Talk:Beechcraft Model 17 Staggerwing

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Plagiarism[edit]

A very large portion of this article is taken directly from this web page http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/GENERAL_AVIATION/staggerwing/GA11.htm

Any ideas on what should be done? Rapparee71 (talk) 10:34, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That website is a US government (NASA) website, which means that all the information and text on it is in the public domain. That means that copying it into Wikipedia is not a copyright violation. However it is Wikipedia policy not to just copy text from other websites, even if that is permitted, because Wikipedia is not just a mirror website of existing information. The best solution is to re-write the text into new wording and footnote the website as the sources, as per WP:footnotes. - Ahunt (talk) 12:33, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@Rapparee71:, @Ahunt: : A note about the Centennial of Flight (CoF) website: While NASA had primary responsibility for its maintenance, every Tom, Dick & Harriet in the Centennial of Flight Commission (CoFC) seems to have had a hand in it -- particularly the National Air and Space Museum, notorious for its domineering possessiveness of copyright and other rights (even if it has been well-argued that NASM, as part of the fed-funded Smithsonian Institution, is arguably a federal gov't agency, and thus limited in its ability to claim copyright).

Many of the authors of the various articles on the CoF website were NASM personnel (author names appear at the bottom of most articles). However, it appears from the limited CoFC records that these articles were provided as a "work for hire" for the CoFC or a donation to it, and thus rights belonged to the (now defunct) CoFC.

At the end of the CoF (2004), when the CoFC ceased to exist, in a last gasp it turned the entire website over to the custody of the NASA Historical Office, arguably making the site federal gov't property (arguably stripping it of any CoFC copyright). When the Space Shuttle program and funding ended (around 2012), and NASA had to dump 25,000 people from the budget, NASA History Office was largely gutted, and the CoF website abandoned and shut down.

I caught the vanishing website (having copied most of it, and having located an unofficial archive on an academic site), and worked with another fellow, NASA, and the American Aviation Historical Society (AAHS) to salvage it, and have it preserved and stored permanently on the AAHS website/servers. To the best of my understanding, AAHS has taken great care to maximize the permanent and complete availability of the information there, without exerting any claim of copyrights.

However, be aware that -- owing to the complex history of the CoF site and its contents -- some text or images may have some faint, convoluted, residual rights issues that could conceivably become an issue someday (though highly unlikely, and probably easily dismissed in court).

~ Zxtxtxz (talk) 09:59, 1 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all the detailed info there. That sounds like it was a large endeavour. This copyright issue is easy dealt with by just paraphrasing instead of copying and then properly footnoting. - Ahunt (talk) 13:31, 1 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

3-View Drawing does not match Specifications[edit]

In the section labeled "Specifications (Model D17S), the 3-view drawing is NOT a Beech Model D-17S (one of the most common & typical Stag models, and thus ideal choice for the Specifications). Instead, the drawing is of a comparatively rare, crude, early version -- the Beech Model 17R -- radically different from most Stag's. If such a non-typical model is the 3-view example, it should at least be clearly identified as such. So, in the code for the image, I replaced "frameless" with "thumb" so the caption shows, identifying the 3-view as a 17R.

Model 17R differences from Model D-17S (and from most other Stag models) include: Landing gear does NOT fully retract into the wing, but instead partially retracts into the huge, bulbous, draggy wheel pants & gear-leg fairing combination ("spats"). Landing gear is very narrow track, compared to later models. Flying wires attached to fixed portion of landing gear legs. Tailwheel shown not fully retracting. Engine is Wright, with long cowling reaching to windshield. Rudder is slightly different shape (and does some odd stuff). And so on. ~ Zxtxtxz (talk) 09:37, 1 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]