Talk:Beechcraft C-12 Huron

RC-12 merge

Who decided to roll the completely separate article on the RC-12 Guardrail into this, and lose a lot of the information from the original article ? The replacement here is not only shorter, but of poorer quality. The inclusion of it in here (and its removal from all links to US reconaissance aircraft cross references) has greatly reduced the quality of information on it in Wikipedia. Yet there seems to be no way to roll back this drastic change. Poor move. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.152.114.48 (talk • contribs)

With all due respect, I was involved in the process of integration, and I disagree with you. The original Guardrail article was not written at all in an encyclopedic tone, and duplicated a lot of material in the C-12 article. Because the RC-12 is a role of the C-12, with no airframe differences aside from mission equipment, it is entirely appropriate to include the RC-12 program here.

The first paragraph of the old article has been brought over almost completely intact, but given references. The second paragraph of the old article was a vague description of the C-12 airframe that is unnecessary, as it is easily replaced with a link to the main King Air article. The third paragraph of the Guardrail article purported to be a history, but provided no sources or citations, and completely failed WP:V. The last paragraph of the old article can and has been easily summarized in one sentence, because it was primarily speculation that does not belong in a Wikipedia article. So, four very short paragraphs do not a good article make. In fact, the old article actually did a very poor job (a non-existent job, actually) of explaining that there are different variants of RC-12, and different phases of the Guardrail program and even that there are other programs that the RC-12 participated in. In fact, the way it presents the GRCS is plain inaccurate.

I don't understand how there can be any problems with cross references, as the old title redirects here, and the combined article incorporated all the old article's cats. If you can explain more, we can make sure that the navigability is fixed, if there's a problem.

Can it be expanded from its current state? If additional sourcing can be found, sure. I invite you to register as a user, join Wikipedia WikiProject:Aircraft, learn how the project desires aircraft articles to be structured and cited, and join us. Akradecki 01:45, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I merged the RC-12 in with the this article. I found both articles to be quite a mess (the RC-12 was barely wikified), and as the are both the same basic airframe, I decided to merge the two pages. Alan has since done major work of the article, especially in adding the various version of the C-12 family that were not covered by either previous page.

As to your complaint about its removal from all links to US reconaissance aircraft cross references, I really don't even know what you think you're trying to say. I changed some links in various articles to point directly to the C-12 page rather than be redirected from the RC-12 page. But I didn't remove any other links, except to combine a few where both the C-12 and RC-12 were listed, but with no mention of roles.

And as far as having greatly reduced the quality of information on it in Wikipedia, I totally disagree. As stated above, there were very few references in either article. The RC-12 page had no pictures, no Specifications, no References section, and no External links section. It had no Related contents section either, which links to other variants of the type, and other types of recon aircraft. The article did not cover the several varaints of the RC-12 at all, making it seem like there was only one type in use.

Had I not merged the article, we still would have had to do much work on it to bring it up to project standards. It would have also duplicated much of the information and layout of the C-12 page, as they are both based on the Super King Air. As such, I judged that it would be better to put both pages together and work on them as a unit. Given that User:Desmoh, the creator of the article (who does not "own" it, by the way), has not even worked on the page since he created it on June 16, 2006, I felt that there would be little serious opposition to the merge.

In fact, there was very little improvement done to the article between its creation and merger. And contrary to your claims about the removal of links, I actually found few pages that linked to the RC-12, including the C-12 page itself!

I have probably initiated as many splits as mergers in my time as an Wiki editor. My usual basis is content, or lack there of. Two small articles on related aircraft would be much better together, in most cases, while in one large article covering various types, it's better to split off some of the variants.

Alan and I have worked together on other major reworks of aircraft articles, and have disagreed several times on what to do in the course of the work. If he honestly felt that the pages should stay separate, he would have said so. I'm sorry you believe that we "damaged" the original author's work. Again, I totally disagree.

However, should it becoome apparent that the RC-12 would be better off back on its own page, I would not hesitate to suggest it, as would Alan. - BillCJ 02:31, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

C-12J2?

An IP editor rewrote the section on the C-12J (this diff) and did a real good job of it, too, to add in information on the C-12J2. Problem is, he used a preexisting ref to support it, and that ref makes absolutely no mention of the "J2" model. I did a Google search and came up with zero hits. I've reluctantly reverted, because, like I said, the writing was actually quite good, it just that the material is completely unverified, and appears to be OR, possibly erroneous at that. I'd be more than happy to see the material added back, if a valid ref can be found. Akradecki 17:29, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree. - BillCJ 17:53, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, guys. That came from me. I thought I was signed in when I wrote it. As for the sourcing, I am not sure how to tackle this. I was at FlightSafety LaGuardia this week. On the wall was a large framed Raytheon poster showing the history of Raytheon aircraft. It included the King Air series and the 1900 series, with variants. On the 1900 series, it showed the 1900C and C-12J variants, and the 1900D and C-12J2 variants. Aside from the sourcing problem, I, too, googled it and came up blank. Upon further thought, could this have been a military label that never took? I'd appreciate your thoughts. Mikepurves 07:02, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Mike, If I'd known it was you, I would have contacted you directly, first! A Beech/RAC poster can be cited as a publication, something like "Beechcraft Time Line", published by RAC, and the date (most posters have printing info in small print). Did the poster give any info as to when the J2 entered service? My DoD pub is dated 2004, so if might be something more recent. Having a number after the second letter is actually non-standard for DoD designations, so the J2 might be a colloquial designation either within the Army, or within RAC. One question to find out is whether the Army owns the -D models, or if they're leased from RAC...RAC is big on leasing, and the military is getting more and more into leasing civilian aircraft (such as the Army's TH-67 helos). If they're leased, it might be an informal designation only. Akradecki 15:56, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Alan, I searched around the poster and didn't find dates or other references. The diagram was of the "family tree" type, and just included a drawing of a 1900D in Army colors with the label "C-12J2." The more I think about it, the information MIGHT be valid, but I don't really have enough to make it official, yet. I will do a new edit on both in a couple of days (my computer is currently not connecting to the internet and I have a few minutes to borrow one right now), not to include the J2 unless we can cite to something solid. Thanks for your vigilance and don't worry...the way my computer is set up, sometimes I get dumped out even when I am logged in and my edits appear under an IP. 69.19.14.35 02:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, that wasn't deliberate...I really did get dumped out again. 69.19.14.35 02:30, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 10:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

RC-12 Guardrail source

Source that someone can use, including model variants not yet in the WP article: http://www.aviationtoday.com/av/categories/military/Intelligence-Upgrade_30732.html 71.108.104.221 (talk) 01:55, 13 August 2010 (UTC)