Talk:Airbus A330 MRTT

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No concensus to move after nine days. - BillCJ (talk) 08:04, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I am proposing that Northrop Grumman KC-45 be merged into Airbus A330 MRTT. The KC-45 is a modification of the A330-MRTT, and it appears that the aircraft project has a practice of merging derivatives into the parent article, refer Tupolev Tu-214, Kamov Ka-52. Furthermore, there is nothing in the KC-45 article which isn't in the Airbus A330MRTT article already (or is easily added in), or which is in KC-X (which could be easily merged into this article also - albeit by trimming it and making it more encyclopaedic in tone). This is already the norm (which some exceptions which also need to be looked at) for articles, e.g. Learjet 35, Gulfstream G100, Fokker F27, etc. --Россавиа ^Диалог 14:55, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose - They are different planes inasmuch as the 747 and E-4 are different planes. --'''I am Asamuel''' (talk) 14:38, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - The NG/EADS tanker will be different from the A330 MRTT. The reasons for the separate article is stated on the KC-45 article talk page. Also, there should not be any merging until the KC-X protest has been addressed by the Gov. Accountability Office (GAO). The award could be overturned and Boeing's plane could end up as the KC-45. -Fnlayson (talk) 15:24, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - Not the same aircraft the KC-45 is or will not be the same as the A300MRTT/KC-30 they will be assemblied in different countries. The RAF, Saudis and RAAF are not buying KC-45s and their equipment fit will be different from the USAF (RAF aircraft will not have booms for example). MilborneOne (talk) 20:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
• Qualified Oppose - As the creator of the Northrop Grumman KC-45, my reasons for doing so are clearly stated on the Talk:Northrop Grumman KC-45 page, so I won't repet them here. Concur that they will be very different aircraft. For "precedent", see B-57 Canberra, BAE Harrier II, Boeing CC-137 (and many other C-135/C-137 vriants), CC-150 Polaris, CH-148 Cyclone, CH-149 Cormorant, Mil Mi-17, T-45 Goshawk, Tupolev Tu-126, Tupolev Tu-142, and VH-71 Kestrel, among others (some of which I also created, including the 2 the Tupolev pages). However (my qualification), if the KC-45 award to NG/EADS is revoked by the USAF/DOD, the status of the program will be in flux. At that point, I'd recommend keeping the page separate until a new decision is made. At that point, if the KC-X is awarded to Boeing, then there will be a new KC-45 (or perhaps a new KC-number), and the NG KC-45 page should be merged back into Airbus A330 MRTT. On a final note, there is no "norm" within WP:AIR on separate articles for aircraft variants - they are handled on a case-by-case basis, as no single aircraft type/family is the same as any other. - BillCJ (talk) 20:38, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
• Comment To address some of the comments above. The KC-45 is as a different from the A330 as the E-4 is different from the 747, however, the KC-45 is not as different from the A330 MRTT, they are both aircraft which fulfill the same role. It is interesting that BillCJ makes mention of the Tu-126 and Tu-142 above as having their own articles, and so they should. The Tu-95 is a strategic bomber, the Tu-114 a passenger airliner, the Tu-126 an AEW platform, the Tu-142 a maritime recon aircraft; they all need their own articles due to these inherent differences, even though they all share the same bloodlines. On the other hand, the KC-45 is an aerial refuelling tanker and transport, and the A330 MRTT is also an aerial refuelling tanker and transport; KC-45 simply being an American designation for the KC-30, which is simply an A330 MRTT which will be manufactured in the US instead of Europe. Of course, the American KC-45 will differ from the A330 MRTT which will be operated by the RAF, just as the RAF A330 MRTT will differ from the RAAF A330 MRTT; because of these differences will it be acceptable for the RAAF A330 MRTT to have its own article under its A-number? As the KC-45 article stands right now, the only difference between the 2 aircraft is that it will be built in Mobile, Alabama as opposed to being built in Europe; this is not reason enough to create a new article; it is not uncommon for products to be manufactured in different countries, and even have different names, but not need separate articles. It is not acceptable under WP policy to create another article due to differences in spelling (English and American English), otherwise we will see articles for colour and color. It also is not acceptable under WP policy to create different articles because there may be disagreement over what to call an article, again, otherwise we would have different articles for Burma and Myanmar. --Россавиа ^Диалог 04:07, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
• Support many of the points made by Russavia make sense. There have been many several American-designed aircraft that have variants build under license for foreign countries (like the F-104). These variants usually don't have separate articles. Also, every one knows that it will only be assembled in the US, most of the aircraft will be built by Airbus. --rogerd (talk) 05:03, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
  • The F-104 Starfighter has five daughter articles, two of them on license-built variants: the Canadair CF-104, and the Aeritalia F-104S. In addition, as case could probably be made for splitting of the F-104G also. In addition, please realse that Russ himself has split off the Tu-214 from the Tupolev Tu-204 page within the last 24 hours. According to the article, the Tu-214 is simply a variant of the Tu-204 (almsot identical to the -200), though built in a different place, but it's differences are are actually less than the differences between the A330 MRTT and the KC-45. For the record, I reverted the split becasue the merger had been done by consensus last year, though not many editors were involved in making the decision. I have no problem with a split being proposed properly, and I'm not even sure at this point what I would support. I just find it odd that Russ supports a split in the case of the Tu-204/214, but not here. Also, NG claims that 60% (IIRC) of the KC-45 will be US content. I'm assuming alot of that is avionics and other systems, not the airframe itself, but the airframe is only part of the total aircraft. - BillCJ (talk) 06:04, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose because then a precedent would be set where you could merge any aircraft with another whose body it shares but otherwise has no relation to it. Kevin Rutherford 00:48, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
  • If we keep in mind that pages are to be judged on their own merits, in a case-by-case basis, we can avoid relying too heavily on precedent. - BillCJ (talk) 02:03, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
• Comment One of my motivations for creating a separate article for the KC-45, rather than trying to keep in with the Airbus A330 MRTT, is that the 330MRTT article uses British/Commonwealth spelling/grammar, while the KC-45 page uses US conventions. While this is a relatively minor point, it certainly can lead to problems in the future. Also, the USAF has ordered 179 KC-45s - that is far than all the other A330 MRTT orders combined.I doubt those oreders will ever amount to even 20% of the current KC-45 order, and the USAF may order more in the future. What this means is that the information on the KC-45 will begin to outstrip the other variants shortly, and will eventually overwhelm the other content. This is partly because US government info, especially images, is Public Domain, and thus easily availabe and useable. Alos, once the content is largely about the KC-45, there will be those who want to re-name the article after the largest user's variant, the KC-45. It is with all these factors in mind, plus those Jeff and mentioned earlier, that I created the KC-45 page, and I still stand buy that decision. In case someone thinks that I did this because I'm biased toward US aircraft, let me reiterate that I have done many splits of variant articles, and the majority of them were splitting non-US variants off of US articles. I have done at least 10 CF variant articles, and participated in several others, both CF and non-US/CF. I am saying this because I have dealt head-on with many of the problems regarding differnt variants and users being covered on one aircraft page, and many of those can be solved with variant articles, provided they are done for the right reasons, and the split is done properly. If the KC-45 page is merged here, I can almost guarantee that at some point in the future, it will have to be split again, primarily to avoid the problems I have mentioned. Finally, I dsupport, at some point in the future, megering the KC-X page into the KC-45 page, but it would my highly innappropriate to merge the KC-X info here, as it also relates to the KC-767. However, we've kept it separate at this point, and since we don't know what the final outcome of Boeing's contesting the KC-X award will be, I think it best to keep them separate at this point. - BillCJ (talk) 02:03, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.