Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide

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Military aircraft policy question

I have a general policy question about "users", and in particular military users. I get the impression that some contributors are rather keen to associate aircraft with, let us say, the RAF or some other AF. I've seen a few articles now where an aircraft whose use was mostly in the civil field is ascribed to an AF on the basis of one or two of the type operating under military markings for trials or as a workhorse for the development of systems that might have military use. These were mostly civilians used in peace-time. Of course, there have been many civilian aircraft impressed into military use in war-time, sometimes with only a few of type.

Here is a specific example of the difficulty: currently we list the Avro 618 as being used by both the RAF and the RAE. The casual reader might suppose that these aircraft were in service in significant numbers with the RAF in the early 1930s. As far as I know (Thetford's book) there is no record of it having been with the RAF. Peter Cooper, in his Farnborough history notes Fokker VIIa/3m J7986 in 1936 in the wireless wing; but even supposing this was really an Avro 618 (which from one other web ref it does not seem to have been), would this really justify including the RAF as a user of the aircraft? Yes, it wore an RAF serial, but is this what we mean by a user?

In this particular case could you argue that the RAE was a user on the basis that the knowledgeable would know that the RAE hangers contained several one-offs. But would we list the RAE as a user of the Dornier Do335, for example; since it wore an RAF serial (AM223) in its brief U.K. life, should we list both RAF and RAE as users? Surely not?

I'm new to this and may have overlooked some guidelines; but if they don't exist, maybe they should?TSRL (talk) 08:26, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

AM223 is not a RAF serial number, it stands for Air Ministry and they were applied to captured axis aircraft during and after WW2.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.136.213.16 (talk • contribs) 12.10, 1 September 2009

Revamped style page

I recently revamped the style guide page, dividing it up into separate subpages. Hopefully this makes it clearer and easier to cite in discussions. There are a few items to address in rounding out the page. Please expand on this list so we can come up with a definitive guide.Trevor MacInnis ^contribs 08:14, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

1. Tense - is vs. was. Cite examples. present
2. Expand flags to include roundels.
3. Expand on naming incl. section on pagemoves (avoiding controversial mass moves, keeping series' in line with each other, etc).
4. Expand on redirects (create for all possible variations) eg. Horten Ho XVIII, Horten Ho.XVIII, Horten Ho 23, etc.
5. add section on colors per Wikipedia:Colours, avoiding bold/blinding colors.
6. Sections to avoid in articles. Colour schemes and markings section in aircraft, etc...
   1. Badges section for military aircraft?
7. Types of lists to avoid?
8. Expand images, esp. captions
9. Infoboxes - limiting item lists in the infobox
10. Section on Foreign characters in article and infobox. Its ok in the intro (foreign names of foreign airline/aircraft etc), but not elsewhere, esp. in article name or infobox.
11. Expand external links, perhaps add common links considered non-encyclopedic/spam

Incidents and accidents

Editors at Burlington International Airport have taken it upon themselves to chronicle any plane landing with its oil warning light on, which is about as serious as anything gets at a small airport which is little used. We could use some robust guidelines under "incidents and accidents." Right now, there aren't any. I would appreciate suggestions on eliminating this section from BTV, which is now quite boring. Thanks. Student7 (talk) 15:10, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Have you seen Wikipedia:WikiProject Airports/page content which says: Accidents or incidents should only be included if:

• The accident was fatal to either the aircraft occupants or persons on the ground.
• The accident involved hull loss or serious damage to the aircraft or airport.
• The accident invoked a change in procedures, regulations or process that had a wide effect on other airports or airlines or the aircraft industry. MilborneOne (talk) 18:46, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

None of the incidents listed were notable and the one accident appears to have been unconnected with the airport. I have removed them all. MilborneOne (talk) 18:53, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. Hopefully, the draft content will make it into the outline in the near future.Student7 (talk) 15:13, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Naming convention for Accidents

Hyphens

This all out war against the Hyphen has got to stop. If a Hyphen is used as part of a noun then it should be embraced with open arms. It is causing so much hassle having hyphens removed from article titles when they are patently supposed to be there. Let us have common sense prevail shall we?!Petebutt (talk) 17:26, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Push comparable aircraft inline

Just as we want the refs inline, the comparable aircraft should also be inline.

Somebody has compared the current aircraft against aircraft X for reason Y and we've got a place in the article where we use this comparison and an inline reference to follow.

Anything else is a needless editorial value judgment. Hcobb (talk) 13:38, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

tense (was vs. is) in lead paragraph

I noticed that many articles about aircraft that are no longer being manufactured start with something like "The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress was a ....". In this particular case, many examples of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress still exist and in this case, a few are still flying. I submit that only aircraft that do not exist anymore, even if the only examples of survivors are in museums, should begin with "The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a ....", since "was" implies that none still exist. I have noticed that in other fields, it is handled that way. For instance, in cars, the Ford Model T and Chevrolet Vega begin with "is" as well as camera articles about the Nikon F2 and Canon F-1. --rogerd (talk) 23:23, 7 June 2011 (UTC)