but it appears to be just a Tecnam P2006T with mission equipment with no changes to the aircraft. Should this just be redirected to Tecnam P2006T and mentioned as a variant, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 18:13, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes! - Ahunt (talk) 23:48, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Concur. - BilCat (talk) 00:53, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Unidentified aircraft at Commons

Commons Category:Unidentified_aircraft continues to gather images of aircraft from obscure sources that are proving to be difficult to identify by manufacturer and type name. Notable (notorious?) countries include Slovenia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Russia. Pre-World War II military stuff is not one of my strong areas, so perhaps several Wikimedia projects might benefit from more expert eyes regularly on the category, MTIA, PeterWD (talk) 10:49, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I have got the Unidentified Helicopters sub-category down to ten files, of which seven I have nominated for deletion as not being useful. The remaining three are images taken from inside helicopters, probably of Eurocopter EC 120 and/or AS350 Écureuil types. YSSYguy (talk) 13:52, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Purpose of articles?

If you are going to use references that dont mention several former operators of an aircraft type what is the purpose of these articles with list of operators section or is everything supposed to be current? why ignore the former operators? 139.190.175.128 (talk) 15:35, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

• Former operators operators should be listed in Operators section and labeled 'former' in some manner. These type of details should have sources to support them. See WP:Air/PC for standard sections and what they cover. -Fnlayson (talk) 15:47, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Some editors are screwing up 747 operators list even though it has airfleets.com as reference attached, doing the inline thing is tedious but am making an effort to do that, can you ask them not to remove the country wise operators list. 139.190.175.128 (talk) 20:31, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Tediously created country wide list of 747 current and former operaters has been removed after several years by editors who didnt give a damn about it before, citing airfleets and planespotters as unreliable sources, well guess what there are no other ones than pay for sites whose content might also be considered unraliable and in anycase wil not be accessable by general public as its not viewable. Only other source is photographs which are not accepted, what a wasted effort of time and energy, hours spent collecting and confirming information. Those concerned with the wiki aircraft project might consider restoring the valuble content if you deem fit, as it is with the references which are quite reliable and better than nothing, I cant be bothered anymore to do that. Also ask the invading editors to go screw up other data on different aircraft types, in the future wikipedia article on list of 747 operators will only be showing maybe a handful of remaining operators with no history of the multitude that flew this iconic aircraft only the 747SP, 400 and 8 have operators listed, already the 400 current operators list has been messed with and should ideally be removed as well along with the former operators section. Wikipedia was being made into the only easy format source of this information on the internet, other fleet data sites are too complicated and you cant figure out much as it requires extenstive searching, many airlines are listed multiple times for each 747 they operated based on aircraft registration, or you have to search them airline wise, how many can you search to know who flew them? there are no airline listed country wide anywhere that I know of, one that did that is now pay for, and their is no 747 fan site like for the 747SP keeping track of this informatuon, so again wikipedia was the only source doing that. 139.190.175.128 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:35, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

IP139 Please dont attack the motives of other editors. No reason not to have a list of operators of the Boeing 747 and they are plenty of reliable references for operators of the Boeing 747 without using spotter websites. It just takes time for somebody to do it, Wikipedia is a work in progress so it will re-appear at some point. MilborneOne (talk) 21:41, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Spotter information is more reliable because they enthusiastically keep track of every bit of information, again consider restoring the data just for the sake of the effort and time put in to compiling it, and as mentioned the references are 95% reliable, till something better comes along, dont be so rigid.

Its so easy to say this is an ongoing project and imformation will return when that dream reference source materliasies which I'm sure will itslef wll be limited and missing tons of other stuff, info was there with fairly realiable references and need not have been rmeoved, can you give me back the time and energey put into it since I started dabbling with this in 2009, you dont owe mw anything but to say stuff like what you did and to simply just remove content with no consideration is really something, almost inhuman, in any case not all of wiki is in pristine condition with acurate refs, why is this being targeted? cant it remain out of respect for someones effort? 139.190.175.128 (talk) 00:48, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

needs concensus.139.190.175.128 (talk) 00:48, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

It is not a matter of being rigid, Wikipedia policy prevents using sources like that, see WP:SPS and for sources in general Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources. - Ahunt (talk) 01:08, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

COI issues

We seem to have a COI editor trying to use Wikipedia to advertise Swiss Excellence Risen, Swiss Excellence Siren and Swiss Excellence Airplanes. The Swiss Excellence Siren is just a fixed gear version of the Risen so I have redirected it. I have properly formatted Swiss Excellence Risen, but the COI editor keeps reverting to the advertising version, as well as removing tagging. Some more eyes on these articles would be helpful. - Ahunt (talk) 14:43, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Watching.TSRL (talk) 15:08, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

I have got the articles into shape for now, hopefully they will stay that way and be improved from there. Eyes and input appreciated. - Ahunt (talk) 15:40, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Folland Gnat survivors

Just improved List of surviving Folland Gnats into the more normal project format but notice a lack of information on preserved Gnats in India, if anybody has a reliable source, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 20:34, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

There's a longish list in Ogden's Aviation Museums and Collections of the Rest of the World, though this dates back to 2008. I'll have a closer look.TSRL (talk) 11:48, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Put in all on display in 2008; rather more in store which require permission - another day, perhaps.TSRL (talk) 16:13, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Q: for the purposes of this list, does the Ajeet count as a Gnat? My feeling is to follow Ogden and call it Ajeet (Gnat 2). OK?

Thanks for the inputs, Ajeet does has its own article but they could be added in the survivors article for now as long the intro makes it clear it covers the Ajeet and we add a link from the Ajeet page. MilborneOne (talk) 17:43, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks foradvice. All done.TSRL (talk) 22:21, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Listed for deletion

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Embraer MFT-LF. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 09:57, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Twinjet - BilCat (talk) 15:59, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Use of tables for specifications

A proposal has been made to change Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide/Layout (Aircraft) to allow specifications to be presented in tables for multiple variants. This could mean a major change to aircraft type article layouts, which currently explicitly state that, "these specifications should relate to a specific variant of the aircraft, and be labeled accordingly. Usually this will be the most famous/noteworthy/numerous variant. Each article should only have one set of specifications and any model differences should be described in the variants or development sections. Multiple sets of specifications are to be avoided." So far the discussion on this has only attracted minimal input. Given this could be a significant change to articles under this project please add your thoughts at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aviation/Style_guide/Layout_(Aircraft)#Specifications_tables. - Ahunt (talk) 12:27, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Orders for Comac aircraft

Before my edits, Comac C919 claim the aircraft received 540 orders and 33 options. However, after checking various sources, it is found that at least 200 of those orders are either options or letter of intent or MOU. Only less than 100 are verified to be firm orders. Can someone help check the remaining 200 or so "orders" and also ARJ21's "orders"?

And actually, even when Comac or customers say it's a firm order there are something fishy in it. Like back in 2010 it was said that first 100 order for C919 include 50 option and 50 firm, each of those 20 orders from China Eastern Airlines Air China, and China Southern Airlines include 5 firm and 15 options, but then earlier this month (2016 Nov) when things are pushed forward, ttp://mt.sohu.com/d20161101/117872728_469933.shtml Chinese media reported] that the 20 orders from China Eastern Airlines were all options, and it is until this November when they signed a new MOU that firmed up 5 aircrafts.

C933103 (talk) 12:54, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

2016 Community Wishlist Survey Proposal to Revive Popular Pages

Greetings WikiProject Aircraft/Archive 41 Members!

This is a one-time-only message to inform you about a technical proposal to revive your Popular Pages list in the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey that I think you may be interested in reviewing and perhaps even voting for:

• Fix and improve Mr.Z-bot's popular pages report

If the above proposal gets in the Top 10 based on the votes, there is a high likelihood of this bot being restored so your project will again see monthly updates of popular pages.

Further, there are over 260 proposals in all to review and vote for, across many aspects of wikis.

Thank you for your consideration. Please note that voting for proposals continues through December 12, 2016.

Best regards, Stevietheman — Delivered: 17:51, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for deletion of Simonini Racing

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Simonini Racing. - Ahunt (talk) 21:14, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Comparison graph

Current and future generation regional jets and small narrowbodies, based on CAPA and Bombardier

User:Marc Lacoste has been adding File:CSeries_comparable_aircraft.png to a number of airline articles, I have removed it from some as I don t see its relevance to the articles or the aircraft, we dont do comparisons. Raised here so that User:Marc Lacoste can explain what they are trying to achieve and gain a consensus to adding comparison data. Hard to understand but it appears to be showing number of seats although that is not explained. MilborneOne (talk) 15:07, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing that up. Its previous version was used in CSeries and regional jet. I was scratching my head because I was sure I had seen the source of this comparison, so I was happy to find it again in the Bombardier market forecast. I then saw an alternate, more precise one at CAPA and based myself on that one (more agnostic) to update the chart with recent data (eg, the MAX7 since its redesign). I thought it was useful in the see also section of the Cseries, so I thought it would be useful also in the other cited airliners to show their concurrence, with specific data. Of course it's the seat count, you show me I forgot to add it, but it's easy to change since I made it with google docs, free to edit and update for anyone.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 15:32, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree that it is not clear what it is illustrating, but even if it does clarify that it is seats, then so what? Why is that a metric worthy of a graph as opposed to graphs for first flight dates, entry to service dates, purchase cost, operating cost, subsidies available, range, cruising speed or any other of hundreds of other possibilities? Do we want aircraft articles filled up with graphs? - Ahunt (talk) 15:39, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Aircraft articles are a long way from being filled with charts. This was only to illustrate the see also section with the comparable airliners main metric. If you want it to be more clear, or to split it to show only relevant competition, feel free to improve it. It is pretty useful in the CAPA article or in the Bombardier report. I did not invented it, it is five years old. --Marc Lacoste (talk) 16:15, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate you didnt invent it but we dont do comparisions between types so it needs to removed from the other articles as well. As an encyclopedia we present the information on each type it is up to the reader to make any comparisons they want using the data. MilborneOne (talk) 16:21, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

the point was it showed in the CSeries article 5 years long and it hurt nobody. --Marc Lacoste (talk) 16:30, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Just because it has been around for five years doesnt make it right, I am sure if you look at any of the 18,423 aircraft project articles you will find similar anomolies, which as they are found will get tied up as Wikipedia is a work in progress. MilborneOne (talk) 16:59, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Most articles of modern aircraft struggle to support the number of images crammed into them, adding graphs is not going to help the situation. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:12, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Category:Individual aircraft

User:Godsfriendchuck in good faith has been adding Category:Individual aircraft using "HotCat" to aircraft types where only one has been produced like Boeing YAL-1 and Aviation Traders Accountant as far as I remember the consensus for this category is for individual (not one of a type) aircraft like St. Raphael (aircraft) and Enola Gay (which is in a sub-cat). Any views on this ? MilborneOne (talk) 12:58, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

This text has been on the category page since creation in 2006: This is a category for specific aircraft which are notable for their achievements in aviation or particular historical significance. Only specific aircraft please, no types. Perhaps it needs clarifying to 'specific named aircraft' or something even clearer (bold 'no types')? Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 13:50, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

• I adjusted the wording a bit and bolded last part. Some more wording might needed to further clarify what an individual aircraft is like Nimbus suggests above. Mentioning some example articles might help too. -Fnlayson (talk) 15:51, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, while looking at articles tagged individual aircraft a few of the American "Historic Place" articles like TBM-3E "Avenger" Torpedo Bomber Warplane or B-17G "Flying Fortress" No. 44-83690 do not have particularly helpful article names. MilborneOne (talk) 16:28, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

These two seem to be notable only for being in a museum or on a list; there's nothing in their histories that distinguishes them from the rest of their type. Shouldn't the latter be the criteria?TSRL (talk) 17:26, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Just to clarify that in a few cases, a single-aircraft type can be "notable for their achievements in aviation or particular historical significance." This would include the Hughes H-4 Hercules ("Spruce Goose") and the Spirit of St. Louis. I know we don't want to make the note too long, but I don't want to see someone removing these aircraft solely on the basis of this note. - BilCat (talk) 17:34, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Then it is a category with an unclear purpose, confusing enough for experienced editors let alone newcomers. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:45, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, we're trying to make it clear. Do we want to make exceptions for certain "for un-named single examples of aircraft types", such as the Boeing 367-80 ("Dash 80") or not? I'm actually fine with not including these exceptions if that's the consensus here, but I'd argue that they are "notable for their achievements in aviation or particular historical significance." - BilCat (talk) 17:51, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I understood the criteria for inclusion as any article with a name or registration italicised, taking into account that some articles do not have italicised titles where they should be.Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 18:00, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

...There is potential fun for foreign aircraft with italicised type names (because they are foreign words) and I guess some notable single early aircraft had neither name or registration. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 18:05, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I assume that the project would not recommend the creation of a category for 'single aircraft types built' (seems to be what the good-faith category adder was doing)? That would be over-categorisation to me. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 18:09, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

It is an interesting solution, but I agree that would be over-categorization. - Ahunt (talk) 02:07, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I'd say that'd be a good subject for a list, but not a category, yeah. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:25, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

AfD Notification

Flight International is up for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Flight International. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 22:36, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Great. This is follows Flightglobal being tagged for deletion a few years ago. -Fnlayson (talk) 23:22, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

The Flight AfD was closed as a keep earlier this week. -Fnlayson (talk) 19:09, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for deletion of Relief Crew' members

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Relief Crew' members. - Ahunt (talk) 01:20, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

PZL.22

At Commons, we have an image supposedly of a PZL.22 [2], that has always looked more like a joke or cartoon than a depiction of a genuine aircraft. It is used on a page of the same title on Polish Wikipedia [3]. Problem there is, the PZL.22 is stated to be a tailless aircraft with an inline Gipsy III engine, clearly not reflected in the image. The image was created by Polish user:Quantificator, but his latest contribution at pl.wp was in 2010. BTW, a prototype of the Polikarpov I-16 is stated to have been powered by a M-22 engine, perhaps confusion with that? Experts on Polish aircraft, step forward, please.PeterWD (talk) 10:53, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm no expert on Polish aircraft, but trying to find images of the PZL-22 turned up this and this, both of which show something that looks much more like the text description and very different from the image you're remarking about. While neither is something we could use as a direct source, they provide reason enough to get rid of the existing image, which frankly looks like someone took an image of another type of aircraft and stretched it vertically. --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 17:45, 30 December 2016 (UTC)