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Rolls-Royce R

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A large expansion of the article in the last few weeks after obtaining reference books has revealed a remarkable human story behind what is effectively an obscure and little produced engine type. I must acknowledge the input of User:Red Sunset who has been foremost in copy editing, style and grammar corrections. We both feel that this article is close to the standard required for Featured Articles, I would like to nominate the article in the near future, this peer review being a recommended early stage of the process.


Thanks,

Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 16:24, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

SidewinderX

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Here are some comments... I'm not getting through this in one sitting, so I will continue to add comments as I see them. (note: through "fuel")-SidewinderX (talk) 21:13, 2 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Intro
  • Mentioning the de-rated Griffon in the first graph struck me as odd. To me it seems to fit better near the end of the second graph there (both flow wise and timeline wise.)
  • Maybe put what year pounds the price in the info box is in? I don't know what the standard is, but I'm assuming that's not in 2009 currency.
Design and Development
  • Time for me to sound like a school teacher-- Use active voice! ("Rolls-Royce realized..." rather than "It was realized by Rolls-Royce...)
  • New comment-- In the first paragraph here I keep stumbling over "based on the Buzzard design..." I know the Buzzard is mentioned and wikilinked in the intro, but I seem to keep forgetting about it when I get to the Design section, so I'm asking "what is the Buzzard?" in my head... Maybe say "based on Rolls-Royce's Buzzard design" with Buzzard wikilinked again? It may just be me.
  • Why was official gov't approval required to develop an engine? (this may be showing my ignorance of 1930s aviation and the relationship between RR and the gov't, but oh well)
  • Consider using "non-obvious" rather than "not-so-obvious"?
Ok, that's more a style choice. I'm fine with whatever you prefer. -SidewinderX (talk) 17:51, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Was the 18 psi boost substanially greater than earlier engines? Maybe include a comparison the the Buzzard's boost?
Like I mention further below, this seems like a good spot to include the boost of a competitor or peer of this engine. A quantitative comparison could help the context. Thanks for including the earlier engine, that helps. -SidewinderX (talk) 17:51, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I suggest spelling out "pounds per square inch" and "revolutions per minute" only the first time they are used. Include (PSI) and (RPM) in parentheses after the first usage, and then just use the acronyms in the rest of the article.
  • Done. However, I think this introduces inconsistency as we have written units in full throughout, so I'll do a sweep through the rest in due course. All units abbreviated after the first instance.--Red Sunset 23:26, 2 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, will have a look at those points, will let the 'grammar guru' look at the wordings and voice. I can add a note about the price (think it was around 1933). Annoyingly my reference for the Buzzard says "boost not quoted" but I could compare to it using the power output (825 hp), a fair difference there. Max boost for the Kestrel seems to be + 6, could use that.
The full units thing was a MoS requirement that has either changed very recently or I misread it last time, agreed that it is more sensible to shorten the units.
The way I read it, we can go either way as long as it is consistent, so tomorrow evening I'll work my way through and abbreviate each unit after the first mention.--Red Sunset 23:26, 2 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Now done. --Red Sunset 00:02, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On the government approval, I think what the reference is saying indirectly is that RR and Supermarine were not prepared to cut any metal without funding (they did have drawings ready to go though), they could have built the engine earlier at their own expense as they did later with the Merlin. There is a tie-in with a possible Air Ministry contract for engine development for a large Supermarine flying boat (abandoned project), there is very little information on this but the implication is that the R development was initially paid for under a different reason. Will see if I can expand on this without straying from the references. All good points, thanks again. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 22:47, 2 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed the government approval problem with the word 'contract', found in the references that also use 'go-ahead' and 'approval'. By using 'contract' this implies that money was then forthcoming, and is also more precise. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 23:45, 2 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Design and Development, Rnd II.
  • More copy-editing stuff. Look at sentences like "these problems being reduced by..." I believe the more proper way to say that would be "these problems were reduced by".
  • In the flight testing section, are you just saying that more than 0.3% water in the fuel made it unusable as a note, or are you saying that the fuel that day of the race actually had more than 0.3% water, which made it unusable? I don't know if I phrased that quite right... do you get my question?
  • In the Merlin/Griffon relationship section, can you change "A completely new redesigned engine..." to "The production Griffon was a completely new engine" or something like that? As you pointed out, this is a rather confusing relationship due to the naming. I'm not sure if my suggestion is the best way to clear that up... maybe just start a new graph after the "Moderately Superchared Buzzard Development..." sentence?
Schneider Trophy use
  • The last sentence is a little confusing to me, but it may be my language handicap (I'm American). When you say "'The Flight' was wound up within weeks of the 1931 win..." are you saying the team was disbanded? Was it on orders from the gov't? Because they ran out of money from the private donation?
  • Fixed. The Flight was wound up as there was no longer any purpose for it as the team had won the trophy outright (end of the Schneider Trophy contests)
  • In a related thought, was 1931 the last year of the competition, or was it just the last year with a British team entered because of lack of funding?
Yes, 1931 was the last year as it was won outright after three successive wins, trying not to go into to much detail as this section is supposed to be a summary of the R's use in the Schneider Trophy, I note that the article could do with some 'TLC' which I will try to get round to. Hopefully that section has been clarified now. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 14:44, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
World speed record use
  • Maybe put a sentence or two introduction to the use of the engine in various speed records before the "airspeed record" section? Was the engine light/more powerful/ etc. than comparables, making it ideal for these uses?
  • Did the Blue Bird ever set a land speed record, or did it just attempt a bunch of them?
It's still a little hazy for me... can you add the date that the record was achieved? To me it just reads that he retired once he got to 300 mph, it doesn't quite read that that was the record to me. -SidewinderX (talk) 18:50, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • How did the Thunderbolt set the landspeed record at the exact same speed on two different dates?
  • Was Campbell's death related to the unsuccessful jet-powered boat? It kinda reads that way to me, but I don't know how to reword it to prevent that.
  • Have clarified that Malcolm Campbell died of natural causes, it was ambiguous as it stood. It has been quite difficult separating Malcolm, Donald and their vehicles at times and I got confused myself. Donald Campbell was killed in another jet-powered boat, Blue Bird K7 in 1967, another redlink filling job that I need to do. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 14:44, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Leo Villa section strikes me as not-quite-right. The way that section is formatted, each vehicle has its own little section, and then suddently you have a blurb about Leo Villa. It seems to belong in the overall article, but I'm not sure if that section is organized quite right....
That seems a little bit better, but it still doesn't feel quite right to me... I'm trying to think about how to best fit than in myself as well... -SidewinderX (talk) 00:44, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • In this world record section, you make extenisve reference to the individual engines used for each vehicle, which is fine. Maybe at the beginning of the section mention that full histories for each engine are available below in section 4. I was just reading through this section thinking "wouldn't it be nice to have a table describing each of these engines", only to find it later. Maybe save the reader the wondering upfront so they can hop down if they're intereted as they read it.
Engine History
  • I like the table in general, there's a lot of great information in there, just a couple thoughts. First, I'm not really familar with wiki-table capabilities, but is there a way for you to make emphasize where you switch engines? Maybe just have an empty row where you state each new engine? Or, even better, re-list the colomn categories when you have a new engine, as it's a long table and that helps distinguish when you switch to a new engine. Like one row will say "R5 / Date / Notes / Location", and then the rows below that will have the info in them... does that make sense?
Hmm, that renders kinda oddly now for me... I think we need a wiki-table expert to help with this. -SidewinderX (talk) 00:44, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Secondly, this is a long table. Look back through it and make sure that you're calling out the important stuff, like the first run of an engine, not every little thing. I don't have an example off hand of something that seems gratuitus, but just make sure you have only what you want there.
  • Arggh! The dreaded table!!! This has caused me much grief, mainly with citing everything. It was pasted in by the owner of a dying website (about 18 months ago) who later contacted me by e-mail, basically pleased that I was working on improving the article. I have pondered on it for some time, we have a similar table in the Rolls-Royce Crecy article, I did think of splitting it to a separate article if needs be. I think it meets the summary style third requirement of WP:DETAIL for people who want to know everything and does not contain much 'fluff', in places it is summarising or backing up the details in the text sections (I fixed the table first to help with keeping the facts in the text straight). I am not a table formatting expert either but I'm sure that it could be improved, the header line could be filled with a colour and I would like to lose the lines under each engine serial number. Strange things happen when I paste it into my sandbox (loose the gridlines) but I will have another go and take a crash course in table formatting!! Would like to learn the fate of the other engines, one was destroyed in an S.6 crash but I can't be certain which one it was. Two engines (R33 and R35) have very little on them and are uncited, I altered the wording to indicate this, the alternative is to blank the lines which I would prefer not to do (the info must have come from a source that I don't have but I will keep looking). It's quite amazing that we have this level of detail available after nearly 80 years. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 16:02, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Ok, I'm through the article now. I'll add a couple closing thoughts when I get a chance. -SidewinderX (talk) 13:22, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much, I appreciate that it is not the shortest article ever and I'm glad that you made it to the end!! Very constructive comments that have been acted on, some wordings left to look at by 'RS'. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 16:02, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Closing Thoughts

I like this article a lot. It's a topic I knew nothing about, and the article is well written enough to keep my interest through the whole process. I listed a whole bunch of little things above, and ya'll are addressing them.

The big general comment I have is that I would like to see some more comparisons to related and competitor engines. I'm not very familiar with early piston engines, so I don't know how this stacks up in power, size, weight, etc., with other engines, besides what I read in the article. That's why I bring it up. I never really read a word about comprable engines until the "see also" section. (like the Fiat AS.6 and the Mikulin AM-38). The article mentions the French and Italians were competitors in the races, but were their engines competitors as well?

I don't think you need a "comparision" section, in fact I dislike comparison section, but I think there are plenty of opportunities to mention other engines in the text; the boost section I mentioned above, for example.

That said, I think that covers my peer review! I'll go back and clean up my comments above, strikethrough what has been talked about, etc. Great Job! -SidewinderX (talk) 16:14, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comparisons can be a minefield on Wikipedia, however I have just added a small section on the Italian Schneider engines, noting that the Fiat AS.6 still holds the piston-engine seaplane speed record. Might have introduced a small timeline problem doing it though. I could compare the R to the Griffon but which variant would I compare to? I like the lists in 'See also' as they allow the reader to drift on over to similar types, our job, I believe, is just to make sure that the best selection of comparable engines are included there. The Mikulin AM-38 is a larger capacity, later era engine, more comparable to the Griffon perhaps but it is strikingly similar in appearance to the R and that's why I included it there but did not mention it in the text. 'RS' will be home from work soon and will have a look at any remaining grammar 'strangulations'! I had a play with the table and managed to get some colour in the header line but that was about it! With this comprehensive review I would be happy to close the peer review and move forward but will leave it open for a while longer in case others would like to comment. Thanks again. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:25, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, comparisons can definitly be a minefield. I'm not really thinking about qualitative comparisons (I don't care which is best), but when you say that the R used a unique blank, or solved a problem in a unique way, maybe mention how other engines at the time did it, why the R was special (if it was), etc. Just the kind of tidbits to put the engine and its design in context with its peers. -SidewinderX (talk) 17:37, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately if the references don't provide a direct comparison to something else then I can't really enter any as that would be bordering on original research, having read many pages on the engine I don't think that I've missed (or even found) any comparisons apart from the Napier Lion which is mentioned here. I think the bottom line is that I am trying desperately to keep a neutral point of view despite the engine's very obvious success by deliberately not comparing it at length to 'inferior' engines, could be underdoing it a bit. There is an epilogue line in one of the books that I wanted to quote but I can't find it again, can't even remember which book it was in now, you can imagine that my working area is not a pretty sight with many books open at different pages!! Certainly been a voyage of discovery these past few weeks anyway. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:50, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wow!!! Have I missed a busy day or what?! Lots of good points and fixes there. Mrs Sunset ('Redette') is currently forging 'dinner' in the siege workshop, and I'm steeling myself for the ordeal (resigned sigh!) while preparing the necessary tools (knife, fork, angle-grinder, flame cutter ...), but I'll set to as soon as I've recovered. Where best to put Leo Villa is a bit of a poser, but I'll be thinking about that whilst looking at the other points. --Red Sunset 18:49, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Images

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(EC) I would be interested in comments on the images. I have about four or five more taken at the London Science Museum including close ups of the reduction gear, magnetos and a view from the front looking between the cylinders. Not fantastic but with some editing they could be used to fill some of the white space to the right of some of the lists. I can upload them to Commons anyway so there is nothing to lose if they don't get used. Evenin' Mr Sunset, no slacking now! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 18:55, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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