Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft/Archive 3

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October 04
In mid-August, some members of this project had detailed discussions off-wikipedia at a forum (aeronaut.ca/wikiforum). While useful at the time, discussion is now much more active here on the talk page. All forum discussions will remain up indefinitely for browsing.

Old talk archived at:

Contents

Forum Use

I'm not sure how well our forum experiment has worked out... I think it's been less than successful, particularly as of late. We probably ought to go back to using the normal wiki talk pages. Opinions?

-eric 22:11, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

I think it worked very well whilst thrashing out the finer points of the data table issue, but now that things are quieter, yeah - it's probably better to move back. --Rlandmann 01:31, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I find that the problem is that the two places I check for "new stuff" are my email account and Special:Watchlist. I don't check forums. —Morven 19:09, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)
I was less keen on the forum, for the same reasons as Morven and other reasons.Bobblewik  (talk) 19:55, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I think it had its good points, but I agree with Rlandmann that maybe it's time to move back seeing as though things are pretty quiet now. I also found myself tending to forget to check it. Impi 12:50, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I have to agree that the biggest weakness of the forum was that it is harder to watch than normal articles. I also support moving back. •→Iñgólemo←• 21:24, 2004 Nov 2 (UTC)

X-20 Dyna-Soar

I recently happened upon this one and converted it to the inline standard in passing... and I saw today that not only has it been reverted to the old table format, but this has occured in a most bizarre fashion. A user seems to have taken a screenshot of the old table and inserted it as an image on the right side of the article, shoving everything all over the place and causing a lower image to overlap a bunch of text. I've reverted it back to the current format and removed the NOTOC tag so that perhaps it's easier to tell that specs weren't just removed. -eric 18:47, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

Errr.... weird :) --Rlandmann 22:19, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

B-29 FAC issue

I recently nominated the article B-29 Superfortress to featured article status. One of the objections to its nomination so far has been the duplication of the old blue data table in the subsection that follows current standards. I figured I would experimentally delete the data table. Not to my surprise, another user reverted the change in less than five minutes.

Thus, we are still stuck with the fact that the blue data table exists extraneously, preventing the B-29 article from being featured. If we can agree to update the B-29 to our new data standard, that will clear one major hurdle. •→Iñgólemo←• 23:04, 2004 Nov 2 (UTC)

removal of blue data table supported and encouraged. explain the change and link to the standard in your edit summary, that will probably help. -eric 09:11, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

A template thought

What if we created a transclusion template for aircraft articles (airticles?) like {{subst:Aircraft}} ({{subst:aircraft}}). It would provide a sort of backbone for articles, but still be readily editable. Thus in creating a new article, the article framework and specifications formatting, in addition to navigation through designation are available. Anyone else interested in this? →Iñgólemo← (talk) 17:25, 2004 Nov 30 (UTC)

I think this is a great idea and would help standardization greatly. -Lommer 02:19, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
i see to remember this being mentioned on the forum - i don't know how it would work, or if it would always work, but anything to streamline and/or standardize a majority of articles would be good by me. -eric 17:30, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think that it's either practical or desirable for a template to be used to provide "the article framework". There are simply far too many variables in the type, quantity and quality of information that we have for various aircraft.

The idea of using a template for the specifications section was raised on the forum, and it's quite attractive at face value. We would need something like a dozen slightly different versions of it to replicate the current system, but those would then easily cover 99% of our articles. The big downside (a showstopper, IMHO) is its inherent user-unfriendliness - these templates are not accessible or intuitive to use for new editors (or, truth be told, probably most of the Wikipedia community. What they really need is a form interface...).

Finally, as I see it, our designation sequence line is not practical to template - most of the sequences are far too long (hence the three-forward-three-back convention) and most of the ones that are short enough apply to so few aircraft that they're not worth creating a template for. --Rlandmann 22:13, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think your raise many good points, but I think that they may be (at least partially) unfounded. I really don't think a dozen or so versions are necessary, because most people with a rudimentary knowledge of aircraft can edit out the inapplicable information and stuff like that. As to them being accessible, I also have to disagree. I really don't think that something like {{subst:cargo-aircraft}} is difficult to use. →Iñgólemo← (talk) 02:33, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)

My apologies - I didn't understand what you were suggesting. My comments apply to the use of parametrised templates, and are irrelevant to your idea. Now that we're on the same wavelength, I can't see any real disadvantage to their creation. And no, if we're not using parameters, then we don't need a dozen - probably only: Fixed-wing (metric), Fixed-wing (imperial), Rotary-wing (metric), and Rotary-wing (imperial). They probably only need to cover the Specifications and Related content sections. --Rlandmann 07:11, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have made much worse mistakes. Don't be embarassed. →Iñgólemo← (talk) 04:30, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

Naming of certain aircraft

I read somewhere, (I can't remember where), that articles such as B-29 Superfortress and Douglas XB-19 were ambiguous as to what their articles talked about. Might we fix this by changing to B-29 Superfortress bomber and Douglas XB-19 bomber. Frankly, it isn't that much of a problem, in my opinion. I'm just throwing out stuff for others to think about. →Iñgólemo← (talk) 04:30, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC) (alias: Mr Bomber-obsessive)

Specifications

I was just converting F-82 Twin Mustang over to the new standards when I realized that it had table entries like "role", "first flight", "entered service/production", and "manufacturer". I think these are useful things and that they should be added to the specifications templates. Thoughts? Comments? -Lommer 02:22, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have also felt that the new format leaves out some important data in excluding that information. →Iñgólemo← (talk) 03:55, 2004 Dec 8 (UTC)
Care to mention specifically what information? -Lommer 22:08, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The same as you noticed. →Iñgólemo← (talk) 03:35, 2004 Dec 9 (UTC)

All those pieces of data are indeed very important, and should all feature prominently in the article. In particular, the role and manufacturer should figure in the very first sentence of the article's text. I don't think there's any need to re-iterate this material in the specifications section. --Rlandmann 06:22, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ok, I see your point, and will revise the article to that standard. Just out of curiosity, how agressively are "we" converting to the new specifications format? Just because I still see a lot of aircraft tables out there, even (often) in the most prominent articles.-Lommer 22:08, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
just to second rlandmann, that's the kind of information that needs to be in an article, not in a data section. if it's a stub, then use that information as the foundation for a more detailed article. -eric 03:39, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

Not as quickly as we should be! I've been attacking the List of aircraft from both ends - updating articles as I hit them in my slow crawl forwards (where I'm also writing new articles), and making a systematic attempt to work backwards through the list (where I'm not). Every article from 3XTrim up to Aerocomp is to the current standard, and everything after Tupolev is as well (I'm halfway through Tupolev). Things slowed down a bit for the last 6 weeks or so when I haven't had as much time to spend here, but that's changing back now. I haven't seen any other systematic attempt to update article formats.

<rant>The project currently has a mixture of articles with:

  • some version of the original (lime green) data table
  • some version of the revised (blue) table, still html coded
  • some version of the revised-revised blue table that introduced the wiki table code (probably now second-most common; there was a concerted effort to roll this out once it was agreed on)
  • the new text format (about 400 out of 1,400 - probably now single most common)
  • no specifications
  • some other way of describing specifications
  • some combination of the above! (yes, some articles have a data table and text specifications)

It's because of this mess that I'm very reluctant to see yet another standard developed. Any and every standard we settle on is always going to be a purely arbitrary one, and is equally liable to someone coming along in another few months and suggesting we change it. Since accommodating every suggestion that comes along is not possible nor probably even desirable, I believe we should all invest greater effort in cleaning up the mess that we have now, rather than shifting the goalposts again and creating a whole new group of obsolete articles. Please no-one take that personally - just the janitor venting a little!</rant> --Rlandmann 23:30, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Personally as far as the coversion process goes, I think we should get all the pages on one standard no matter which one before we even think about discussing a standards change. Then in future if there are standards changes all the pages can be relatively quickly converted using a robot/spider. I think having bot/spider convertable standards will go a long way towards keeping this project standardized. BTW, sort of offtopic, but has anyone attempted (or even thought about) making a bot to ease the conversion to text specs? It's not that hard to do manually but it certainly could be faster. I'm sure having multiple table formats doesn't help either :-) -Lommer 19:54, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Sorry if this is taboo, but perhaps the question of parameterised templates for specifications should be revisited. They could surely be easily maintained by a bot -- a bot could be used to automate unit conversion (where units are missing) and for adding or removing parameters if the standard changes. You are no longer tied to one presentation (text or table). Plus you automatically know which articles are updated by checking what links to the template. Personally I don't think a well-worded template is any less friendly than doing it in Wiki-syntax by hand, plus if/when the Wiki software supports forms, the template is ready to go. Using a template ensures that the standard is enforced -- an editor can't arbitrarily decide to add, say, a "cost" field to the spec. (I am assuming that enforcing a standard is desirable.) Geoff/Gsl 22:24, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
If I understand you correctly, than I can answer that there already are parameterised templates: {{Aircraft-imp}} for imperial measurment and {{Aircraft-met}} for metric. →Iñgólemo← (talk) 06:19, 2004 Dec 10 (UTC)
i had no clue! i'll keep that in mind for sure next time i contrib. -eric 06:23, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)
Those templates are for substitution, not parameterisation (there are no parameters in those templates). Parameterised templates wouldn't have section for the text content, only the specs. Geoff/Gsl 23:16, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Multiple use planes ? Which info to include?

Hi,

I'm new here and hope you guys (girls) can provide some direction/guidence.

In writing one of my pages, I had linked to the Cessna AT-17 and found out it didn't exist. So for me the next logical thing to do was create an AT-17 page.

Well, hmm.. what to have the main page called? I researched the plane and found Cessna produced its first T-50 light transport for the civil market in 1939. The U.S. Army Air Corps purchased they type as the AT-8 Bobcat as an multi-engine advanced trainer. With an engine change, the Bobcat was then redesignated the AT-17. In 1942, the U.S. Army Air Force started using the Bobcat as a light personal transport and changed the designation to UC-78.

So... multiple engines, the body was modified on some models, varying roles.

Do I make the main page Cessna T-50 since that is the original designator. Or as most planes do, do I use the most common designation the Cessna AT-17? Or....do I create a few different pages :)

Thanks!

(oh..take a look at my first try at an aircraft page Curtiss AT-9)

Mikeb 18:00, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm no authority, but I think you'd want to use the original variant as the main article - after all, it is the basis for the other developments - and provide redirects from the other names and designations. -eric 20:01, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

Most of the time, the name for the article should be clear-cut, but this is one example where it's not, and where there's two conflicting principles - to name as generally as possible (Cessna T-50), and to use the most familiar names for things (Cessna AT-17). You'll have to use your judgement here! --Rlandmann 21:47, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Categories

The aircraft category system is currently under debate on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion (you'll find it under the "US vs U.S." heading). Comments are invited. --Rlandmann 06:09, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Consensus was to change "US" to "U.S." -- Beland 02:46, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Categorisation thoughts

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to properly categorise certain articles. Just now, one of the ones I thought about was those in Category:U.S. bomber aircraft 1940-1949. Currently, the articles in this category are just alphabetised. But I got to thinking, if we were to sort them in a different way, how would we go about it? Here is my proposal, for this particular type (military aircraft of the United States):

  1. Experimental aircraft (XN-number) are all placed under the X heading
  2. Service test aircraft (YN-number) are all placed under the Y heading
  3. Aircraft that entered operation (N-number) are sorted according to the first number in their designation (written here as number). This system would have to be tweaked a bit for the C (cargo) and P/F (pursuit/fighter) series, since the Army Air Force sequence for these go over a hundred (see List of military aircraft of the United States).

Anyone else interested in this scheme? →Iñgōlemo← (talk) 23:35, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

I like it - it makes much more sense to categorize military aircraft by their designation than anything else. -Lommer | talk 01:49, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I like it too, but there's the problem of changing prefixes - F used to be photorecon rather than fighter, for example - and duplicate designations, such as the F-5 recon plane (P-38) and the F-5 Tiger fighter. How do we resolve these? How do we keep them from sitting right next to each other?
Also, what about Navy aircraft? -eric 05:10, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)


In the case of confusion between Fotorecon (mispelling deliberate) and Fighter, I don't think we need to worry. IMHO, it is safe to say that we won't have Fotorecon planes in the same category as Fighters. If there are any categories in which this would occur, I find it doubtful that my alphabetisation system would be the one employed. In the case of F-5 recon and F-5 tiger, the former would be placed in Category:U.S. reconnaissance aircraft 1930-1939, but the latter in Category:U.S. fighter aircraft 1960-1969 or whenever it was introduced. As you can see, overlap is unlikely. →Iñgōlemo← (talk) 06:18, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC)
As to Navy aircraft, I'm not sure. I don't know the designation system used by the navy well enough to come up with a good one. →Iñgōlemo← (talk) 06:18, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC)

Is this what you mean? Yes, seems logical to pipe the articles so that they sort in sequence in the category view. US Navy prior to 1962 used a system of role code/number/manufacturer code, so the FF was the first fighter by Grumman, followed by the F2F and the F3F; the AD was the first attack aircraft by Douglas, followed by the A2D and the A3D. In the example category above, I piped XF5U to FU5 and F7U to FU7. Does that seem reasonable? --Rlandmann 10:40, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have just completed reorganising the articles in Category:U.S._bomber_aircraft_1930-1939. If your interested in how the classification scheme suggested here appears in practice, that is a good place to look. (I did not categorise the A-20, since it is not a bomber, though it could be used as one. Instead, I left it alone). →Iñgōlemo← (talk) 05:07, 2005 Feb 1 (UTC)

On another note, I think that the proposal for Naval alphabetisation made by Rlandmann should work quite well. →Iñgōlemo← (talk) 05:07, 2005 Feb 1 (UTC)

Hrm, I actually like the way Rlandmann did it better - it's more intuitive and you have them all classified under one heading instead of (potentially) 10. I think we should go with the way he did it.-Lommer | talk 05:50, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
P.S. Is the A-20 a bomber or attack? should it be moved to attack? -Lommer | talk 05:50, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I don't think that Rlandmann actually did anything to alphabetise this category (in other words, I don't think "the way Rlandmann did it" exists). Maybe I'm wrong, but so far as I know, this category was not piped in any way before I tested the changes. →Iñgōlemo← (talk) 03:46, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)
Just simply placing all production bombers under the B heading might also be considered as an alternative solution. (Though it sort of knaws at my mind, because they all are bombers—that's the whole point of the category. Oh well. Its not very important anyway.) →Iñgōlemo← (talk) 04:01, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)
Did you see Rlandmann's link in his post above to Category:U.S. fighter aircraft 1940-1949? That's what I was referring to. -Lommer | talk 04:26, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I saw it, but I didn't understand what he meant. (wince wince) I think that that scheme will work fine, but I still maintaint that experimental (XN-) and service test (YN-) should be placed under the headings X and Y, respectively, rather than under N. →Iñgōlemo← (talk) 05:27, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)
Note that when used as a prefix rather than as a code in its own right, X designates prototype, not experimental. I'm very much opposed to these being separated out, since doing so runs deliberately contra to the way the designation sequence actually works. Furthermore, our article naming conventions are purely arbitrary anyway and I don't see why we should be privileging this arbitrariness over the way that the numbers are "supposed" to run. Finally, while most bombers are prefixed B-, there are exceptions here and there, and that's not even taking into consideration our convention of sometimes sticking manufacturers' names in front of designations. I don't think that any category is so large that grouping by N, (rather than B- or F- or P- etc) is necessary or even desirable. --Rlandmann 09:07, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Okay, let's all group them under their shared mission designation. (When referring to this designation, I usually use N- in my posts here, as a variable, for which can be substituted any code, such as B-, F-, A-, et cetera). Given the objections raised to other systems, that implemented by Rlandmann in Category:U.S. fighter aircraft 1940-1949 should probably be the one we use. →Iñgōlemo← (talk) 03:48, 2005 Feb 3 (UTC)
Grouping by number does, however, make sense in German categories of the 30s and 40s. --Rlandmann 12:40, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
trying this out, i've edited german fighters of the 40s by number; it's not as clean as i think i'd like should we permanently adopt this system. not only is it difficult at best to locate by manufacturer, but it's not even entirely properly sorted. 40 should come before 190, yet it's after 335 instead. this might not be our best option for german aircraft. -eric 22:22, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)
About locating by manufacturer: either we sort by designation or by manufacturer. We can't sort by both without using separate categories. Unless we decide to list each plane twice, by designation and manufacturer, it won't happen. However, my general impression has been that we prefer not to list by manufacturer, since there aren't even categories like Category:Boeing aircraft or whatever. The fluke with the Blohm & Voss BV 40 will be really easy to fix: all you have to do is use 040 instead of 40. I am executing this change now. →Iñgōlemo← talk 05:05, 2005 Feb 4 (UTC)
Actually, there are a few manufacturer categories out there - eg AEG, Saab, Yakovlev. I think these are useful and interesting and hope to see this more widespread over time. --Rlandmann 04:41, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The A-20 is one of those troublesome birds that fits least clearly into the categorisation schema. Designed as an attack aircraft, it was first ordered and flown as a Bomber (by the French), then ordered as a bomber but used as a heavy/night fighter (by the British) before the US adopted it in its originally intended role. Soon however, they too were operating it as a tactical bomber, leading to its eventual re-designation as B-20 (even though this designation had already been used for another earlier aircraft). The F-111 and F-117 are two other cases where the US military's designation doesn't really reflect what the aircraft ended up doing...

In response to Lommer's question on my talk page about other navigational templates that I've implemented amongst aircraft categories, I've maintained a list here. I think that's all of them I've worked on so far... --Rlandmann 12:45, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Article merger

Recently, I was going through some of the articles I've edited, and I discovered something. Several early bombers made by Huff-Daland/Keystone Aircraft Corporation are essentially the same aircraft with different engines. These include:

All of them have the same dimensions, and about the same empty weight. Several are post-production engine modifications of other designations. The Keystone LB-5 is the root of every design. It led to the LB-6, but its wingspan is shorter than that of the planes listed above, so it's probably not legitimately the same.

The two questions: should these planes be all in the same article? And if they are, then what on earth should it be called? →Iñgōlemo← talk donate 04:36, 2005 Feb 17 (UTC)

maybe take the most common model(s) and turn that(those) into articles; the rest can be sections+redirects to the aircraft they derived from? that would make the most sense to me. -eric 06:10, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
There's a pair of assumptions implicit in the vast majority of aircraft articles ever contributed here; that "different designation=different aircraft" and that "different aircraft=worthy of own article". I think that's quite a reasonable set of assumptions to work from, in particular because it neatly side-steps us having to make our own judgement about whether a new designation reflects a new aircraft, or simply a variant of an existing aircraft. In effect, we are simply reporting the decision that a manufacturer/government aviation ministry/air force has made on that question.
In this particular case, I think that each of the aircraft listed above should be the subject of its own article, since (a) that sits better with the general practice just described, and (b) there's certainly enough to say about each of these to merit its own article - if Joe Baugher could do it, so can we. --Rlandmann 22:42, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I actually see nothing wrong with wikipedia editors making judgements on whether a new designation reflects a new aircraft or not. As well, I think that if a lot of information would be repeated, or if articles on the variants were to be just stubs, then it would make more sense to combine multiple variants into one article (quicker to read, digest info, and grasp the bigger picture). Thus I think we should go with eric's suggestion. -Lommer | talk 02:03, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The main reason that I brought it up is because they are all almost completely identical. So far as I can tell, the only difference between them (designwise) is their engines. [[User:Ingoolemo|User:Ingoolemo/Sig]] 05:16, 2005 Feb 28 (UTC)
Apart from the engines, armament and tailplane arrangement also varied. However, the real differences are in the stories behind these aircraft, (see Baugher). At the very least, those that were produced (or converted) in series should remain separate. There's plenty of precedence elsewhere for one-off conversions to redirect to their main designations (at least until enough material can be accumulated to branch them out on their own). For the LB- series, the LB-5, LB-6, and LB-7 should remain separate - LB-10 and LB-11 would redirect to LB-6 and LB-8, LB-9, and LB-12 would redirect to LB-7. For the B- series, there's ample material for separate articles for each (the weakest example being the B-5). --Rlandmann 01:15, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
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