Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft/Archive 9

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Naming conventions

I'm rather a nut for properly organised categories—in fact, I got a barnstar for my obssession. One thing that's been irking me is in aircraft categories that contain American military aircraft. Where such an aircraft has a common nickname it is listed under whatever designation sequence it belongs to (so the F-22 Raptor is listed under 'F', but the Convair B-36 is listed under 'C'). All other aircraft that are not part of a military designation sequence are listed by manufacturer. One solution is to pipe the categories, of course, but I don't think that's going to work too well. Looking at a category such as Category:Stealth aircraft, it wouldn't be immediately obvious why the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit is listed under 'N', because the only link a reader would see would be to B-2 Spirit. However, if we move the article to Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, the issue would be solved. (Note also that List of aircraft lists aircraft by manufacturer, not by designation sequence.) Ingoolemo talk 04:25, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

If redirects do not create a technical problem for Wikipedia, the most appropriate way to name articles would be (surprise) using the full aircraft name. Thus, "North American P-51 Mustang" and not "P-51 Mustang" and so on. If it does create a technical problem, it would be a million links to fix.
Otherwise, you have to adopt a consistent policy on piped sorting, either by military designation (more logical but extremely untidy) or by manufacturer (more tidy but user-unfriendly because who knows whether something like an F-16 will be listed under G for General Dynamics or L for Lockheed-Martin). - Emt147 Burninate! 07:43, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
List of military aircraft of the United States does sort by designation. I strongly encourage you go into the archives and read previous naming discussions before renaming hundreds of existing articles. As Emt points out with the F-16, manufacturers change, and often: Is it the Consolidated PBY Catalina, the Convair PBY Catalina, or maybe the General Dynamics PBY Catalina? McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle, or Boeing F-15E Strike Eagle? How do you decide what the methodology is?
This change wouldn't make the category organization better, it would make it disgracefully unintuitive. ericg ✈ 19:10, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
I would like to clarify a few points.
Firstly, Emt states above that the most appropriate article titles include the manufacturer; this is not necessarily true: under WP:MOS, the most commonly used name should be the article title. In the case of American military aircraft with common nicknames, the manufacturer is usually omitted when referring to the aircraft: the B-29 Superfortress is rarely referred to as the Boeing B-29. I'm proposing that we ignore the MOS for the sake of better categorisation of certain categories.
Secondly, with regards to the proper manufacturer name, my anecdotal impression suggests that de facto policy is to refer to the name used at the time of first flight: thus Consolidated PBY Catalina, McDonnell Douglas F-15E, General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon. However this issue will need to be worked out in more detail.
Thirdly, I do not propose that we order such categories/lists as Category:U.S. fighter aircraft 1960-1969 and List of military aircraft of the United States by manufacturer; this would be, as Eric put it, 'disgracefully unintuitive'. My proposal would only affect categories where one sees a mix of civilian and military aircraft, or American and non-American aircraft, as can be seen in Category:Stealth aircraft, Category:U.S. experimental aircraft 1940-1949, and especially in Category:Seaplanes and flying boats and Category:Carrier-based_aircraft. Ingoolemo talk 18:03, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
understood. will you only pipe links for the multinationals? i guess i'm not entirely sure how this will be executed. ericg ✈ 06:21, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
What I'm proposing is that we rename the articles in question, because that's the only way we can change the links that appear in categories. Now that I think about it, however, it's probably better to make a feature request (at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/) before taking such a drastic step. Of course, it'll be a while before such a feature is implemented. Ingoolemo talk 22:55, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
in which case my original objections apply. renaming would of course change how they appear in all category listings, thus making even the U.S.-only categories look ridiculous. a better solution, as you say, would be a new feature - making the piped title what appears in the list, not just how it is sorted. ericg ✈ 23:30, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
It would of course still be possible to pipe those articles in the U.S.-only categories, as is currently being done, but renaming a page is a pain. Given your objections, and the MOS, I guess the best solution is pushing for a new feature—though that may take some time to accomplish. I'll leave a message here when I have submitted the feature request. Ingoolemo talk 05:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

IMHO sorting by manufacturer would be appropriate for the multinational categories. - Emt147 Burninate! 23:34, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Encyclopaedia of Aviation

I know I can't speak for all of you, but I personally would probably leave out virtually all aircraft articles from Wikipedia 1.0. However, we could probably use our articles as the basis of Wikipedia's version of Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation, and publish that to raise funds for the Wikimedia Foundation.

Of course, we should also work to prepare some of the articles that will be included in Wikipedia 1.0—work to get them Featured, or at least Good. Some that I can think of off the top of my head:

Any comments on my proposals? Ingoolemo talk 18:43, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Military Aircraft Infobox

FA-22
Raptor
Raptor
Class Stealth Fighter
Crew 1
Length 62 ft
Wingspan 44 ft
Height 16 ft
Wing area 480 ft²
Weight (Empty) 31,670 lb
Weight (Loaded) 60,000 lb
Maximum Takeoff 80,000 lb
Powerplant 2× Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100
Max Speed Mach 2.0+
Cruising Speed Mach 1.5+
Range 2000 miles
Service Ceiling 65,000 ft
Rate of Climb ft/min
Wing Loading 96 lb/ft²
Thrust/Weight 1:1.27
Guns 1× 20 mm Gatling gun
Missiles 6× AIM-120C AMRAAM, 2× AIM-9 Sidewinder
Bombs 2× 1000 lb JDAM, 20x 250 lb Small Diameter Bombs


I had no idea about this project and decided to make an Infobox for Military A/C. Let me know what you think. I can edit it to your standards. ---Killioughtta

The F/A-22 was renamed to F-22 (again) in December 2005. I also think that redlinks should be cleaned up, and ROC should be stated as classified. Change that, and I think its pretty good. --The1exile 19:24, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

  • If you look at the Infobox's Talkpage you'll see the Pre-filled template covers both Metric and Imperial units. --Killioughtta 20:41, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
  • The Raptor Infobox is just an example. It's not featured on the F/A-22 Raptor page. I just filled in what information was found there. --Killioughtta 20:41, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Regardless, WikiProject Aircraft does not use the table for specs anymore. - Emt147 Burninate! 22:33, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The table is a very common format throughout Wikipedia. Though we don't use it currently, it's possible that the rest of the project may attempt to convince us to use the table to assure project-wide coherence. If we acquiesce, it'd be worth our while to develop a table. Kudos to Exile: your proposed table is a hell of a lot better than the old version. (Note: this comment should not be taken as an endorsement of the table format. I still prefer text-based specifications.) Ingoolemo talk 20:03, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
  • The table takes up a third of the screen width on my monitor (granted at a somewhat humble 1024x768) which is a bit much. To make matters worse, many places, including public libraries, still run at 640x480 or 800x600 which means the table will completely overwhelm the text.
If we do decide to switch, it should be done through the AutoWikiBrowser (page list can be generated from links to the Aircontent template, for example) and not by hand.
Having said all that, this infobox does look very sharp! Great job Exile! - Emt147 Burninate! 22:29, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I have designed some potential infoboxes at User:Ingoolemo/Projects/Aircraft/Aircraft infobox. Please note, again, that I am not in favour of readopting the infobox; I've only created some that look nice. The proposals are template-based; for the first proposal, I have adopted Exile's F-22 infobox with some minor changes in colouration. Ingoolemo talk 22:58, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I created the Infobox. I forgot to sign it. --Killioughtta 01:38, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

1) What do you think about including:

Airfoils (wing root/tip): NACA / NACA

2) Why are we talking about infoboxes if we are not going to use them. Or are we? - Emt147 Burninate! 23:04, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

As I noted above, infoboxes are the most-used format for most other projects in Wikipedia. Some time in the future there may be a need to change to the infobox to move our project more closely in line with other projects, or because a stronger coalition in support of the infobox has arisen. It won't hurt to have a nice infobox on hand, because the old one wasn't very nice. Ingoolemo talk 05:23, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Standardized engine specs

Can we get a consensus on standardized aircraft engine specs (and place it in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/page content)? Here's what I've been using:

Piston

Specifications ()

  • Type: Seven-cylinder supercharged air-cooled radial piston engine
  • Bore: in (mm)
  • Stroke: in (mm)
  • Displacement: in³ (L)
  • Valvetrain: Two pushrod-actuated valves per cylinder with sodium-cooled exhaust valve
  • Valvetrain: Overhead camshaft-actuated, two intake and two exhaust valves per cylinder, sodium-cooled exhaust valve stems
  • Carburetor: twin-choke updraft with automatic mixture control
  • Supercharger: Two-speed two-stage, boost pressure automatically linked to the throttle, water-air aftercooler installed between the second stage and the engine.
  • Oil system: Dry sump with one pressure pump and two scavenge pumps
  • Cooling system: 70% water and 30% ethylene glycol coolant mixture, pressurized
  • Compression ratio:
  • Power output: hp (kW) at rpm for takeoff at sea level; hp (kW) at rpm for cruise at ft (m)
  • Fuel consumption: US gal/hr (L/hr) at economical cruise
  • Length: in (mm)
  • Diameter: in (mm)
  • Dry weight: lb (kg)
  • Power-to-weight ratio: hp/lb (kW/kg)

Jet

Specifications ()

  • Compressor: single-stage dual-entry centrifugal compressor with two-sided impeller
  • Combustion chambers: 10 flow combustion chambers with igniter plugs in chambers 3 and 10
  • Turbine: single-stage axial flow with 54 blades
  • Fuel: Aviation kerosene with 1% lubricating oil
  • Oil system: US gal ( L) capacity, circulation rate US gal/hr ( L/hr), maximum inverted flying time s
  • Overall pressure ratio:
  • Thrust: lbf ( kN) at rpm for takeoff; lbf ( kN) at rpm for cruise; lbf ( kN) at rpm at idle.
  • Fuel consumption: lb/hr ( kg/hr) at maximum power; lb/hr ( kg/hr) at cruise power; lb/hr ( kg/hr) at idle
  • Oil consumption: US gal/hr ( L/hr)
  • Length: in ( mm)
  • Diameter: in ( mm)
  • Dry weight: lb ( kg)
  • Thrust-to-weight ratio:

- Emt147 Burninate! 20:29, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Labeled images

Do you all think there is some utility to providing labeled versions of some aviation-related photographs? I've made a couple of examples using WW2 engines... let me know what you think.

- Emt147 Burninate! 22:42, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. Many laypeople (such as myself) are not well-acquainted enough with engines to know what all the parts are. Labels are a good idea, and I like the ones you've used. Ingoolemo talk 20:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree also, as per Ingoolemo. --The1exile 20:53, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Fair enough. Engines are an obvious place to start. Can I get some feedback on the engine specs proposed above? - Emt147 Burninate! 22:31, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
So far as I know, your specs proposals are good ones. But again, I'm a layman, so I really can't make much useful feedback. Ingoolemo talk 19:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Popular Culture

Something that's starting to irk me is the inclusion of every possible movie, video game, novel, and anime reference to a particular airframe under "Popular Culture". I see the point of identifying one or two notable ones - if the work itself has a lengthy article of its own AND the airframe played a significant role in them. Example: F-14's in Top Gun. But I don't need to know all 20 or so movies that had F-16's in them (usually a 30-second stock clip). This is especially bad with video games and novels. I mean, how many video games have the F-16 in them? Countless. Do we need to know what all of them are? No. The only one that comes to mind would be Falcon_(computer game), because that featured the F-16 and is a notable game in and of itself. It's resembling the fancruft we have for video games and anime where every fan has to put in an entry for their favorites.

It's gotten way out of hand. Example: [[1]].

Two VTOL aircraft vaguely resembling the V-22? and speculation on the carrying capacity of a fictional variant in Ghost in the Shell? Why not also include the dropship from [[Aliens]?

Further example: F-16 20 games listed, of which 4 have articles of their own. 8 movies. I believe in none of which the F-16 makes more than a 60-second appearance.

I'd go and clean them but I feel we should have an outlined policy for consistency.

My argument: If a media appearance is to be mentioned in "Popular Culture", it should be

  • The media must be notable enough to warrant an article of its own
  • The aircraft must make a primary appearance in the media. Falcon 4.0 for the F-16, yes. MS Flight Simulator for every airframe that appears in it, no. Similarly for all the survey sims like Ace Combat. The F-18 in Independence Day ..... hesitant yes, because the main character flys one. The F-16, B2, LAV, Sidewinder, AMRAAM, and every other piece of hardware that made a nominal appearnce, NO.

--Mmx1 04:20, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

agreed. it's completely out of control. on the rare occasions i log on and edit, i'm going to be removing what i see using on mmx's criteria. ericg ✈ 06:18, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I completely and utterly disagree. Wikipedia is about building the most compehensive, most encyclopedic encyclopedia in the world. Therefore we oughtn't to be throwing away information just because some person feels it is unimportant. You might not be interested in what flight simulators particular aircraft has appeared in, Mmx1, but other people are interested, or this information wouldn't have been added. If you really feel that strongly about it, make a separate page called something like F-16 aircraft in popular culture, but please do not delete the information that others have laboriously and collaboratively collected, for I believe to do so violates the spirit of Wikipedia -- Cabalamat 01:33, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
At the same time Wikipedia is not a trivia site for accumulating every bit of info imaginable. Reference Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_informationLook at the A-10 pop culture site. It's just a trivia list. What's the point in listing every film in which an aircraft has made a cameo appearance? Or films with fictional versions of the aircraft? What's the point in speculating which Transformer corresponds to which aircraft? Unless Hasbro said so, that's speculation and original research, of which our anime and game sites are full of. As far as games, should include every survey sim? If a game features the aircraft, that's fair game, but wikipedia's not a "guide to games to play the F-16 in" - especially as many of the arcade sims have little other than a cosmetic relation to the actual plane. Should the M-16 site list every military FPS? Does it add anything to an article about the M-16 rifle to know that it's a weapon in counterstrike? Lets discuss this, hammer out some guidelines, and apply them across the board. --Mmx1 03:16, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
  • That's what I did with the A-10 -- tossed all that info (which amounted to half the content) into a separate page. Works like a charm. - Emt147 Burninate! 01:37, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
We can debate the value of sims and cameo appearances. But fictional speculation is OR and I'll go ahead and remove that. --Mmx1 03:23, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Cabalamat, you said it yourself: 'most compehensive, most encyclopedic encyclopedia' (emphasis mine). Encyclopedic is defined as 'comprehensive in terms of information', not in terms of content. There's a difference. Information is in turn defined as 'facts provided or learned about something or someone' – and a listing of fictional appearances is not information, it's pedantry. ericg ✈ 06:30, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Nix the useless trivia. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 18:47, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


I'd like some agreement to a standard or guideline toward what's usefull and what's not. In addition to what's above, I'd recommend that if a pop culture appearance can't be written as prose (i.e. it doesn't warrant more than a sentence mention; covers most cameo appearances), it should be nixed. --Mmx1 18:53, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, here are some proposed standards, based on Mmx1's comments above:

  • The media must be notable enough to warrant an article of its own
  • The aircraft must make a primary appearance in the media. If it does not make a primary appearance, it shouldn't be included.
  • Hardware that merely appears in popular culture should not be mentioned.

Comments? Ingoolemo talk 19:13, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Pop culture stuff should not be on the same page as the aircraft information. I dare anyone here to put forth a solid argument about how references to 300 anime cartoons, computer games, and terrible movies expand one's understanding of the aircraft -- this media does more harm than good by perpetuating stereotypes and misconceptions rather than by educating. Wikipedia is not a dump for tossing in every useless bit of information that you find on Google.
I think pop culture stuff should always be placed on a separate page for two reasons:
  1. To avoid cluttering the aircraft page with what (in my experience, at least) tends to be badly written scribble that then has to be extensively copyedited to maintain a good level of quality in the article.
  2. So the editors' watchlists don't get bombarded by Ace Combat and anime cartoons that have this thing that, if you added a wing and removed the gun and painted it grey instead of purple would look almost kind of like a badly-drawn F-15.
  3. In a few cases where I threw the trivia stuff into a separate page (e.g. A-10), I was simply able to unwatch it rather than be constantly aggravated. - Emt147 Burninate! 19:37, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
  • As a user pointed out on the Talk:M16, page, a separate "pop culture" page does serve as a lightning rod to keep crap off the main page. I think the pop culture should be written as a prose discussion of its presence in pop culture and significant appearances. (I need to add in some on Top Gun & F-14.... it needs more than a sentence). That's the prototype of airframes in pop culture. I'll volunteer to start off and edit these; if we get too much of an edit war, I'll create separate pages. When I really have time I'll go clean up the "Desert Eagle" pages and prepare for the onslaught of Airsoft-wielding Lara Croft wannabes and CS players.
  • Regarding sims; I don't think arcade sims such as Ace Combat really do anything for the article. Attempts at a semi-serious sim are admirable and should be included. That, however, precludes off the bat most survey sims anyway. --Mmx1 19:46, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I suppose an argument can be made about expanding the Related contents section to include good flight sims (not Ace Combat, unless you are also willing to include the original "Afterburner" on the F-14 page) and scale models (I tried doing the latter for the F-101 but it was too much work and very boring). The danger is that the RC section may become longer than the article itself.

F-14 and "Top Gun" is appropriate, as would be the A-6 and "Flight of Intruder," or the Lancaster and "Dambusters" because these are semi-historical movies about these aircraft. This is different from the airplane simply appearing in the movie, e.g. Boeing 707 and "Airplane!" or P-40s, 109s, and Spitfires in "Pearl Harbor." I think movies that depict aircraft unrealistically or perpetuate misconceptions (e.g. F-117 in "Air Force One") should not be mentioned. Conversely, it is absolutely appropriate to mention the aircraft on the respective movie pages. - Emt147 Burninate! 21:27, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Comanche Page

Continuing talk from Talk:Comanche I deleted a variety of fancruft as per discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aircraft#Popular_Culture. It's not policy, it's a centralized discussion so we don't have to debate it on every aircraft page. People mostly disagreeing? I have one disagreement and 4 in agreement, and we've hammered out an outline of guidelines to pop-culture references.

To summarize my arguments: wikipedia is not a trivia clearinghouse. It adds NOTHING to an article about an aircraft to know it made a 30-second appearance in a movie. How about listing all the movies where the HUMMER made an appearance?

Regarding video games, the vast majority of arcade games bear no resemblence to the actual plane outside of cosmetic looks. It's equivalent to a fictional representation, and unless you want to include every "well, if you removed an engine and painted it green instead of purple it's would look sort of like an F-15" reference, the speculation and the cosmetic appearances are out.

The intent of Popular culture is not to document the airframe's cameo roles in movies, but to document works of popular culture that have defined or changed the public's perception of it. Prime example: "Top Gun" defined the F-14 as "naval fighter" in the public's mind. Not quite so similarly; "Firebirds" popularized the Apache. For a piece of pop culture to have impact, it needs a)to be popular - anime and games....not so much. Hate to break it to the fans, but that the F-18 made an appearance in your favorite anime......doesn't do very much for the F-18. Secondly, it has to be featured in the movie. War of the Worlds (spielberg remake) was a grossly popular film. I don't think anyone's perception of the commanche, LAV, M1, F-15, or Bradley IFV was remarkably changed by the 30-60 second clips in the movie.

Insofar as games go; accurate or semi-accurate simulations contribute to the knowledge about the aircraft itself, so those go here as well.

for the specific appearances here:

  • Hulk: 60-second fight scene with a big green mutant.
  • CC Generals, Act of War: RTS games with a helicopter unit that looks like the Commanche. This is relevant .... how?
  • Battlefield, Ace Combat, Jungle Strike: arcade sims with a commanche skin.
  • Najica Blitz Tactics: cameo appearance in anime

Scifi-novel: depicted as "in use".

Look, if there's a commanche version of Top Gun or even the abysmally bad Fire Birds where it's featured, I'll include it. I'll even look up the few commanche sims. But cameo appearances and arcade game appearances are not relevant. That stuff is coming back out. --Mmx1 20:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

People that actually worked on the Comanche watched the Hulk movie only because the vehicle was in the show - it was a big deal to them and it may be relevant if someone asks "what was that in the movie". You need to work on the wiki policy and get consensus instead deleting stuff because you don't like it. Anyway there are very few occurrences of the vehicle which isn't too detrimental in having a few lines about its appearances. By the way WP:AIR has nothing on Fictional Appearances so quite trying to site policies to support your claim. I see you already deleted it again without trying to resolve it - shhaaammmme... --Supercoop 21:44, 27 February 2006 (UTC)


"What was in that movie" questions should be resolved on the movie page. I doubt they would be here if they were wondering what it was called. People come to this page to learn about the aircraft. Its appearance in the Hulk isn't very incisive.
I'm not citing policy and never claimed to be, I'm referring to a central discussion. Nothing on WP:AIR is policy; it's all guidelines; it's a project to achieve some consistency across aircraft pages. I don't feel like repeating this discussion 50 times everytime someone wants to fight me on this. After three affirmative answers that were more than just a thumbs up but also articulated how they viewed the policy should be, I felt that was sufficient consensus given the slow pace of these articles. Lets continue the discussion over there. -Mmx1 22:01, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

AWB task list requests

I've been playing around with AutoWikiBrowser, just doing general cleanup. However, it can use regular expressions and thus can be programmed to do fairly complex semi-automated search-and-replace operations (layout changes, units, conversion from infoboxes to inline text or vice-versa, etc.) on a batch of pages. If anyone has suggestions for WP:Air-related AWB tasks, post them here. - Emt147 Burninate! 23:34, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

The {{aircontent}} template still contains some references to the external links like that one. We have the parameter |links=no still there and also the comment at the top (<!-- yes or no. are there links? is the aircraft part of a designation/model sequence? are there articles that the reader should see also? lists? -->) mentions the links and may be misleading since there is not link section anymore. --Sylvain Mielot 01:28, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually, experimenting a little with the Boeing 717, it seems that the values and even the presence or absence of these parameters have no incidence on what is displayed so we should be able to clean them up:
|links=no
|has sequence=yes
|has relations=yes
|has lists=no
|see also?=no

But I may be mistaken because I don't know much about the templates. --Sylvain Mielot 01:59, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the template now works differently. - Emt147 Burninate! 02:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Okay, all of the |external link= have been removed (about half a dozen stragglers were left). - Emt147 Burninate! 06:33, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Page headers

What do you all think about adding a small header to all aircraft pages to inform potential editors about the existence of style guidelines... something like this: User:Emt147/Airhead. This may alleviate the headache of having to redo formatting, especially of specs, after well-meaning but uninformed edits. - Emt147 Burninate! 05:18, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

However, adding such 'meta-data' to articles has been a taboo in the English Wikipedia almost since inception. Only in extreme cases, such as {{cleanup}} and {{POV}} are those boilerplates usually tolerated. However, instructions can be 'commented out' (with the code <!-- comment here -->) so that the instructions can be seen only while editing the page; this technique was often used to explain the proper implementation of {{ref}} before we switched to Cite.php. (The current boilerplate could be placed on an article's talk page without much fuss.) Ingoolemo talk 04:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Commented-out instructions make total sense. I'll add them as I go through the Airtemp conversion. - Emt147 Burninate! 06:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Airtemp revisited

A question before I embark on an AWB-assisted conversion of all aicraft articles to the template:

The current version of Template:Airtemp ignores the whole muck with unit switching. If this is the current adopted WP:Air policy, we can do away with the "|something main=" "|something alt=" and use a single parameter instead, cutting the specs parameter list in half. The migration from "|something main=" "|something alt=" to "|something=number (another number)" can be easily done with AWB. The template can be modified to accept both versions until the migration is complete.

Also, anyone object if we change from boldface to regular type for the specs? It looks like someone went crazy with a Sharpie right now.

Any other issues/comments/concerns/objections before I start? I'll give this a few days to percolate, say until March 1, 2006. - Emt147 Burninate! 06:46, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the reason why it apparently ignores unit switching is because I simplified the code. Now instead of using a parametre-based |switch order of units?=yes functionality, you just change {{airtemp to {{airtemp-switch. If the parametres are shrunk to a single line that would eliminate the switching functionality, which was designed in the event that the units were entered in the incorrect order. The functionality has been used, by the way: see [2]. Ingoolemo talk 08:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Ah, I see how it works. Hmm. The question is whether this functionality is worth all the extra code. I like what you did with Airspec-imp and Airspec-met. I think we should make an entire pre-filled "new aircraft" page that can be subst-ed in. - Emt147 Burninate! 22:05, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
For a pre-filled new aircraft page, see Template:Aircraft-imp and Template:Aircraft-met. Ingoolemo talk 22:53, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Bug request

I have requested a new feature at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5116, which would allow us to fix the categorisation problem mentioned above by using a kind of uber-pipe. Example: by typing [[Category:Stealth aircraft||Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit]], the article isn't merely placed under 'N' on the category page, its link actually takes the form 'Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit', thereby avoiding the incongruity of having 'B-2 Spirit' in the 'N' section.

By visiting the bugzilla link above, you can vote for the bug, thereby making it more likely to attract the attention of the developers. If you have any questions, it's better to leave them on the bugzilla page, so that I can make sure that the developers are also aware of my clarifications. Ingoolemo talk 08:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Migration template - please review

The data I will insert during migration to template can be seen here: User:Emt147/Template. Please review and comment/modify as necessary. The first line about WP:Air will go at the very top of every article (for HTML non-savvy, it's a hidden comment that will only be seen when you edit the page). Note, I will migrate to the aircontent template for the Related contents secton at the same time.

I will post my AWB settings file with find/replace filters and task list after I do a trial run on or after March 1. If anyone else wants to get in on the action, there is plenty of work -- I figure 2,100+ articles at 2-3 minutes per page (expect a bit of manual work because the formatting used right now is VERY inconsistent and it's impossible to write find/replace filters for all possibilities) is 100+ hours of work. Just keep watching this page for the lists.

I have also updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/page content with links to subst templates for new pages and template-based specs. - Emt147 Burninate! 05:40, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I've made a few very minor alterations, which can be seen in the history. Please remember that for the uncommon fields like useful load it's probably best to remove them entirely than to leave them with unspecified unit values. Other than that, looks fine to me. Ingoolemo talk 06:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Multispec pages

Quick question -- what to do with pages that have specs for multiple versions (Avro Vulcan, Supermarine Spitfire, Curtiss P-40). IMHO multiple specs on these pages are warranted because they show the evolution of the aicraft (just compare an early Spit Mk.I with a Griffon-powered Mk.XIV!) and not enough aircraft have them (e.g. Bf 109B vs E/F vs G, FW 190A vs D, P-51A vs D). I'm tempted to leave them alone but somehow mark them (a category called Aircraft with multiple specs or something even less obvious) so they can be manually modified if there is a big change in aircraft specs again. Another option is to make the specs follow each other and drop the side-by-side comparison. Opinions? - Emt147 Burninate! 06:34, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

WP:AIR guidelines state that (in most cases, apparently) only the most common variant should be used for specifications. I personally feel that if more specifications are desired, they should be placed in an additional 'Aircraft variants' article (such as Supermarine Spitfire variants). In these cases, they should also not include all specs, but those with significant changes – engine(s), performance, armament. A wingspan increase of 4 feet and a better climb rate, for example, doesn't warrant an entire specs block. The variant listing used by the PBY Catalina is a good way to outline changes over the course of an aircraft's service life. ericg ✈ 06:51, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
Ok, that makes sense. Thanks! - Emt147 Burninate! 18:48, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
In general, if the specifications of the different variants are enormously different then the variants are probably different enough to warrant separate articles. Cases where this occurs are rare, however. Ingoolemo talk 19:54, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Major category fix needed, unless someone can explain this

When I see most of the fighters listed in Comparison of 21st century fighter aircraft being put in categores in the 90's, it confuses me. For example, the F-22 Raptor entered IOC late last year, and started development long before the 90's. Why is it then categorised as 1990-1999 fighter aircraft? Same goes for the Eurofighter Typhoon, which has not even entered IOC yet. The only fighter classed this decade is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Can someone explain this to me? --The1exile 23:00, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

  • As I understand it, the convention is to go by the year of development/first flight. Of course, with the extremely protracted development cycles of modern aicraft this is kind of moot. The easiest fix is to add it to multiple year categories. - Emt147 Burninate! 05:18, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
  • This article discusses planes in service in the decade 2000-2010. Aircraft are typically categorized as Emt147 said, by first flight. As we now have lifetimes in some cases approaching 100 years (the B-52) and 30-40 is not uncommon (the F-104 and F-4 was just recently retired in Europe), this can lead to confusion. --Mmx1 15:14, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

AWB-assisted template migration -- a call for help!

Well, there are about 1,800 articles to migrate to the airtemp and aircontent templates. The process is fairly rapid if the specs are written in a conventional manner but there is still a bit of manual work and it helps to know the aircraft in question (otherwise, skim the intro paragraph for things like prop/jet, etc.). Your help in this process would be very much appreciated under one condition:

  • You know what you are doing -- you should understand how the specs and related contents templates work and how to use AWB -- no offense but I don't want 1,800 pages plus 900 reversions/fixes.

If you are up to the task, here are the goods:

  • Please place the WP:Air introduction comment found here User:Emt147/Template at the top of every page. This page also contains the header information for airtemp and aircontent templates that you may need to paste in.
  • The worklist, generated from pages using the Airlistbox template, can be found at User:Emt147/Migrationtasklist. Save the source to a text file on your computer to import into AWB.
  • The AWB settings file with find/replace filters can be found here: User:Emt147/AWBsettings. Save the source (without the "pre" tags and the "NOTE:") as an XML file, then load the settings into AWB. These find/replace filters work for the majority of pages except for very bizarre, unconventional, or badly written specs.
  • Please fix issues like missing categories, missing or inappropriate stub tags, incorrect order of units (e.g. metric before imperial for US aircraft), etc. while you are at it.
  • Don't forget the }} at the end of the specs!
  • Use the preview function in AWB before saving - don't leave behind a trail of broken pages.

For an example of conversion from table to in-line specs, see A-1 Skyraider.

Holler if you have questions and thanks in advance to anyone willing to help out. - Emt147 Burninate! 00:53, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Please amend your methods/templates! Every time you add the <!-- This article is a part of [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft]]. Please see [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/page content]] for recommended layout. --> disclaimer to the top of the page, you're adding an extra linebreak as well. Don't do this; it makes our pages appear differently from the rest of the wikipedia. Remove the extra linebreak preceding the content, and you'll be okay.
For the same reason, do not put a linebreak between leading photos and the first paragraph. Change this now, before you carry on. Thanks. ericg ✈ 17:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


  • I was doing it for code readability issues but I can stop. :) - Emt147 Burninate! 18:07, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Brief update. I've made a list of about 170 top-priority aircraft (most common/popular stuff IMHO) that I will do first. Then I'll generate a second-tier list of 100 or so, etc. You don't want to see the top-priority list though -- I have my biases for what's important. ;)

I've got the settings file working, and I've done F4U Corsair. This needs a lot more babysitting than I expected, but it's still better than doing it manually. I'll talk to a friend and see if he can write some regex stuff for the metric/imperial sorting. ericg ✈ 15:46, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it's a bit labor-intensive. :\ I can do a sanely-written page in about 3-4 minutes. Once AWB is able to insert carriage returns (supposed to be fixed in the version coming out today) that will make things even faster. I've been also playing with regex a bit but the implementation is not what I'm used to. Thanks for you help! - Emt147 Burninate! 17:26, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

F-4 Phantom II FAC

I nominated F-4 Phantom II for Feature Article status. Please voice your yays and nays at the above page. - Emt147 Burninate! 05:23, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

It has quite a few red links that I think should be fix up to help with that. -Dawson 07:07, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

request for expansion: war emergency power

I've started an article on war emergency power, a common throttle setting on World War II aircraft. If anyone can fill it out and grab some references, that would be great - I'd like to make it sort of a central source for boost techniques used during the war, and link out to the various specific systems used. I'm going to grab my copy of Jane's Fighting Aircraft of World War II and see what it's got to say about boost systems and the engines that used them. ericg ✈ 15:44, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Interesting reading for ya. http://rwebs.net/avhistory/opsman/geturbo/geturbo.htm Essentially almost everything had gear-driven superchargers, a few systems had a turbo on top of it, Germans had MW50 and that other stuff I'm blanking on injection, Allies had water injection, many aircraft had WEP throttle setting which permitted overboost of the engine. I'll help you out soon as I'm done messing around with AWB and specs templates. :) - Emt147 Burninate! 18:27, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
entirely weird; just this morning it jumped into my head out of nowhere that wikipedia needs an article on WEP. well, i added what I could, which is mostly p51-oriented. Gzuckier 18:00, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

AWB settings file updated

I've updated the AWB settings file for template conversion. It should work (please let me know if it doesn't or if you see strange behavior!) and it's considerably faster now -- on most pages you only need to add the }} at the end of the specs, everything else is done through regex statements.

The settings file is at User:Emt147/AWBsettings, copy the source code (NOT what Wikipedia displays) and save to an XML file. - Emt147 Burninate! 22:01, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I have just changed AWBsettings by inserting <pre></pre>. By inserting those tags editors need not copy from the source code anymore, they can now copy directly from the wiki page. Ingoolemo talk 04:51, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
Actually you still need to copy the source code. The < and > symbols you see are actually written as & lt; and & gt; in the config file. If you don't copy the source code, AWB will give you an error on every single one of those buggers. - Emt147 Burninate! 05:54, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

As a reminder, metric climb rates are in m/s. Most articles have it in m/min -- AWB won't do math but you should (hint: divide by 60 :)). - Emt147 Burninate! 22:07, 4 March 2006 (UTC)