Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation
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Category:Nose-mounted intake jet fighter edit
Wikipedian2024 created Category:Nose-mounted intake jet fighter earlier today. I'm not sure that categories for fighter aircraft based on the placement of jet engine intakes is particularly useful, and is probably a bit too narrow in scope for a Wikipedia category. Thoughts? - ZLEA T\C 22:53, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
- It is also barely comprehensible as a term. Intakes aren't 'mounted'. An intake is a hole to let the air in... AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:55, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
- More technically known as a pitot intake. Categories without parent articles are in trouble from day 1. It's over-categorisation per WP:TRIVIALCAT. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 10:03, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
- What Nimbus said. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:43, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
- More technically known as a pitot intake. Categories without parent articles are in trouble from day 1. It's over-categorisation per WP:TRIVIALCAT. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 10:03, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
- I reminds me of the category "pink-spotted twin-engined biplanes" (or something similar) that was once proposed - in joke, I assume. These "categories" never made much sense to me, anyway, but of course to each their own. Jan olieslagers (talk) 13:07, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think it was biplane tractors with unicorn sprinkles. I have nominated the category for deletion, linking to this discussion but feel free to comment there (or thereabouts). The creator should be aware as they were pinged at the top of this discussion and should also be watching the category. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 14:43, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
- My consent/support was added. And yes, your memory is obviously stronger than mine :). Cheers! Jan olieslagers (talk) 14:54, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
- The category has just been deleted (2 April), the discussion was closed as delete over two weeks ago and the category must have been in some hidden backlog pile waiting for deletion. To get it deleted I had to add a speedy template that linked to the closed deletion discussion, crazy! Just for info if we have to nominate other categories, the system is not intuitive (to me at least!). Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 13:58, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
- My consent/support was added. And yes, your memory is obviously stronger than mine :). Cheers! Jan olieslagers (talk) 14:54, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think it was biplane tractors with unicorn sprinkles. I have nominated the category for deletion, linking to this discussion but feel free to comment there (or thereabouts). The creator should be aware as they were pinged at the top of this discussion and should also be watching the category. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 14:43, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
Boeing controversies section edit
There is currently a discussion at Talk:Boeing#Intrigue/Conspiracies Section about the possible addition of a "Controversies" section to the article. This is primarily a response to the death of John Barnett (whistleblower) and other recent Boeing controversies, as well as a conspiracy theory that seems to be getting some attention. - ZLEA T\C 05:36, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
I ran into this article while doing NPP, and I'm not sure how to handle it. I don't think this is a notable concept in and of itself, but I'm at a loss as to where to move the information or where to redirect the title. I think it's at least a plausible redirect. Trains are my thing more than planes, so I was hoping you folks would have ideas. Please ping me on reply as I don't watch this page. Thanks. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 15:18, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
- IMO this article Improper flaps should not exist at all, it can easily be integrated in the main "Flaps" article. Jan olieslagers (talk) 15:44, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
- Could be redirected to Preflight checklist as flaps is a check list item if they are a feature of the a/c type. Related but I couldn't find it here is the 'config (configuration) warning system' that more complicated aircraft generally have, horns and lights flashing etc if the throttles are advanced beyond a certain percentage with no flaps set. Landing gear warnings are related (low throttle, land flap set, gear not down etc). Many sailplanes with retractable gear have an aural warning system that alerts the pilot that the airbrakes are open but the gear is up. An overview article could be created but the systems vary. This subject falls under airmanship. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:34, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
- I'd suggest moving to a new subsection in Flap_(aeronautics)#Principles_of_operation, titled say "Improper flap settings". Preflight checklist, as suggested above, does not cover the landing scenario. This page can then be deleted, as it is the setting which are improper, not the flaps themselves, and we do not normally maintain redirects for arbitrary phrases. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:51, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
- Could be redirected to Preflight checklist as flaps is a check list item if they are a feature of the a/c type. Related but I couldn't find it here is the 'config (configuration) warning system' that more complicated aircraft generally have, horns and lights flashing etc if the throttles are advanced beyond a certain percentage with no flaps set. Landing gear warnings are related (low throttle, land flap set, gear not down etc). Many sailplanes with retractable gear have an aural warning system that alerts the pilot that the airbrakes are open but the gear is up. An overview article could be created but the systems vary. This subject falls under airmanship. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:34, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
- The whole thing is very vague and also not a term used in aviation. Flaps/slats is a pre-landing checklist item for some aircraft, my own memorised check list has flaps but they are not used until final approach. It's akin to being in the wrong gear in a car, we don't have an article for that (hopefully!). Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 14:32, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
- ... pre-landing AND pre-takeoff! Jan olieslagers (talk) 18:52, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with Steelpillow, the information in this article seems like it would fit well there. Also Improper Flaps is not a common term in this way and I don't expect many people would be searching it. Therefore it would not meet the WP:POFR standard. KittyHawkFlyer (talk) 22:16, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks, all. Decided to nominate for deletion as I don't see any sourced content that can be merged elsewhere. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 03:41, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
What constitutes "seasonal" service? (Take 2) edit
I see this subject was briefly discussed back in January [here], but no consensus was reached. I would like us to move forward with a consensus on this subject. Wiki is mostly used by ordinary people (in our case ordinary passengers) with no experience in the aviation world. Seasonal doesn't necessarily just mean summer or winter. There are four seasons. It could imply fall, spring, or any combination of the four. Which is why I am of the opinion that even a seasonal cut of 2 months, which i find to be substantial, should be indicated as such. A flight not operating for Q1 (January to March, such as in the case of the recent Delta seasonal suspensions) is quite significant. The average passenger consulting wikipedia would want to know that this flight is not operational year round. Now I agree with others that a cut of just 2 or 3 weeks should not be treated this way. But even then, what do we do? Do we leave the destination as year round, or do we add start and end dates to each of these -almost- year round destinations? What are your thoughts? Thenoflyzone (talk) 18:50, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
Template:Infobox aircraft occurrence: Should the summary parameter include causes? edit
I would like to start a discussion regarding the template infobox aircraft occurrence. The discussion is on whether the summary parameter should include the causes of an accident.
On 27 March 2023, user DonFB started a discussion on Template talk:Infobox aircraft occurrence to ask whether there was a guidance or consensus on whether to include the officially-determined cause of an accident in the Summary field of the Aircraft Occurrence infobox linking a discussion on Talk:Colgan Air Flight 3407#Accident cause.
Prior to any of these discussions, the official explanation for the summary parameter was to include a Brief factual summary of the occurrence.
The problem with that explanation was that it did not specify what should be included in the summary leaving the emphasis on "brief".
Another problem with the explanation is due to the fact that some accidents have much more complex causes which makes summarizing an accident more difficult which can, at times, make summaries no longer "brief" as some of them included multiple causes and contributing factors such as [1]. A lot of articles use(d) the term pilot error in their summaries which while may be correct is also an oversimplification of what actually caused that accident and what led to it. Decisions pilots make are usually influenced by multiple factors.
Following the discussion between users DonFB and Ahunt, user Deeday-UK expressed his opinion:
[...] I would go one step further and explicitly discourage editors from adding causes to infobox summaries. Air accidents are complex events most of the times; accident reports almost invariably list multiple causes and contributing factors, which are impossible to summarize in a few words while still maintaining a NPOV. 'Pilot error' is the best example: the all-time favourite cause among editors, often added on its own even when it's clearly not the only factor. In my view, a summary should:
- First state what happened (e.g. that the aircraft crashed), which is often far from obvious, given article titles such as "XYZ Airlines Flight 123". - Then briefly describe the circumstances (on approach, at night, on take-off etc).
- Finally leave the causes for the article body, instead of cherry-picking some of them and trying to cram them into one line.
In many cases, 'Controlled flight into terrain' is all that's needed for the infobox summary. The Colgan crash could do with Stalled on approach, crashed into house
, and so on, keeping it simple, concise and neutral.
Following this, without gaining an official consensus, user Deeday-UK changed the summary usage note [2] and added a hidden usage note to add in the infobox [3]. Following this, user Deeday-UK started editing numerous articles changing the summary while broadly stating: Trim summary per project consensus: summarize events and circumstances, leave the causes for the article body without actually gaining an official consensus.
The first time I became aware of this was when I removed the under investigation summary in the article 2018 Sapphire Aviation Bell UH-1 crash and replaced it with the term pilot error, [4]. My edit was soon reverted [5] without giving too much reason as to why. Following this, I reverted the edit performed [6] which was soon reverted by user Deeday-UK citing Trim summary per project consensus: summarize facts and circumstances, leave the causes for the article body [7]. I tried finding where this was discussed and found the template talk page in which I assumed that this was an official consensus, and with the template history displaying last edited in 2019, I assumed that the discussion must have been a follow-up to the decision while not actually realizing that I wasn't on the correct history page being on [8] instead of [9].
Just around a few months ago, I started editing the summaries of multiple articles to be consistent with the usage note when I was notified by user RecycledPixels, on the 9th of May on my talk page, that there wasn't an official consensus regarding the summary usage note and had consequently challenged and reverted both edits performed by user Deeday-UK on the template doc, also messaging user Deeday-UK on his talk page regarding his changes to multiple summaries [10].
So my question regarding this discussion is whether the summary parameter should include accident/incident causes and (if so,) how should the usage note be worded? Aviationwikiflight (talk) 11:28, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- Leaving the summary blank would be missing out the 'what' and 'why' of Who what when where why, it would look odd if the summary is included in the lead section but not in the infobox. If I visit a blue linked accident article that I'm not familiar with I look for the precis and cause in the infobox, I would expect other readers to do the same. If the cause can't be easily determined from the accident report (if there is one) then perhaps use the talk page or project pages for advice/thoughts of others. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 11:59, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- Nimbus, nobody is suggesting to leave summaries blank. I totally agree that they should contain the what. It is the why that is problematic, especially when it involves the quick and easy explanation of 'pilot error'.
- There are indeed some clear-cut cases in which that is precisely what happened (e.g. the 2010 Alaska USAF C-17 crash: the report literally reads "the cause of the mishap was pilot error"). However, in the vast majority of cases, the causes and contributing factors are multiple and complex to explain. Try and summarize the causes of the Air France Flight 447 crash: the result will be either far too long for the infobox, or partial, incomplete, and therefore non-neutral. -- Deeday-UK (talk) 12:46, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- Nobody suggested leaving summaries blank. I agree with including what happened but the why is more problematic.
- An example that I gave was Pan Am Flight 799 and how the summary was way too long. The summary read:
- Defective checklist, defective takeoff warning hardware, airline's ineffective implementation of Boeing's Service Bulletins, and stress caused by a rushed flight schedule.
- The cause of the accident was a take-off performed with flaps retracted, leading to a loss of control. If we put that into a summary it would resemble something like: Loss of control on take-off following incorrect flap configuration.
- A similar summary would maintain a neutral point of view while not citing any causes due to its complexity. By simply saying pilot error, the summary disregards other causes/factors involved and oversimplifies the causes.
- The summary of West Caribbean Airways Flight 708,
- Deep stall due to pilot error, a lack of crew resource management, and loss of situational awareness,
- goes against the explanatory parameter note, stating that the summary should be brief and factual. This summary omits several contributing factors and issues from within West Caribbean Airways and engine icing. This summary does not maintain a neutral point of view as it disregards multiple factors that led to the accident taking place. Aviationwikiflight (talk) 15:32, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
- I've been somewhat of two minds in my thinking on this issue, which is probably reflected in some of my past comments.
- It seems that either including or excluding a cause in the Summary can lead to controversy among editors. That is true even though my impression is that official findings of cause are rarely seen as controversial by the industry or public.* My preference, I have decided, is for the Summary to include rather than exclude the (probable) cause. It's a given that the public, our readers, want to know the cause of an accident, and if we're including a Summary, that's an appropriate place to put it, in addition, of course, to the main text. Yes, there can be multiple contributing factors, but I believe we are capable of briefly summarizing the two things of most interest to people glancing at an Infobox Summary at the top of an accident article: what and why.
- Therefore, we can use "pilot error" or similar phrasing, but only if two things are true: 1) reliable secondary sources explicitly use such phrasing, and 2) the official report uses equivalent phrasing like "captain’s inappropriate response", "flight crew's failure" or "the captain's failure" (quoted from NTSB Colgan 3407 report). Quite possibly, the NTSB has never used "pilot error" in a report. My inference is that it and other official agencies wish to avoid that phrase due to sensitivities in business and political realms. The agencies instead circumlocute using a variety of equivalent terminology.
- But policy tells us to use reliable secondary sources, not primary sources, as the main basis for articles. However, if a primary source (NTSB or BEA or other such agency) refers to a "failure" or "inappropriate", "improper" or "incorrect" action by a flight crew or crew member, it is reasonable to consider that information as support for our use of "pilot error"—if, and only if, reliable secondary sources use that phrase. If no secondary source uses "pilot error", then, to avoid OR or SYNTH, Wikipedia must not. But we are still free to use one of those alternative words (eg: failure, improper) in the Summary, if it's citable to RS.
- I support the need for brevity in the Summary. I believe it can be achieved while including the two fundamentals of an accident: what happened and why.
- Exceptions exist, like EgyptAir 990
- DonFB (talk) 00:05, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with past discussions that the infobox summary should be a brief summary of the accident, that should include what happened and why. A summary of "crashed on takeoff" is not nearly as helpful to a reader as "crashed on takeoff due to low altitude wind shear". Understanding that it is intended to be an extremely brief summary, we are going to encounter issues where one or both aspects of that will be oversimplified with terms like "pilot error". The body of the article, ideally the first paragraph, will more effectively summarize the facts of the accident for a reader to gain a better understanding of what happened, and the rest of the article will dive deeply into all of the fine nuances. In a case where I, for example, might use the phrase "pilot error", another editor is free to come along and refine that summary to something they feel is more appropriate, like "aircraft damage from accidental slats deployment". If I'm following that article and I disagree, we can discuss it and work it out, or I can made another refinement to the statement, or we can invite others into the discussion to reach a consensus. If I agree that the revision is an improvement, great, nothing needs to be said. I don't think there needs to be a hard "don't include causes because we might get it wrong" rule here. RecycledPixels (talk) 15:26, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- So basically you are saying: it doesn't matter if the summary is oversimplified and potentially misleading, because the rest of the article will give the full picture. Well, no: many passing readers will never read beyond the infobox. The summary must obey WP:NPOV like anything else; if something in the summary makes it non-neutral (such as one or two cherry-picked causes among many, especially if apportioning blame) then such element must be removed from the summary.
- Why don't we focus instead on the circumstances of an accident? Instead of "crashed on takeoff due to low altitude wind shear" (which attributes the crash to just one reason), we could say "crashed on takeoff in wind shear conditions", which meaningfully describes the event without ruling out other factors (e.g. that they were flying too slow). -- Deeday-UK (talk) 19:00, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- I never said that it was ok for the infobox summary to be misleading. What I'm saying is that, given the previous consensus that the infobox summary should remain as brief as possible, that there are going to be tradeoffs in how comprehensive that brief infobox summary is going to be. Things are going to get oversimiplified, much as the "crashed on takeoff" part of that statement doesn't mention that the occupants of the aircraft were successfully evacuated moments before it burst into flames, resulting in only injuries and no fatalities, in the case of Aeroméxico Connect Flight 2431. It also doesn't mention that an unqualified pilot was flying the plane or that the air traffic controller failed to give the flight crew adequate warning of the change in weather conditions. That's an acceptable tradeoff, since all of that is covered in the article. I think the cause of the accident is at least as important as the description of the accident, so it needs to be included in that brief summary. If you don't want to deal with oversimplification, then we should strike the entire "be as brief as possible" part of the infobox summary instructions, which I'd also support to some extent, but that's a different conversation. RecycledPixels (talk) 20:11, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think the more brief and consistent we can keep it, the better. Looking at the ATSB database of accident reports [11], the summaries of each tends to summarise occurrences short 2-3 word catergories such as: Control problems, collision with terrain, runway incursion, ground occurrence etc. Although this doesn't give the full context of the causes, it cam be combined with the "Damage to aircraft" (none, minor, substantial, destroyed) and "Highest injury level" (none, minor, serious, fatal) and a fourth datapoint like "Phase of flight" (Ground, takeoff, enroute, landing) - i believe the NTSB include these. These four things provide more than enough to understand the basic nature of the occurrence. Eg. An aircraft experienced control problems enroute which resulted in the aircraft being destroyed and fatal injuries. In terms of the "why", at infobox level we are only looking to explain why the aircraft crashed (control was lost), and not why control was lost - that is another level of detail that is highly contextual, thus better explained in the lede simce aircraft accidents are nearly always complex, multifactorial chains of events. I also note this characterisation is far more WP:NPOV than relying on characterisations in secondary sources, which even when that are WP:RS often cover aircraft accidents in a sensationalised way by reporters who have limited understanding of Aviation or a bias against certain airlines (thinking of the Australian media's coverage of anything related to Qantas of late).
- I do not agree that an oversimplified infobox summary is misleading to readers who only go as far as the infobox. I think most of those readers understand there is limit on what can be put in an infobox and are able to look at the text and realise there is a lot more context available if they have questions. This is an encyclopedia after all. Dfadden (talk) 21:39, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
Let's look at Colgan 3407, where the Summary has triggered multiple debates among editors. At present, the Summary is: "Stalled during landing approach". This, I believe, is clearly an oversimplification. I'd even suggest it's misleading, as it seems to (silently) attribute the cause only to the airplane itself. As we all acknowledge, accidents have multiple contributing factors, which are typically shown in great detail in official reports. But the sentence that describes "probable cause", even in official reports, is a lot more succinct. In Colgan, the NTSB said: "The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the captain’s inappropriate response to the activation of the stick shaker, which led to an aerodynamic stall from which the airplane did not recover." In the Summary, that can be stated: "Stalled during approach due to pilot error". (Multiple secondary RS use "pilot error".) There's no way and no need to sugar-coat it. The official report gives details of several errors by both pilots. It seems that this Summary should actually be one of the easier ones to write, given the extensive media and official descriptions of crew errors. Do we need to mention icing or training or airline policy in the Summary? The NTSB did not in its probable cause statement, and we don't need to either, if we want to keep the Summary both brief and accurate.
A couple of other examples, which have generated plenty of back-and-forth: Lion 610 and Ethiopian 302. At present, the Summary for each is identical: "Loss of control in flight". To be a little blunt, this is just plain silly. The Summary does not need to say "in flight", so we could actually make the Summary even briefer: "Loss of control". That's not very informative. Based on sources, the Summary for each should be slightly different. Secondary sources did not ascribe "pilot error" to either flight (with possibly an outlier media exception for one or the other). The official Lion Air report described multiple technical faults and also said crew resource management in response was "ineffective". So, the Summary could be: "Loss of control due to automated flight control behavior and ineffective crew response". The Ethiopian official report made no mention of "ineffective", "improper" or any such similar term for pilot action; the report fully blamed MCAS. So, the Ethiopian Summary could be: "Loss of control due to automated flight control behavior". A complicating issue is that the U.S. and French agencies published reports that assigned some blame to the crew in each accident. But those were not the official findings of the investigating countries, and the Summaries need not attempt to describe such additional factors; the article text provides the full background. I think these examples show the feasibility of writing a Summary that tells both what and why and is brief, accurate, informative and not misleading, whether the cause is unequivocal (Colgan) or nuanced (Lion, Ethiopian). DonFB (talk) 02:24, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
- DonFB, I almost agree on the Colgan example, which makes me think of a possible rule: if there is a clear statement in the 'reference' reliable source (a report by the NTSB would normally count as such) that cites just one probable cause, then such cause could be included in the summary. Anything more articulated or nuanced than that goes as a whole in the article body, and the summary covers only the what.
- I disagree on the 737 MAX examples though: "Loss of control in flight" is not silly, because control can be lost just as well during the takeoff or landing runs. What's missing is the core piece of information about the what: that the aircraft crashed (as opposed to recovering from the loss of control), and there could be a bit more detail too, e.g. "Crashed following loss of control during initial climb". And those two accidents are great examples of complicated and even controversial chains of events that are the opposite to the Colgan crash, and therefore do not belong to the summary.
- [--- BREAK --- ]
- Dfadden beat me to it: I am still to find an accident investigation authority whose reports include, in the Accident Details section at the top, a field such as 'Causes', 'Probable cause' or anything like that. Same for the Aviation Safety Network. That means something. -- Deeday-UK (talk) 20:48, 14 May 2024 (UTC)