Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft/Archive 10

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WikiProject Aircraft talk — archives

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Standardized engine specs

I had some thoughts on this, but unfortunately didn't voice them before the archiving. My suggestions appear ~~below.~~ here. I've added a number of fields to both that it seems likely would apply to both engines and not just to one type. Ingoolemo ^talk 02:12, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your input! I think that looks good. "Components" is as good as anything I can think of. A single specs template using qif statements can be written to cover both engine types. The migration to the template will be much simpler as there are only a few dozen engines on Wikipedia and many of those articles look downright bad right now. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 02:48, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Unless there are any objections, I'll be adding the proposed specs to /page content in ten days. Ingoolemo ^talk 04:46, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

The specs have now been added to /page content, after having given two weeks for objections to accumulate—presumably this means there are no objections. I will be creating dynamic templates for the engine specifications as well, though I may not have time to do so for several weeks. If anyone has already started work on this project, please let me know, so we won't have multiple competing templates. Ingoolemo ^talk 07:13, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I made a couple of adjustments, otherwise it looks great. Standardizing engine specs would be a tremendous improvement... if you can create the dynamic templates, I'll work on migration if I get bored of airplanes. :) - Emt147 ^Burninate! 07:57, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Can you please amend:

'hr' to 'h'
'kW/kg' to 'W/kg'

Please can I ask people to check thrust to weight ratios. Ways of calculating it appear to be inconsistent. bobblewik 11:13, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Since aircraft engines make hundreds to thousands of kilowatts of power, using W/kg will make for ridiculously big numbers, so no on that one. Thrust/weight should be done using loaded weight for aircraft and dry weight for aircraft engines. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 12:48, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

In metric it is generally preferred to use a smaller prefix rather than a decimal. However, if power/mass is greater than 1,000 W/kg, the prefix used should be kilo: 1 kW/kg. Unless there is a precedent in the industry, we should follow proper metric usage. Ingoolemo ^talk 16:17, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I meant 'use the appropriate prefix'. In the blank specification, the value is undefined so a prefix is redundant unless it is mandatory. I do not know if that is the cause, but editors are acting as if the kilo prefix is mandatory:

Heinkel He 111 '.082 kW/kg'
Boeing XB-15 '0.0813 kW/kg'
P-3 Orion '0.06 kW/kg'
Curtiss NC '0.01 kW/kg'

bobblewik

Well, I admit to being one of those editors, but it's only because i'm kind of lazy. kg and kW are both provided in the specs, so I pretty much just divide the two and leave it at that. I dislike calculating specs enough as it is. ericg ✈ 17:34, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

You have my sympathy. It is not only a waste of effort, it devalues the articles because the values are often wrong or absent. I propose eliminating such derived values. bobblewik 18:58, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

As before, this is something I support. Fortunately, with the new templates, it's a lot easier. Maybe we should have another poll. Of course, I dislike those, too. Oh well. ericg ✈ 19:04, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Power/mass and thrust/weight ratios are one of the most important engine characteristics. The numbers are rarely available in literature but easy to calculate. Absolute precision is not required since the idea is to demonstrate the approximate ratio (e.g was it 5:1 or 0.5:1?), so I wouldn't fuss about the calculations too much. The templates unfortunately will not do calculations and my request to activate the <calc> function was very rudely rebuked on Bugzilla. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 03:57, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I was actually referring to derived info in aircraft articles, not engines. ericg ✈ 04:16, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Thrust/weight, power/mass, and wing loading are useful for understanding aircraft performance. Again, would've been nice to be able to compute them client-side on the fly but nooooo... - Emt147 ^Burninate! 04:33, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

If we provide the numerator and the denominator then we should not provide the divided value. We get it wrong far too often. It is easy, but let the reader do it, the editors clearly can't. I am tired of correcting these values that I think shouldn't be there. bobblewik 10:08, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Could m:ParserFunctions work? It just got turned on. ericg ✈ 16:50, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Tempting, but annoyingly it does all calculations server-side. I suppose we can use it to replace qif and maybe calculate one or two things (e.g. thrust/weight, power/mass, wing loading) but I was hoping for a client-side calculator that would do on-the-fly imperial to metric conversions. I'm afraid doing server-side conversions for 25 parameters per article would be too much. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 19:50, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

D'oh, we can't use the math at all because all the numbers are formatted with commas in them (i.e. 100,340) and it doesn't know what to do with the commas. I'm almost done converting Airtemp to use #if though -- it is supposed to considerably reduce the server load compared to qif statements. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 21:31, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

archiving

I'm not sure we need to be quite so aggressive with the archiving, especially since the last discussion you archived is from three days ago. ericg ✈ 02:21, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Template migration update

I have just finished migrating about 180 "top priority" (in my honestly biased opinion) articles. User:Sylvain Mielot has been making good progress from the other end of the list. For an article written with any regard for WP:Air MoS (which is fortunately the vast majority), the migration takes maybe 2-3 minutes per article. I will make another "top priority" list -- this one will include a little bit of airliners and general aviation but my first objective is to migrate military aircraft simply because I find the (rather tedious) process more interesting. Like I said, I have my biases, if you want GA stuff done faster, get AWB and help out. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 04:18, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm randomly AWBing, mostly articles I've already contributed to or created, and I'll probably find my way into the GA sector in a week or two. Can you please shift all your AWB tools to a wp:air subpage? It'll be easier to find for new editors and myself alike ;) ericg ✈ 05:44, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Not sure where to stick them. They are at User:Emt147/AWBsettings for the settings file and User:Emt147/AWBtasklist for the list. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 23:20, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I made a new "ToDo" list for myself of about 300 more articles. The stuff not in my abbreviated worklist can be found at User:Emt147/AWBtasklist. Feel free to update it as you go. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 05:37, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

For those of us who don't have the AWB, or can't get it working, I'm manually compiling a list using {{aero-table}}; all articles in the category can be found at CAT:AWPS. Please note, however, that I'm only tagging articles that I run across randomly. I'm not making any effort to search for articles that need updating. (This template was meant mainly to help myself, but I thought I should mention it here so others could make use of it.) Ingoolemo ^talk 06:59, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Aircraft navigational templates

I have designed a set of templates for navigation in certain aircraft categories. The templates are Template:Milair ntd, Template:Milair nt, Template:Milair nd, Template:Milair td, Template:Civair ntd, and others. I probably won't need help implementing them, but I just thought I should let y'all know. I have TFDed the deprecated templates, but Netoholic has objected for their deletion, on the grounds that the new templates will interfere with ease of categorisation. This in and of itself isn't a big deal, but with Netoholic's crusade against dynamic templates, we may have to deal with attempts by him to depopulate the templates in the future. Ingoolemo ^talk 22:55, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Very cool. Nicely done! - Emt147 ^Burninate! 23:24, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I have now finished implementing Template:Airntd, Template:Airnt, Template:Airnd, Template:Civairnd, and Template:Milairnd. Template:Milairtd and Template:Civairtd still need to be put in place, but I should be able to take care of that on my own. Ingoolemo ^talk 00:12, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

The project is now complete, with the full implementation of Template:Milairtd and Template:Civairtd. Ingoolemo ^talk 23:58, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Great job! - Emt147 ^Burninate! 01:56, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Airliner specs

Someone braver than I (and someone who cares about airliners) should tackle the specs for all the Airbuses and Boeings. Most articles have elaborate tables and complicated layouts covering all the subvariants, and I don't have the heart to nix them. IMHO the right thing to do is to cut down the specs on the main page to one specific variant only per MoS and move all the other information to a separate "Comparison of variants" page, as was done with Supermarine Spitfire, for example, and will be done with P-51 and Me 109. But that involves a lot of work, making tables, etc., and I'm just not that interested in airliners. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 23:04, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Timelines

What's the project thought on timelines? For example, in Panavia Tornado and F/A-18 Hornet. On the one hand I prefer having prose to long lengthly bulleted lists. However, not all the facts fit neatly into prose, and it's nice to have an overview. If we keep the timelines, I would not mind duplicating important dates (like first flight, first delivery, first combat action, retirement, etc).

FYI, the Pavania Tornado timelines were a result of the merge; I've been half-hearted about merging the timelines into the text, which motivated this post. The F-18 timeline is actually a copyvio, I think (anon editor copied from Boeing) and needs to be redone. It's a compelling case for keeping timelines, as it's a good example of what one should look like. Thoughts? --Mmx1 05:31, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

If it's very long, like the one for Tornado, it should be moved to a separate page. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 06:17, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to see more separate 'list-type' articles – variants, operators, timelines. If you know what you're doing, and if there are few variants or operators, they belong in the text in something other than list form. In many cases I consider lists a lazy editor's easy way out. ericg ✈ 03:15, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean you wnat the list articles moved to separate pages? I'm in general agreement, but I feel as an overview, it would be helpful to have something like a 10-point (strictly enforced) milestones to give a glance of the timeframe of the aircraft - e.g. when and how long did it serve, how long was the development, etc. These timeframes are hard to nail down specifically except in vague terms ("over 50 years", from the 50's to the 60's). I think it would be more insightful to throw up, for example

design requirements set (for military planes)
prototype flight
first delivery
major combat actions or simply 1965-1971 Vietnam War
major upgrades
retirement

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Mmx1 (talk • contribs) 19:27, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

If you adhere to WP:Air MoS, the criteria you listed should be included in the "Development" and "Operational history" sections anyway. I hope most readers have enough attention span to not require a summary of a two-page-long article. :P - Emt147 ^Burninate! 05:42, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Engine specs templates

I've written two templates for aircraft engine specs.

Template:Jetspecs for gas-turbine engines, e.g. General Electric J79 for an example of use.
Template:Pistonspecs for reciprocating engines, e.g. Rolls-Royce Merlin for an example of use.

- Emt147 ^Burninate! 23:29, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I've looked over the templates, and they should work perfectly for what they've been designed to do. Once again, kudos for Emt. Ingoolemo ^talk 02:13, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! The templates seem to be working fine indeed. If anyone is feeling technogeeky, the engine articles are in the following categories:

~~Category:Aircraft piston engines~~
~~Category:Russian and Soviet aircraft engines~~
~~Category:Turbojet engines~~
~~Category:Turboprop engines~~
~~Category:Turbofan engines~~
~~Category:Thermojet engines~~

It's a very manual process and details such as valvetrain and supercharger specs tend to be hidden in the text, so engine dorks would enjoy this the most. :) - Emt147 ^Burninate! 04:50, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

All done! - Emt147 ^Burninate! 00:23, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

aircraft specs template - fuel capacity?

just wondering whether it made sense to include fuel capacity in the template? Gzuckier 18:08, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Eh. It's a rare enough parameter that I don't think it would be worth the server load to do yet another qif check. Manually inserting the line works just as well. But others may disagree. :) - Emt147 ^Burninate! 22:59, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Emt147, doesn't make sense as a widespread item. ericg ✈ 00:17, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

British military aircraft designations

I wasn't exactly sure where to pose this question / comment, but I hope here that lots of knowledgable and perhaps even interested contributors might read this. My main interest is in aircraft of the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm and I've made some contributions here. However one thing that I have noticed is that there seems to be no agreed upon way of how to quote the mark / designation system. For instance on the BAE Sea Harrier page the FA2 was reffered to as FA.2 (this is what I presumed to be correct, but official publications no longer use the period) and FA Mk.2. Is there an agreed representation of this for articles, as it seems to be just confusing (and to me, annoying) that there isn't, but I don't want to go removing every period or Mk I can find and get it wrong! I would appreciate any comments / answers anyone may have. Emoscopes ^Talk 19:30, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Modern convention makes away with full stops in most abbreviation so what was U.K. a while back is now UK. Most of th eyoounger audience will be more familiar with the latter style. On the other hand the use of the full stop (period) does help break up the designations between the letters and numbers so FA.2 looks (and therefore reads better?) than "F.A.2" or "FA2". the contracted form is easier to write than FA Mark 2 - which is itself a contraction of "Fighter Aircraft Mark 2" if I recall correctly. The general rule with abbreviatiosn is spell it out once and include the abbreviated form in brackets then stick to the sabbreviated form - thus " in 1963 the Royal Air Force (RAF)...later that year the RAF..." Is that any help? GraemeLeggett 16:21, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking more along the lines of the designation system itself, and what the official parlance is. Over the years, things seem to have gone from (e.g) Mk.II to F Mk.II to F.2 to F2. Desingation letters seem to have come in around 1943, and the Mk. part seems to have been dropped in the 1960s in official literature. I know it's an utterly minor nitpick, just to my eyes articles look a bit sloppy with no set representation of the different model designations. Emoscopes ^Talk 17:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Flight Global consistently refers to the Sea Harrier FA2. I'm not sure if you can get any more authoritative without going directly to the MOD and asking for a reference. ericg ✈ 23:57, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Comparison of 21st century fighter aircraft

Have some pending work to do on that troublesome page but first I need to retitle to set the proper aim for the article. Please drop by and discuss: Talk:Comparison of 21st century fighter aircraft#New_Title_-_collecting_points_from_above. --Mmx1 04:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I've nominated this article for deletion. It's utterly unencyclopedic and is unlikely to become so in the future, as it's almost entirely conjecture and original research. ericg ✈ 06:02, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

However, deletion seems to have been shouted down. Still, Eric's right: this article needs some heavy pruning. Ingoolemo ^talk 17:25, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Either way, hopefully this kickstarts a massive cleanup into gear. It's an absolutely horrible article as it stands. Less talk page discussion, more action. ericg ✈ 17:37, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I renamed the article as a precursor to editing (otherwise the edits would have been rejected as out of line with the article), and got shouted down and reverted by people satisfied with the status quo. So I've been sitting on that rename discussion until I'm confident I won't get shouted down again. As a compromise, can we get a userfy to my space so I can edit and repost to a different name later? This way the content is available for editing but the article is deleted, which, given the invitation to OR, it should be.--Mmx1 18:40, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Heinkel He 111

Is anybody able to verify the given stats and specify a version of the He 111 for these stats ? User:Kurt Leyman is constantly reverting the stats to a late version He 111 (bomb load, armament) but this does not match the DB 601 engine data given (maybe other data affected as well). --Denniss 08:50, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I've got my Jane's Fighting Aircraft of World War II open to the He 111H; the entry says the most common was the H-6, and provides specs. I'll throw these into the article with a citation and hopefully deter any further unverified claims. ericg ✈ 16:19, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

citing sources in the specs template

This has been a hard one to figure out - we've had them in the section title for a while, and that's just messy. So, here's what I did: If you add |ref= to the template, it will output whatever you enter below all of the specs. If left blank, nothing will show! I'm using the source title, followed by a cite.php tag for the full citation. It's currently in place at Heinkel He 111 and PBY Catalina right now. Here's how it looks in use:

Specification data from Jane's Fighting Aircraft of World War II^[1]

General characteristics

Specs: are down here
Then: later on, you'll see:

References

^ Bridgeman, Leonard. “The Heinkel He 111H.” Jane’s Fighting Aircraft of World War II. London: Studio, 1946. p. 167 . ISBN 1 85170 493 0.

If you've got changes or suggestions, go for it. I'd eventually like to see a majority of our specs fully sourced. In the meantime, new articles should be sourced as they're created for maximum awesomeness. ericg ✈ 16:57, 7 April 2006 (UTC) —updated 20:18, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

That works as well as anything else we've done, though I think the reference note should be moved directly below ==Specifications==; this will obviate the need for the ----, which most readers will see only under the primary headers. Also, I think it simply makes slightly more sense that way—though that's just personal opinion. Ingoolemo ^talk 01:05, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Awesome power! Nicely done. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 01:06, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Ingoolemo's suggestion is implemented, though it needed some css tweaking to the H3 to make it work. Should be fine now! ericg ✈ 17:07, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

3-view images

I've been building aircraft 3-views with Photoshop (Lockheed Constellation, Martin-Baker M.B.5) and licensing them under cc-by-sa. So... if anyone has requests, let me know on my talk page or here, and I'll add it to the list. ericg ✈ 06:34, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Just so everyone's aware, the current de facto standard, which I think works very well, is to have the image in the upper-right of the specifications section, with no formatting (such as thumbnails or captions). Ingoolemo ^talk 18:56, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

However, there's nothing wrong with including a caption, because even if the image isn't in a frame you'll still be able to see the caption in the tooltip. Ingoolemo ^talk 19:01, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Yep, that’s a good point. I have been including your caption as I add new 3-views. Also, the schematics on RAF pages, as well as NASA images and some older views from USAF recognition guides, are public domain (either US PD or UK Crown Copyright). If anyone spots these, grab them and upload them! ericg ✈ 20:21, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Glider specs

I was updating Abrial A-2 Vautour, a French sailplane, and I noticed some specs unique to gliders that might be worth adding to Template:Airtemp: {{{maximum glide ratio}}} and {{{rate of sink}}}. Comments? Ingoolemo ^talk 23:48, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd use |more performance= for those. ericg ✈ 00:16, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Agree, there are few enough gliders that it's probably not worth the special code. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 02:44, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Aircraft Infobox

First let me commend all of you on your hard work, I've see lots of excellent articles on aircraft! However, I noticed specifically this morning that infoboxes are not being used for universal characteristics like dimension, manufacturer, crew, thrust, year of introduction etc. This seems like the ideal usage for infoboxes to present a consistent format and face to the data. I noticed that there is an existing infobox {{Infobox Aircraft}} that is not being used at all. I'm no template editor, but I have asked a few other template ninjas to help out Locke Cole Omegatron CBDunkerson AzaToth so that unique characteristics of civilian and military aircraft can be included in a single box with optional parameters. Your opinions are appreciated. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 14:49, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I did an overhaul to set that template up with conditional rows. Needs input from aircraft people on what features to include, what order they should appear in, et cetera. --CBDunkerson 16:32, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Especially for military aircraft, the information available is so vague and variable that I don't see the point in having an infobox. Having it as a section deemphasises its importance and avoids pissing contests over whose aircraft can fly faster based on public estimates that are 80% off the mark anyway. To distinguish aircraft, the intro should be detailed enough to indicate to a user how two military aircraft are different.

This is a bit different for commercial aircraft as range/capacity are published and pretty accurate. I can see the point of an infobox for that.

--Mmx1 16:38, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughts, but over a year and a half ago we opted to discontinue use of infoboxes for a number of reasons. We're actually already using a conditional template for civil and military aircraft, helicopters, and gliders ({{airtemp}}) that works amazingly well for our purposes. An inline format is similar to that used by most professional-level aviation publications, and is also more accessible to users with disabilities or screenreaders. Finally, infoboxes mess up page flow and are a disaster on small screens. Browse the talk archives for more details and the previous votes. ericg ✈ 16:57, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

This has been discussed to death and we are in the process of converting AWAY from infoboxes to inline text. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 01:10, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

And of course, while we're at it, {{Infobox Aircraft}} should be deleted, due to its redundancy with airtemp. If no one objects, I'll do the deletion myself after a few days. Ingoolemo ^talk 03:58, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

It's all yours! - Emt147 ^Burninate! 05:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. ericg ✈ 13:53, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

My apologies for not doing more research before shooting off my big mouth and trying to help where it was clearly not needed. But rather than delete - why not redirect to the template in usage so other people like myself don't try to "help out" again by making an off repeated suggestion. I only made the suggestion after seeing that someone had created an infobox that was not being used. Keep up your good work! --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 15:46, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Now set up as a redirect. Ingoolemo ^talk 16:43, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

No problem, thanks for stopping by. If you do have any suggestions for the template in use, feel free to mention them! ericg ✈ 17:06, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Engine_category

Category:Russian and Soviet aircraft engines seems to be the only one of our categories following the 'Russian and Soviet' scheme. All others are 'Soviet and Russian', which also sounds better to my ear. I propose we rename the engine category to bring it in line with the others. Ingoolemo ^talk 17:16, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Concur, that makes sense. ericg ✈ 17:36, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Smile, we're in the news

Online encyclopædia Wikipedia aircraft group allege deliberate misleading Airbus and Boeing entries. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 18:12, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I find it interesting that we’re ‘increasingly concerned’ as a project. Has anyone mentioned the changes here before, or is this just routine vandalism? ericg ✈ 18:49, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Those are FI's words. My personal suspicion, for which I have no proof, was that it was a lone employee acting upon his or her own to try to portray Airbus in a better light. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 18:58, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

How did FI get ahold of this story? Any ideas? ericg ✈ 19:28, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Same text I used at Talk:Boeing:

It was me, and actually, all I did was Cc them on it when I mailed the Airbus webmaster and postmaster. I just wanted someone else to see it. The article's author asked me for more info about it, so I provided the links to edit history, the IP address, and a link showing that it was an Airbus IP. I was surprised to see it show up on the front page of their website. I'm not sure where the "increasingly concerned" part came from though that they mentioned in the article. Must be a slow news day. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 19:36, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Someone using Wikipedia to advance their own agenda? Never heard of such a preposterous thing! - Emt147 ^Burninate! 03:42, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I sent the following off to Justin Wastnage, the editor of flightglobal.com. ericg ✈ 17:05, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Justin, I wanted to write regarding the recent (and currently front-page) article about Wikipedia vandalism. While it is true that the IP which edited the Boeing and Airbus entries was from Airbus SAS, the fact remains that they are simply a common vandal, dozens of which abuse Wikipedia daily. Their erroneous edit was caught, as is typical, and quickly corrected.

I'm a member of the aviation WikiProject as well. Other than the user who notified you in a cc to Airbus of the edit, nobody was aware of the vandal's edits, nor of the fact that the IP was from Airbus. Stating that the group is 'increasingly concerned ... [and] alarmed in recent weeks' is itself somewhat misleading, and bordering on utterly false. If Airbus as a company wanted to subtly alter their article to read in a more positive light, they would certainly employ other means than a vandal who, as you pointed out, was somewhat lacking in the grammar department.

I enjoy reading your publication, and I hope that you'll stick to the harder facts in the future.

- Eric Gideon

proposed aircraft/manufacturer article merger

It was recently proposed that Quickie Aircraft be merged with their product, the Rutan Quickie on the basis that only one aircraft model was produced and that the leading sentences are nearly identical. If anyone would like to help me flesh out the articles, rather than allow them to be merged, please lend a hand (or any other useful limb). Thanks. ericg ✈ 00:49, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

PD images

Just so you guys know, there are a lot of public domain images available to us. If the picture is WWII and of a British aircraft, chances are it qualifies as {{PD-BritishGov}}; if it's Italian, you can use {{PD-Italy}}. German images from 70 years ago (that's 1936 or earlier as of this year; use {{PD-Germany}}) are public domain as well. If you've got any other relevant tags - or sources - list them here and I'll dump them onto the project page content page for future reference. ericg ✈ 04:08, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe the vast majority of images of the old aircraft photos fall under Fair Use even if they are not explicitly in public domain since many of these aircraft no longer exist which means there is no source for free images and it is reasonable to use such an image for illustrative purposes. Some of the aircraft photos are obviously publicity shots and as such could also be claimed under Fair Use ({{Promophoto}} tag). - Emt147 ^Burninate! 05:58, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

That's not the way it works. Photographs are covered by copyright. Fair use doesn't include putting them up on website, even the wikipedia, until copyright is exhausted.WolfKeeper 06:17, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

ParserFunctions

Okay, I replaced Airtemp qif statements with ParserFunctions. It works properly so far as I can tell but please please please tell me on my Talk page if something is awry. As noted above, we are very limited in the ability to do math because of the commas in numbers, but I did add a single calculation -- metric thrust/weight ratio (in N/kg) since thrust/weight is always a decimal number. Per ParserFunctions page, this function is considerably easier on the server than qif statements. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 21:59, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Also, if something totally breaks (e.g. ParserFunctions becomes disabled again or something like that) please revert Airtemp to this version: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Airtemp&oldid=48480234 - Emt147 ^Burninate! 22:04, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

There's something goofy going on with the thrust:weight calculation - check out Concorde for an example. Not sure what it is, as I'm still wrapping my head around this syntax. ericg ✈ 22:14, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what you are having difficulty with; could you explain a little more? Are you having difficulty seeing why it is 373:1 because you missed a little dot because somebody forgot the leading zero? Or is it about using total afterburning thrust divided by MTOW, rather than using the normal thrust value or one of the other mass values? Gene Nygaard 14:18, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Um, Gene? Things have changed somewhat in the last 5 days; the syntax I was getting used to is m:ParserFunctions, not how to read thrust/weight, and Emt147's code has since been removed. It was spitting out gibberish when the template was left empty – there's no need to be snide. I've struck out my original remark to prevent further confusion. ericg ✈ 02:18, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

That explains why I couldn't figure it out, even when I looked at the version you would have looked at. Gene Nygaard 02:28, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 22:46, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Very clever. Unfortunately in SI units, both thrust and weight are in Newtons. So thrust/weight ratio is dimensionless in SI units (and it is in English units as well). Please put it back the way it was.WolfKeeper 01:50, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

~~It's dimensionless but 9.8 times greater than lbf/lb thrust/weight, correct? N/kg x 9.8 is N/N - Emt147 ^Burninate! 01:55, 17 April 2006 (UTC)~~

Never mind. Math hard! :) I reverted to the single t/w ratio. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 02:01, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I was wondering if you'd work that out. Thanks for that. One other thing it's usually just a dimensionless constant rather than something:1. Actually I'm not sure the :1 format is even correct. For example betting odds of 1:1 are 50% rather than a dead cert. Whereas a thrust/weight of 1 is 100%.WolfKeeper 02:15, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that betting odds and ratios are exactly the same format. A 1:1 thrust-weight ratio would mean 1 lb (force) per 1 lb (weight); thus, 1:1 equals 1/1 (or 1) and is a 100% ratio. Then again, I'm awful at math. You really have no idea. ericg ✈ 02:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

There's also the problem that if the article includes the thrust/weight line, but the value is blank, the template thingey sticks a :1 on the end. Which makes it look at a casual glance that the thrust/weight ratio is 1. See: [1], so I'm continuing to think that this is a bad thing.WolfKeeper 01:18, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you on that one. When ratios are given as one-to-something (such as a 1:50,000 map scale) that is okay, but we might as well drop it when the denominator is one. It would be okay (but not necessary) if it always had a numerator, but it is unacceptably confusing under the current situation. Gene Nygaard 13:01, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Gravity, lol! ericg ✈ 02:04, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's a thrust/weight ratio so it has to have a nominator and a denominator. I believe the :1 was added people people kept sticking it in on random pages. Obviously, if the denominator is not mentioned, :1 is implied. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 02:46, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I've changed the never exceed speed line to work as a standalone main= variable - if the alt= field is left blank, there will be no empty parentheses. This works well for aircraft with a limiting mach number. ericg ✈ 03:20, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

WolfKeeper says in SI units, both thrust and weight are in Newtons. I am confused by that statement, are the kilogram weight figures wrong? bobblewik 18:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

You're not at all confused, you know very well what's going on. It's not the wikipedia's fault that the manufacturers don't know the difference between mass and weight. For anyone else that really is confused: Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/page content which explains.WolfKeeper 18:42, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

You are mistaken, I don't know what is going on. Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/page content does not say that weight cannot be in kilograms. It appears to permit two views of the world. bobblewik 19:14, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Uh huh. Anyway many aircraft manufacturers insist on quoting the mass of aircraft in kg which is perfectly fine, but label it as 'weight' which is wrong- weight is a force, measured in Newtons.WolfKeeper 19:32, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

But they don't do that for thrust/weight ratios, they actually get that right (lbf/lbf or N/N are both dimensionless and luckily they are numerically equal, note that in English units a weight should strictly be measured in lbf just like thrust is; *mass* is measured in lb). Whilst the wiki standards say you can quote the closely related figure thrust/mass ratio (lbf/lb or N/kg), almost no manufacturers quote it because in the SI form especially it's very clunky and unintuitive both numerically, and from a units point of view. You also have to add awkward conversions back and forth but with the dimensionless form it's completely unnecessary to do that.WolfKeeper 19:32, 18 April 2006 (UTC

So why do we say weight instead of mass in Wikipedia articles? We could easily change it if we wanted. bobblewik 21:53, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I suppose that referring to Mass (empty), Mass (loaded), &c would lead to better clarity, but my anecdotal impression is that most aircraft publications tend to refer to weight even when specifying mass. This is partly because, as a Physics teacher of mine pointed out, in most metric countries the question is often 'how much do you weigh?' rather than 'what is your mass?', even though respondants always answer in kg rather than N. Living in a gravitational environment, most people think of mass and weight as equivalent, even though they're intellectually aware of the distinction. For this reason I don't see any reason to rename the fields, since for anyone who's particularly picky, the distinction will be obvious—at least intellectually, of course!

Yes, changing to Mass (empty) and Mass (loaded) might be OK. But you'd have to look at it incredibly carefully before actually doing it; the chances of unintended consequences may be high.WolfKeeper 23:13, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

The thrust/weight ratio also has the advantage of providing one useful piece of information for fighter jets: if thrust/weight is >1:1, the jet has the ability to climb vertically without the assistance of wing lift. For most readers, if they really care, the ratio can be converted relatively easily to a unit form: lbf/lb is equal to the ratio, and N/kg is very nearly equal to the ratio times ten. Ingoolemo ^talk 23:04, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

So far as I am aware there's no theoretical or practical gain to changing that thrust/weight to thrust/mass in these articles; and I can't imagine that anyone needs thrust/mass for anything.WolfKeeper 23:13, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Thrust to mass is exactly what we always have, Wolfkeeper. Nobody ever measures the "weight" of an aircraft in units of force. Those kilograms, and those pounds, are—as they should be—units of mass.

You, of course, like to have "pretend" units of force, where you multiply that mass by g_n, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the amount of force it actually exerts. You would use this fudge factor in your calculations (not, of course, g as the actual local acceleration of gravity) to get a pretend-dimensionless ratio. Gene Nygaard 03:05, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

No, I like the articles to reflect manufacturer usage. The less screwing around with the raw data the better. If you want to add conversions, go right ahead. In the case of thrust/mass it's a total waste of time, but knock yourself out.WolfKeeper 17:10, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

For all intents, the matter of weight is relevant only if you leave Earth. Yes, a 747 on the Moon would have the same mass but only 60% of the weight but who cares? Physicists draw the distinction between the two, the vast majority of people do not. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 00:11, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and when NASA measured the "thrust-to-weight" ratio of the Lunar Modules in their ascent stage, they got a number in the 0.3 to 0.4 range. That's the way these numbers are calculated in actual practice; they aren't dimensionless, but rather lbf/lb in old NASA usage, kgf/kg in old usage in the Soviet space program and the like, and N/kg in modern SI usage. Actually, there are, in fact, many people who still measure thrust in kilograms-force and still get those numbers. Gene Nygaard 03:05, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Let's just back that up with sources from NASA: http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4009/v1p3b.htm

"This would maintain a thrust-to-weight ratio of 0.4 and allow a considerable increase in the lunar liftoff weight of the spacecraft."

Gene Nygaard 03:09, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Note also that NASA tells us that the weight of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, at liftoff of its ascent stage, was 10,776.6 lb. Selected Mission Weights

With a thrust of about 3,500 lbf, that gives a thrust-to-weight ratio of about 0.32 lbf/lb.

But at the time, that Lunar Module was only exerting a force due to gravity of about 1,790 lbf.

So, under Wolfkeeper's convoluted notion of using "weight" as a force, the thrust to weight ratio in this case would be about 1.95 lbf/lbf. But that's not the way NASA ever did it. Gene Nygaard 03:16, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

But let's just assume for the sake of argument that the thrust was right at 3,500 lbf. What numbers would Wolfkeeper get for his supposedly dimensionless thrust to weight ratio?

As I pointed out above (and as I know from earlier discussions with him), he uses g_n to get his "weight" figures. Of course, g_n = 9.80665 m/s² = 9.80665 N/kg = 1 lbf/lb = 1 kgf/kg = 32.174 pdl/lb =32.174 lbf/slug.

So he should get 3,500 lbf/(10,776.6 lb × 1 lbf/lb) = 0.32. Isn't that right, Wolfkeeper? You base it on the force equal to standard weight or Earth weight, not on the actual force involved.

For weights and measures purposes manufacturers have to standardise on vehicle weight refered back to Earth sea-level. So sue the manufacturers. I didn't invent it. Why the heck are you blaming me?WolfKeeper 06:01, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

To put it simply: they measure mass.

Which, of course, is what they want to measure. There's nothing to blame them for; they aren't doing anything wrong. Gene Nygaard 16:03, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

...but for gross measures they call it weight; which it isn't, because weight is a force.WolfKeeper 17:10, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it is just that weight is an ambiguous word; like many other words, it has more than one meaning.

But it is good to see you singing a different tune! You are making progress, Wolfkeeper.

Up above, when you said "Unfortunately in SI units, both thrust and weight are in Newtons", you committed the logical fallacy of assuming that since the manufacturers and most everyone else call it weight, it is therefore a force.

Now you are admitting that it is not a force, and instead claiming an error due the fact that manufacturers call it weight.

Now all you need to figure out is that even if this were an error, it wouldn't matter. What they measure is what matters, not what they call it. When you divide thrust in pounds by this weight (i.e., the numbers you get from those manufacturers) in pounds, you really get lbf/lb, even if you (in the general sense, not just Wolfkeeper but anyone else doing the calculations as well) don't mention the units because you pretend that the pounds cancel each other out. Gene Nygaard 20:28, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

No it is an error and it does matter. End of story. —Preceding unsigned comment added by wolfkeeper (talk • contribs)

It works exactly the same way as that gratuitous g_n factor that many people throw into the formulas for specific impulse, so that the dimensional analysis will work out when you express it in "seconds", rather than the SI units which are N·s/kg or the equivalent m/s. It is the very same principle at work in getting pretend-dimensionless "thrust-to-weight" ratio. Gene Nygaard 03:40, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I checked several text books, I googled the internet, I asked rocket engineers (including somebody called "Henry Spencer"- everything, everybody, totally agreed that specific impulse has units of seconds, no questions asked (although some people quote a velocity, or equivalently from f=ma, N.s/kg, that's fine too.) I didn't invent this. Why are you blaming me?WolfKeeper 06:01, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Umm, this is WikiProject aircraft, not WikiProject launch vehicles. Ingoolemo ^talk 03:43, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

The usage is the same in the aircraft industry as it is in the space industry. Gene Nygaard 03:51, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Except, of course, that in the field of aviation outside of Wikipedia, you almost never see any "thrust-to-weight" ratios that are anything other than the ratio of the thrust of an engine to the mass of that engine. All you see is "engine thrust-to-weight". Gene Nygaard 03:55, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Nice theory. Unfortunately, both the numerical value and the units disagree with you. Thrust/weight ratio is always dimensionless. Again, I didn't come up with the standard, why are you blaming me?WolfKeeper 06:01, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Up above, Wolfkeeper says " Unfortunately in SI units, both thrust and weight are in Newtons", as Bobblewik also commented on. However, you never see weight figures for aircraft expressed in newtons (which Wolfkeeper knows should be lowercase, but for some reason he insists on using that improper capital letter). You don't see a single weight of any arcraft in any Wikipedia article expressed in newtons. You don't see a single weight of any aircraft expressed in newtons at places such as http://www.boeing.com or anywhere else.

You do, however, see thousands of aircraft on Wikipedia with their weights expressed in kilograms, and most of them are expressed in pounds (in this context, units of mass also, of course) as well.

That's because "weight" is no more a force when we talk about aircraft weights than it is when we talk about net weight in commerce, and that is never a force. Gene Nygaard 03:49, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

LOL. Actually in the modern world it's *always* a force. 'weight' is measured using measuring equipment that determines the force due to gravity and then attempts to work backwards to the mass that must have caused it. And the difference is quite important for high precision work, since the equipment needs calibrating to local g.WolfKeeper 06:11, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Sure, if you are using a piezoelectric load cell or various other kinds of weighing devices, you will need to calibrate it to the local acceleration of gravity for high precision work. That precisely because what we measure, and what we want to measure, does not vary with the strength of that local gravitational field.

Of course, if you are using a classical balance (of various types, those balances were the only weighing devices anybody used for the first 7000 years or so that people were weighing things), then it doesn't need to be calibrated for the local acceleration of gravity. Gene Nygaard 15:58, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Unless someone brings out several sources that unequivocally demonstrate that the industry standard is to measure thrust/weight in N/kg (or lbf/lb), I say that we drop this argument and maintain the status quo. Ingoolemo ^talk 06:04, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/page content contain the status quo? bobblewik 18:18, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and following it I have now removed lbf/lb from all the articles that it has erroneously been added to; as best I can tell, it is now as quoted by the manufacturers. I also found and corrected a few minor errors. For example bombers rarely indeed have a thrust to weight ratio of 4.7.WolfKeeper 22:32, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Since that's not what the project page says, I'll clean up after you. Gene Nygaard 00:12, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

That's not what it means. The standard *allows* for that form. The manufacturers essentially *alway* quote it dimensionless. If the manufacturer has specified a lbf/lb form then it's entirely right to leave it that way. Otherwise I'm reverting bobblewicks edits that *converted* into lbf/lb. In every case I edited I found a specific edit that converted it across; in one or two cases incorrectly, and in all cases unnecessarily (one edit had a SI thrust:weight ratio of over 500.)WolfKeeper 00:46, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

These aren't from the manufacturers. Can you show me a single one directly from the manufacturer?
If what the manufacturers used meant we'd only use those units, then I'd be changing one hell of a lot of thrust figures to express them only in kilograms-force and not in any other units, just as you are doing with these numbers. Gene Nygaard 11:37, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Further, the one with "a[n] SI thrust:weight ratio of over 500" was actually a thrust-to-engine weight of about 810 N/kg. It was correct (except for precision problems; it was stated as 804 N/kg because it was converted from the 82 lbf/lb figure, which you left there, rather than from the more precise figures for the thrust and the weight, and that 82 lbf/lb figure was itself truncated from 82.66 rather than rounded up to 83 lbf/lb). Gene Nygaard 12:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC) The article involved is RD-170 (rocket engine). 12:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I am with Gene on this issue. Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/page content permits a variety of formats. WolfKeeper should not revert edits that are consistent with it. So I undid a couple of his reverts. However, as I said above in the [engine specs] section, some of these thrust/weight ratios are wrong (perhaps because editors/readers are confused about which of the six permutations it means). So I am with Wolfkeeper on the idea that the values should be checked, although the ones mentioned here seem fine to me (as Gene says). A way of avoiding the weight is not kilograms dispute would be to end the unnecessary arithmetic on pages. I proposed in that section that we don't have derived values and I repeat that proposal again. bobblewik 19:49, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

A unitless thrust/weight value is not incorrect.
The preceding point not withstanding, thrust/weight may be less correct than one evaluated as thrust/mass.
The current de jure and de facto WP:Air standard, notwithstanding any objections above, is a unitless measurement. (Admittedly, this is not at all clear according to the content page.)
During the specifications survey, no consensus was demonstrated in favour of switching to a mass/weight formula; a majority favoured continuation of the current unitless form.
There would be nothing wrong with overriding this result if it can be convincingly demonstrated that a thrust/mass calculation is an industry standard and thrust/weight is not.
This has not been demonstrated, not even with Gene's NASA citation above, because it does not deal with Earth's gravitational field. On earth, the correspondence between lb and lbf (and between kg and kgf) is so nearly 1 to 1 that we almost never need to worry about local gravity.

I tentatively support the thrust/mass calculation, unless Wolfkeeper can demonstrate that thrust/weight is an industry standard, because I believe that thrust/mass makes more sense from an engineering point of view: thrust and weight are rarely equal-and opposite vectors, and it is therefore more accurate to think of thrust as a force acting upon a mass. Ingoolemo ^talk 19:59, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

It is the industry standard otherwise I wouldn't be pissing about like this. Do a google on "thrust/weight" -wikipedia -rocket and check basically any page.WolfKeeper 21:56, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

The most definitive link is probably: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/fwrat.html (check out the weight- it's a vector pointing towards the middle of the Earth, that's because weight is a force; mass is a scalar.) Then check out the maths below where they specify the lift/drag ratio. That webpage is part of a series on flight; it's essentially an online textbook about aeroplanes; and I recommend it, it's good actually.WolfKeeper 21:56, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

But if you want random links (these I just clicked on at random): http://www.flug-revue.rotor.com/FRheft/FRH0102/FR0102g.htm notice that 'thrust-weight ratio' is dimensionless.

See: http://www.murdoconline.net/archives/002623.html

http://www.danshistory.com/a10.html

http://www.airliners.net/discussions/tech_ops/read.main/141348/

Basically so far as I can tell, go anywhere on the internet, and there's about a 99% chance that if it's quoted at all, it's dimensionless. And there's nothing special about the way I was looking, I just pulled out the first thrust/weight I found that is not wiki related. I didn't find a single value that was lbf/lb. I saw one that was quoted 'lb/lb'.WolfKeeper 21:56, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

You forgot to check "lbf/lbm". Even "lb/lbm". Maybe you don't understand that we are dealing with engineers here—and many of them figure that an undistinguished "pound" should be considered tobe the force unit and that it is the mass unit which needs to be distinguished by sticking an "m" at the end (that's not the way NIST and NPL and the like do it, however; they use "lb" and "lbf" which is also the common Wikipedia way).

And maybe you don't know it, but at least in the United States for the last 20 years or so there have been a significant number of textbooks and college professors teaching them a completely false notion that "pounds are not units of mass"

Do you guys realize how absurd this is getting? I agree with Bobblewik that we should scrap derived values altogether. ericg ✈ 20:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

If anyone feels the need to specify thrust/weight as thrust/mass, I think an equitable solution would be to add |thrust weight main= lbf/lb and |thrust weight alt= N/kg to the specifications section of the articles, while retaining |thrust/weight={ratio value}. This would cause no change in the articles themselves, but it would have the benefit of allowing us to redo this discussion CALMLY AND CIVILLY. The final decision can be implemented simply by manipulating {{Airtemp}}. I strongly request that no further action be taken (such as unilaterally altering the template) until it is clear that the discussion has either come to a conclusion or reached a dead end.

Again, I tentatively support a thrust/mass calculation in lb/lbf and N/kg, but I gladly invite Wolkeeper to prove me wrong. Ingoolemo ^talk 21:29, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Thrust/weight

My final opinion: we should refer to ratios only (as in thrust/weight) rather than to thrust/mass. This is because even though the latter is slightly more correct from a physics/engineering standpoint, the former is very clearly the industry standard, as demonstrated by Wolkeeper in his multiple links above, and through a goole test:

"thrust/weight ratio" -wikipedia: 11,500 hits
thrust/weight N/kg -wikipedia: 303 hits

Also, we have an admittedly flimsy form of verification in the oldest version of thrust-to-weight ratio, created by User:Flemnira, who as far as I can tell has never been involved in any discussions here, and therefore can be considered impartial.

Should values in lbf/lb and in N/kg be included as suplemental units to the thrust/weight ratio? I say yes. I oppose lbf/lb, because it is numerically identical to the ratio and therefore not directly useful for anything the ratio isn't. However, the N/kg value is very useful, because from that value one can calculate a plane's maximum horizontal acceleration.

Now, I very much agree with Eric that this discussion is far too heated for the minor quantity it discusses, so I think it's time that the debate be put aside. The idea that a thrust/weight ratio is conceptually incorrect is patently wrong—though wholly understandable. ~~Let's just add the N/kg value to the specs and move on with our lives.~~ Ingoolemo ^talk 00:12, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I retract my suggestion of a united form of thrust/weight, because there is no easy Imperial equivalent to N/kg that could be used—which I consider necessary. We could of course do lbf/slug, but that would be rather absured given that all other masses are given in lb. Also, as I discovered later, N/kg is a measure of thrust/mass, not thrust/weight. Ingoolemo ^talk 01:16, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I'm {#if:}ing the thrust/weight and power/mass lines in the template. ericg ✈ 04:14, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Unlike the N/kg, the English equivalent generally isn't used, so there wouldn't be any particular need to include it. But it would be 1 ft/s² = 1 lbf/slug (or in the less used absolute fps system, 1 pdl/lb, etc). You just multiply the "dimensionless" or lbf/lb or kgf/kg number by 32.174 to get this ft/s²=lbf/slug value, just as you multiply the "dimensionless" or lbf/lb or kgf/kg number to get N/kg = m/s². Or 1 N/kg = 1 m/s² = (1/0.3048) ft/s² = 3.28 ft/s² = 3.28 lbf/slug. Gene Nygaard 06:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you ericg. Getting rid of derived values improves Wikipedia. I note that many respectable websites do not bother with them either. bobblewik 13:53, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I didn't read them as "getting rid" of them, but rather just dropping them if no values were entered in those parameters. That would also get rid of the problem of a ":1" standing alone, when no entry is put in for them. Gene Nygaard 14:09, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Ah. That is a smaller, but still welcome, improvement. bobblewik 15:00, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Gene is correct. ericg ✈ 17:22, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Airtemp-switch

There are precisely zero articles using that template. Do we really need it? It takes 30 seconds to swap the units around. With the current complex formatting using the "more" parameters, simply switching the units around will get you a big fat mess anyway. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 02:47, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

At least six articles have historically used this template; they have apparently been migrated to Airtemp, but doing so wasn't really necessary. An update may take 30 seconds, but appending -switch is even easier. I do support using a single template, maybe even taking care to depopulate -switch regularly, but it won't hurt to keep -switch for now. Ingoolemo ^talk 22:09, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'll keep depopulating it though. :) - Emt147 ^Burninate! 02:33, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

proposed monobook.css update for .references

I've made a proposal at the village pump. A number of editors are using a cite.php tag wrapped in container divs (ie <div style="font-size:90%;"><references/></div>) for their references section, and I've suggested that the stylesheet should be updated to include it instead of page-specific cruft. Everyone's input would be appreciated. ericg ✈ 02:57, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

more easy convenience

There's a lot of inconsistency in 3-view placement - to help, I've created {{subst:3-view}}. The way it works is you add two parameters - the first is the image's name (ie what comes after image:), the second is what you want the 3-view described as. So, {{subst:3-view|Sopwith Camel 3-view.png|Sopwith Camel}} creates the image to the right. Make sure to use subst: to reduce unnecessary server load.

Also, there are a bunch of aircraft plan views on the commons that I've started adding to articles. Some of them are higher resolution than existing ones, so don't hesitate to replace what is already in an entry. ericg ✈ 21:28, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I would prefer something like 'orthographically projected diagram' over 'orthographic projection' because it seems slightly more correct. However, my proposal is unnecessarily verbose, so I would welcome an alternative before any changes are made. Ingoolemo ^talk 22:04, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to mess with the wording - I'm mostly just using this as an easy way to get consistent sizing, style, and placement. The caption/alt is less important. ericg ✈ 22:56, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

~~I have changed 300px to {{{3|300px}}}, which will allow us to prevent distortion of images smaller than 300 pixels wide. Ingoolemo ^talk 00:35, 19 April 2006 (UTC)~~

~~Thanks, that's a good addition— but please make sure to {{subst:}} rather than include the template. ericg ✈ 00:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)~~

Adding 300px to control size wound up breaking the substitution. I've removed it; you can change image size manually. ericg ✈ 06:12, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

AFD

I have nominated an article I created a long time ago for deletion, and I believe I explained my rationale very well on the AFD subpage. I just simply feel that it's not an encyclopedic article. Ingoolemo ^talk 01:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Template:Airtemp

What is the current status of the {{Airtemp}} template? Is it going to be replaced with a proper infobox any time soon? //Halibu tt 13:46, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

...no, it's not. Infoboxes aren't the answer for everything. Airtemp is currently used on hundreds of pages and is likely to stay the way it is. ericg ✈ 14:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Sure, Infoboxes are not an answer to everything. But they sure are an answer to my plea for... an infobox. Anyway, if there are no plans to do it, I will do it myself. I'll try to make the templates as compatible as possible for easier migration. //Halibu tt 20:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Infoboxes have many problems associated with them, and that is why this WikiProject does not use them. They have been rejected, albeit narrowly, in two previous discussions. In short, the lack of an infobox is not unsophistication, it is a conscious decision. Please leave the template as it is. Ingoolemo ^talk 20:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

If you need to make an infobox, how about one that highlights some key features and doesn't replace {{airtemp}}? That's what infoboxes are meant to do; if one was hidden via css, for example, it shouldn't leave the article with missing information. I wouldn't love it, but it would be better than a full-on specifications infobox. ericg ✈ 20:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

For example, an infobox is appropriate at Cirrus Design, as it summarizes what's in the article in a quick format without replacing anything. ericg ✈ 21:31, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

The current template and page layout is the result of much consensus. You are strongly discouraged from single-handedly revising the layout of aircraft pages. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 00:07, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Gentlemen, no need to start so fierce campaign against my work, really. I do like infoboxes, I do find them useful. I thought you might want to use my infobox as soon as it's ready. So far it's not, but it is not meant to replace the current temporary air template. It's simply meant as an air counterpart of {{AFV}} or {{Infobox Polish Navy}}. I want to use it myself in my articles as a stub with an infobox is still much better than a stub without it. However, I'm not going to meddle with your specifications template.

So, in other words, I strongly encourage you to read my posts before answering them. ;)

As to people who hide infoboxes through their css - I don't believe there is anything I could do about them. Pretty every page I contribute to has got an infobox, be it an article on military unit, AFV, ship, battle, war, town, village, species or country. If there are people who do not wish to use them - it's up to them. However, I don't think that whole wiki community should avoid infoboxes just because they do not like them. //Halibu tt 01:11, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

“Temporary” air template? What on earth are you talking about? This format was adopted over a year and a half ago with consensus. ericg ✈ 01:18, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

The template is named "airtemp" as it is the air template. It has nothing to do with being temporary. ericg ✈ 01:26, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Table demo

Infobox at approximately 640x480, as seen by approximately 0.5% of Wikipedians. How can anyone think that looks good?

Allow me to demonstrate why WP:Air should remain strongly opposed to the tables. Visit a page still using the table, like P-59 Airacomet. Change your screen resolution to 640x480 or 800x600 (as commonly used by libraries, elderly, and people with slow computers). Note how the table completely obliterates the text. I rest my case. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 00:24, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Not to mention users who simply don't browse maximized, or even smaller screens on PDAs and smartphones. ericg ✈ 00:30, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but it's not an argument. The fact that some guy did not know how to prepare a decent infobox and created something as monstrous as the P-59 Airacomet thingie should be an argument in favour of unified, user-proof infoboxes rather than against them. If the "Infobox" linked above was a template and had a fixed width (just like all modern infoboxes do), the table would not affect the text of the article in any resolution, except perhaps for some improperly configured palmtop screens. If you don't believe me just do the same test you described for, let's say, Józef Piłsudski, 7TP or Battle of Grunwald. //Halibu tt 00:58, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I just tried the pages you mentioned. At 800x600, the table takes up more than half the screen width. At 640x480 it basically obliterates the text. Even if you make the table width proportional to page width, the table will become compressed at low resolutions and create an ugly mess inside it. Infoboxes are an overused Wikipedia fad because most editors fail to appreciate the formatting nightmares at lower screen resolutions. Regardless, altering layout of WikiProject pages without consensus from project members will get you reverted. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 01:11, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but it is. That's a 640px wide browser window, and Safari has no chrome. Regardless, you don't seem to understand what an infobox is for. I quote: "they are designed to present summary information about an article's subject". Now, putting the aircraft specs into a single infobox is not a summary. It's not what an infobox should do. If you want to make an infobox that summarizes the aircraft - where it was built, by whom, what it does - go ahead. Right now, though, you're going against consensus and creating a duplicate system that the project doesn't really want. Help:Infobox explicitly says, "If you want to redesign an Infobox, please take it up with the appropriate WikiProject." That's us, and we're saying no thanks, just like we did a couple sections up on this talk page. ericg ✈ 01:16, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Eric. My point was exactly that -- you are spending a lot of time writing a template that the WikiProject does not want. We recognize that this is a natural manifestation of Darwikinism and we appreciate your effort and enthusiasm, but infoboxes do not fulfill our need to present a lot of information in a coherent fashion. The "shouting" you refer to was due to your initial post implying that you were going to write up a template and start substituting it into the articles.

Btw, another nightmare is stub-length articles which have full specifications but very little text -- you will have an infobox stretching far beyond the end of text. Having converted close to a thousand articles to Airtemp, I can tell you that stub-length text with full-length specs comprises the significant majority of WP:Air contents. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 05:06, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

An example of massive whitespace in Battle of Grunwald.

And of course there's the matter of massive whitespace, which occurs in one of the articles you mentioned as an example of good infobox use. Ingoolemo ^talk 05:10, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I've talked back and forth with Halibutt, and he does apparently intend to use the infobox as a summary. I'm actually working on an infobox using the same parameters as {{airtemp}}, but all of them can be hidden. That way, it works as both a summary and an specs box. Use as a specs box will be depreciated; if used at all, it should be used as a summary. I personally will not use it, but some editors have been pushing for infoboxes, and this will make that an option. The project can of course go through later and shift the specs down to the official section. ericg ✈ 05:34, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I think you may like what you see at User:Ingoolemo/Projects/Aircraft/Aircraft infobox. Ingoolemo ^talk 05:54, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I would actually prefer it to be colorless, much like {{Infobox Company}} or {{Infobox University}}. They shouldn't jump out any more than they already do. ericg ✈ 06:00, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

My example is in testing at User:Ericg/experimental/template/test viii for your reference. ericg ✈ 06:14, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

No offence Eric, but I wouldn't put any more work into your infobox than you already have. Apart from the specs, its contents should be clearly stated in the first sentence of the article. I really don't think a summary infobox is of much use unless someone comes up with a lot more fields to include. Ingoolemo ^talk 06:40, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

None taken. I'm not planning to do anything further. I can think of a few other summary fields offhand, but like you say, it's stuff that should be included in the copy. I personally will never use one of these, but I felt the project needed to have input on it since it will apparently exist whether we like it or not. ericg ✈ 16:49, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Class, by the way, is the same as type, so far as I understand it. Ingoolemo ^talk 06:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok, one by one

Eric, I'm neither going against any consensus nor disregarding any community. I'm simply making infoboxes, that's what I do. Whether you like it or not, Infoboxes are useful and a brief summary of everything is what many long wiki articles need. Want your text-only template - fine with me, I'm not going to change it. Nor do I want to "redesign an Infobox", since so far you have no infobox in this wikiproject.
Emt, I'm not spending time and efforts on an infobox this wikiproject does not want. I'm spending it on an infobox I want and three of the guys at wikipedia do not want even though they never seen it. How about waiting til it's ready before you say you don't like it? Sorry to say so, but I don't care about your needs. I care about mine and I though (silly me) that perhaps we could work on that together.
Of course, most of the current versions of your text-only template contain so little info that they could perfectly fit into an infobox. In such cases I wouldn't hesitate to replace it with a proper infobox. However, I never said anything about a 3000-lines long infoboxes attached to 20-lines long articles. It is but your invention. Sorry.
Class was a temporary replacement name I used in one of my sketches you apparently found in one of my sandboxes. If you cared to take a look at the talk page as well, you'd surely discover the idea behind it. //Halibu tt 20:09, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh, BTW, the number of people who use 640x480 these days is close to zero (up to 1% in some sites). At the same time the percentage of internet users who use resolutions of 1024x768 and above is close to 75%. Sorry, but the text-only era is over as well. //Halibu tt 20:11, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

BTW, given the warm welcome and lots of support I received here, in addition to apparent will of improvement of Wikipedia and hugging the newcomers rather than biting them, I withdraw from the idea for now. I planned to create some Infobox to be used in my planned articles on all planes ever produced in Poland, but apparently it makes no sense to waste my time on it. You guys designed your template almost 2 years ago and apparently are willing to defend it at all costs. Fine with me. I'll leave you here in your club of common adoration and let you play with yourselves. Bye. //Halibu tt 20:26, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Apparently you missed my attempt at compromise and cooperation and are focusing instead on comments I made somewhat earlier. I'm still willing to help you make an infobox that fits the project's desires as well as your needs, but if you'd rather make a scene or build your own personal infobox then that's not really my business.

I can predict, however, that future infoboxen containing specifications will wind up being converted by the project to our page content standards. ericg ✈ 20:50, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry we did not see eye to eye on this. I have been writing web pages ever since there was HTML and I'm a strong believer in making information maximally accessible for all users. If it looks like crap below 1024x768 or when printed (a printed page will look about the same as 640x480) I don't think it's the best presentation for a global information repository like Wikipedia. And yes, all non-standard aircraft pages will be converted to the WP:Air layout determined through several votes and consensus of the interested memebers of the Wikipedia community. You did not even bother to seek consensus on your proposal or request feedback -- instead you simply announced that you will go ahead and rewrite the template. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 04:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Emt, apparently you missed all of my comments above. If that's not seeking a compromise with you then what is it? If that's no request for help and comments - then what is it? Anyway, over and out. //Halibu tt 09:38, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

It's a statement that you're doing something whether we like it or not. Here are some choice quotes:

Sure, Infoboxes are not an answer to everything. But they sure are an answer to my plea for... an infobox. Anyway, if there are no plans to do it, I will do it myself. - 20:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to say so, but I don't care about your needs. I care about mine and I though (silly me) that perhaps we could work on that together. - 20:09, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

As far as assuming good faith goes, both sides have issues, but your statements (I'll leave you here in your club of common adoration and let you play with yourselves.) are pushing the limits of WP:CIVIL. We're willing to work with an infobox that doesn't contain specs - if that's not a compromise, then what is? ericg ✈ 20:28, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

You're right I lost my temper and I apologize for that.

As to the compromise... I don't believe current proposal truly is a compromise as it's not a proper infobox. IMHO infoboxes are for hard, comparable data, while the current version contains only facts that cannot be compared by definition and should be put in the header anyway. So, in fact such a template would only repeat what's already mention right to the left of it. //Halibu tt 18:38, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

"Hard, comparable data" isn't apropos to aircraft. The physical dimensions, while hard, is not very important. The important data, like speed and range, are very soft. --Mmx1 18:47, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

We've already mentioned that a table format isn't very 'professional' as far as presentation goes. Stuff gets squashed into a narrow width and runs two lines, and doesn't look remotely similar to equivalent descriptions in actual aviation references. The two most common infoboxes (by my count) are {{Infobox Company}} and {{Infobox University}}, neither of which have any information that's not in the article. Contrary to what you believe, readers do edit their monobook.css to hide infoboxes. If the entire aircraft specifications section is in an infobox, they won't be able to see those specs. We're building an accessible, free encyclopedia, not one that's only visible to a limited (or even majority) set of users. It's no harder to click the Specifications link in the table of contents than it is to read an infobox to the right of the text. ericg ✈ 18:47, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

As I mentioned, if there are people who do not wish to see infoboxes, then it is their choice not to. We don't have follow every single group of users, do we. There are also people who disable images - should we make wikipedia text-only? Also, there is a huge group of people to hide minor edits in their watchlists. Should we ban minor edits then? Following your logic we'd end up with some paper-like chunk of text, a gigantic lorem ipsum. Oh, and let's not forget of millions of people who do not have access to internet at all...

I understand that specialists usually look for info on laminar flow or wing supporters rather than basic info, but they won't use the infobox anyway. And at the same time an average person like me would first want to know what was the plane made for and how big was it. The same applies to basic data in cars, tanks, trains, and perhaps all other vehicles except for skateboards. You call dimensions unimportant - fine with me. However, I seriously believe that such silly infobox containing no info and only the box would make Wikipedia worse and not better. //Halibu tt 18:24, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and you might want to check what infoboxes are for. They're not for aircraft designers who wouldn't use wikipedia anyway. They're for an average reader and are meant to present summary information about an article's subject, such that similar subjects have a uniform look and in a common format. How the heck is someone going to compare any aircraft with the template you propose? What is there to compare? //Halibu tt 18:33, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to understand this. It's okay to potentially hide content, but it's a problem to duplicate it? Images add to content. Aircraft specifications are content. Minor edits have nothing to do with content. Displaying the aircraft's entire specifications is not a summary. ericg ✈ 18:53, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Bug request to deal with redlinks in navboxes

http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5653. Ingoolemo ^talk 18:34, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

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