Talk:History of unmanned aerial vehicles

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Talk page archive

In order to accomodate the traffic on this page that will be generated by the re-writing process, all the old talk page items have now been archived in the above page. Akradecki 16:12, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

To-do list for History of unmanned aerial vehicles: edit · history · watch · refresh

Contents

[edit] Project participants

Welcome to KPWM Spotter who's agreed to help with specs and boxes!.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Akradecki (talk • contribs)

[edit] Rewrite plan of action

To reorganize the information on UAVs, here' how I plan on approaching it:

  • Phase I will be to move as much of the model specific information from the various chapter pages to articles about each specific model. Many models of UAVs already have articles on WP, so I'll be merging the info from here to there. For those that don't, I'll be creating pages for them. Everyone's welcome to help, of course. I'll be posting regular progress reports here on this talk page, and I'd appreciate it if you'd do the same for whatever you're working on, so we don't step on each other.
  • Phase II will be to consolidate non-model specific information that pertains to the history of the UAV development back onto the main article page in a way that chronologically flows. The goal will be to create a concise, yet reasonably detailed history that complements the Unmanned aerial vehicles article.
    • Because this article is a history, it is entirely appropriate to refer by wikilink to the various individual models as they were developed and as they had impact on the UAV industry, but I don't see the need for a long list of models. That belongs over on the Unmanned aerial vehicles page, so that list will be actively beefed up, as well.
  • Phase III will be to review the source article for any information that didn't make it over in the original creation of this article (the red links lower down).

Lastly, any thoughts/critiques/copyedits/hellfire missles? Please share here! Akradecki 16:12, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I had previously commented on this article as Khaerukamao, but that discussion was moved to the archive page without being completed. I stated that in its original form, the document has been available since 2001, is well-revised and is coherent. The article, on the other hand, violates the Manual of Style, is incoherent and inappropriately duplicates text without citation and in contexts where it is meaningless. Goebel's document is listed under References, when in fact it forms the bulk of information in this article and those under it—this borders on plagiarism. In addition, Goebel's article is already linked from the main UAV article; this should be sufficient. Individual UAVs must appear in separate articles wherever enough information is available. These articles must be primarily informational and must not require reading of this article or the original document to provide context.
A suggested plan of action is then:
  1. Create standalone UAV articles for individual models or series of models.
  2. Link to Goebel's document from said articles.
  3. Replace this article with a condensed history, or expand the history section of the UAV article.
My original critique was met with an invitation to help with editing, which avoided my main point: that the article is unusable and needs to be substantially rewritten, or removed and replaced with a link to the original document. At the very least:
  • Cite the original article.
  • Remove wikilinks from section headings.
  • Replace US-centric language with general language ("International" should become "non-US", etc.).
  • Remove wikilinks to nonexistent articles that are serving as placeholders for content from the original document.
  • Edit the opening paragraph to make it clear that this article is a history of UAVs, and not the article on UAVs.
  • Remove text referring to "chapters" and other plagiarised text that is meaningless in Wikipedia, for example: "This chapter completes the discussion of US battlefield UAVs by describing systems that have seen relatively limited service, or are currently experimental." under US Battlefield UAVs (1). -- PaulKishimoto 18:30, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it needs to be rewritten, and I've been slowly working on it. Again, you might want to actually help rather than criticizing. No, it's not pagiarism if the original is in the public domain, and the reference section notes that. This is actually standard practice at WP. Yes, eventually this article will be replaced - and the first section in fact already has been - with original, condensed text. This is a much bigger project that you might imagine...it's bigger than I thought it'd be when I started, so again, instead of armchair quarterbacking, start taking the sub pages and either making model-specific articles, or merging the data if there's already an article. And, if you'd checked the ref section, you'd find that the original article is already cited. Sorry if I come across too strong, but it seems that there's plenty of people who are willing to suggest the work, but not enough willing to actually spend the hours doing the work. Akradecki 22:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Salad Days' addition of the underconstruction template is what I was looking for to advertise the state of the article. Still, consider the relative length of UCAV and History of UCAVs (descended from this article). The casual reader would be dismayed at having to parse history to find the topical information (s)he expects given Wikipedia's usual structure. I saw clearly how big the project was, so I proposed a way to reduce or avoid the editing work you've been doing. I felt that writing a sequence of short articles in standard Wikipedia style would be cleaner and shorter job than editing such a large corpus in-place. There's a lot of excellent information in Goebel's work, and I really do appreciate it being brought to Wikipedia - but I have priorities beyond WP editing and I'm reluctant to waste time on a massive, quixotic rewrite. In lieu of contributing nothing, I tried to offer a work-saving, constructive criticism. I'm sorry that it offended you. -- PaulKishimoto 21:13, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] UAV Infobox

I've created a UAV infobox based upon the copy-pasted data in articles like International Battlefield UAVs (1), because it was such a pain to make a new wikitable for each one. I have a few questions though. For example, is "service ceiling" different from "ceiling?" As a disclaimer, I don't know anything about UAVs! I do know a bit about tables and templates though. Feel free to make suggestions about the template. Here are two examples of the infobox in action. Salad Days 07:29, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Those look awesome, and will be a great addition to the articles. Ceiling and service ceiling aren't technically the same thing, but for all intents and purposes, they are used interchangebly. As I slowly go though the history pages and pull the info out into seperate articles, would you like me to give you heads ups so that you can follow up with the new boxes? That would be a big help to the project! Akradecki 15:35, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Ooooohh.....That's so nice, Salad Days. Great work!! :-) --HappyCamper 16:32, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
If the template is satisfactory, I can just go ahead and start working on converting the messy information immediately! Salad Days 18:18, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Please do! The most recent UAV articles that I've updated are: RQ-7 Shadow, MQ-8 Fire Scout, BQM-147 Dragon and Bell Eagle Eye. Thanks so much! Akradecki 18:26, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I added more parameters to the infobox, does RQ-7 Shadow look acceptable? Salad Days 20:33, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Acceptable? Beautiful is more like it! I like how you integrated the image. Keep up the great work. Akradecki 20:58, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Oh, it just occurred to me to let you know, that International Battlefield UAVs (1), like the other sub-pages for the article, will be split apart into seperate articles for each model. If you've already added boxes there, they'll get moved with the text. Akradecki 18:30, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Anyone have any suggestions as to how to sort the specs out? Right now it's sort of a hodge-podge. Perhaps alphabetical? Also, should I bold anything or change any colors or widths? Salad Days 21:14, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

You might want to check out the order that the project templates use at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Templates#Specifications. FWIW, your infoboxes are definitely a step up from the standard project template, and ultimately you might want to offer the project yours, as I'll bet non-UAV aircraft editors might like to use them. In fact, I'm also one of the main contributors to the Scaled Composties aircraft articles, and eventually I'd love to see your work gracing those pages. Akradecki 21:21, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] German WWII flying bombs

Why is there no mention of the V1 flying bomb or the V2 rocket in this article? raptor 12:20, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

See Flying bomb. There's often a blurred line between a UAV and things like the V1 and V2, and the modern cruise missiles. V2 was a rocket, so it's outside the typical UAV description. V1 had a pulse jet engine, but is generally considered a guided missile, and so its not included for the same reason that the Tomahawk isn't. Ideally, there'd be a parallel article History of Cruise Missiles that would cover those types of weapons. Feel free to write it! Akradecki 15:09, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The article's end

I noticed three of the pages from the public domain source have been removed, and need to be restored, and the bottom itself is kind of messy since it links several times to the same unwikified articles. I wonder if there is somewhere on Wikipedia we can go to request help in fixing up these sections? Salad Days 23:00, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The three pages from the PD source have been removed because of the transition of the material to the individual model articles. eventually, much of the PD info will be transferred, it's just a long, slow process. Akradecki 23:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh, they are still linked so I re-uploaded them. Whoops! Salad Days 23:15, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
So I should suggest them for speedy deletion and remove the links from History of unmanned aerial vehicles? Salad Days 23:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Iranian UAV

http://www.shephard.co.uk/UV/DigitalEditions.aspx?ID=b54b3cf6-45f8-4e80-b9a1-8d185df105f2

Rather interesting as it mentioned the use of armed UAV (with RPG-7s) used by the Iranians during the war.

Koxinga CDF 06:21, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A couple of items that might be a useful addition to this article

I've been digging through a few old books and found Bill Gunstons' Guide to Spy Planes and Electronic Warfare Aircraft. Published in 1983, the info is very out of date but there was a section regarding UAVs. I've listed the LMSC Aequare and Martin Marietta 845A. These are not present on this article and might be suitable for possible inclusion.

  • LMSC Aequare

Extensive flying was done with this RPV, which was dropped by a fighter in a cluster-bomb pod or fired by a standard SAM and then used for surveillance, target acquisition, laser designation and other tasks, especially in conjunction with friendly attacking manned aircraft. USAF funding was halted in 1978.

  • Martin Marietta 845A (Compass Dwell)

A rebuilt Schweizer SGS 1-34 sailplane - a high altitude Elint Surveillance RPV with a quiet tractor piston engine. It flew 28hr missions but could not reach 40,000ft. I was later given a human pilot and used for upper air sampling prior to space launches at Cape Canaveral.

Regards,Dave Rogers 22:41, 28 May 2008 (UTC)