Wikipedia:Naming conventions (aircraft)

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This page documents an English Wikipedia naming convention. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should follow, though it should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Main article: Wikipedia:Naming conventions

For article titles, use the most common unambiguous name. A central tenet of wikipedia naming conventions is to give articles names that will have the greatest chance of being directly linked to within an edit window of another article. Alternative names should be listed in bold type on or near the first line of the article.

Create redirects from all the more common alternative names. For example, the main article for the Douglas DC-3 should be at Douglas DC-3; redirects to it at DC-3, C-47, and Douglas Dakota.

In general, best practice is probably Manufacturer, followed by either Number or Name, whichever seems to be more common.

Guidelines for certain specific groups of aircraft:

• US military aircraft: Number and name. F-15 Eagle, P-47 Thunderbolt. Where there is no name, or where the name is not in general use, use the manufacturer and number instead: Lockheed U-2, Convair B-36, General Dynamics F-111. Where there are many names, none of them clearly the most common, use manufacturer and number: Curtiss P-40, Douglas DC-3. The bold subject name starting the article should include the manufacturer in all cases.

• US civil aircraft: Manufacturer and name or number as appropriate according to common usage: Boeing 707, Cessna Citation, Cessna 172, Convair 880 (not "Convair Skylark" or "Convair Golden Arrow"). Try to avoid using name and number unless it is clearly needed for some reason.

• UK aircraft: Manufacturer and name: Supermarine Spitfire, Hawker Fury. Where there is no name, or the name is not in general use, use manufacturer and number: e.g., Avro 504, BAC One-Eleven.

• Soviet aircraft: Design bureau and number: Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21, Sukhoi Su-27, Tupolev Tu-144. (There are exceptions: the Sturmovik is best known by that name.) The NATO reporting names, though not part of the official designation, are in many cases the name by which the aircraft is best known in the West, and can redirect to the article under the correct name.

• Japanese aircraft: Manufacturer and short designation: Nakajima B5N or Kawasaki Ki-61. Foreign reporting names like "Zeke", "Tony", "Betty" and "Kate" should be redirects to the correct name. The designation to use is the short designations, as above, rather than 'Type 0 Carrier Fighter' or the like. See Japanese military aircraft designation systems.

• Mixed origin aircraft such as the BAE Hawk made under licence by McDonnell-Douglas/Boeing as the T-45 Goshawk, or a great many Sikorsky helicopters made under licence by Westland need to be treated on their merits. Often, two separate articles will be needed anyway — like the present Hawker Siddeley Harrier and AV-8 Harrier II. If not, primacy should usually go to the design manufacturer rather than the one making it under licence.

• Special cases: some aircraft are so well known that it makes more sense to break the usual rules. In theory, the Anglo-French supersonic airliner should be the Aerospatiale-BAC Concorde, but it is so well known as just Concorde that it is better to leave it there; the Mitsubishi A6M is universally known as the Mitsubishi Zero.