Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide/Layout (Aircraft)

Please note:

A few Wikipedians have gotten together to make some suggestions about how we might organize data in articles about aircraft. These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them. But, if you don't know what to write or where to begin, following the below guidelines may be helpful. Mainly, we just want you to write articles!

This is a set of suggested guidelines for articles on specific aircraft types. Some wikipedians prefer a standardised look and feel to articles on closely-related subjects and these guidelines exist to facilitate achieving that goal for articles about aircraft.

For general guidelines about writing and editing Wikipedia articles, see the Style and How-to Directory.

Name

Every article in Wikipedia has a name, and most aircraft articles are named by their manufacturer, then by name and/or designation number, for example Boeing 747, Supermarine Spitfire.

Articles should always be named as generally as possible, so an article should only be named after a subtype (eg Messerschmitt Bf 109G) if writing about that specific version of the aircraft. Usually this will mean that we already have a more general article about the aircraft, relevant to all subtypes. If no general article exists, it may be worthwhile expending the article slightly so that it encompasses all variants of the aircraft.

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (aircraft) for a more detailed treatment of aircraft naming conventions here.

Introduction

Every article should begin with a short introduction naming the aircraft, its manufacturer(s), and the general category of aircraft it belongs to. For example:

The Cessna 172 Skyhawk received its type certificate from the FAA in 1955. It is an all-metal, four-seat, single-engine, high-wing airplane with one door under each wing. The 172 was a direct descendant of the earlier Cessna 170, which used conventional (tailwheel) landing gear instead of tricycle (nosewheel) gear.

Without going any further, a reader should already have a good basic idea of what kind of aircraft the article is describing.

Body

The body of the article describes the aircraft in greater detail. This information is often best arranged in sections, especially in longer articles. Some frequently used sections in aircraft articles include any and all of the following:

Development, describing the history behind the aircraft, often discussing why a manufacturer, airline, or air force felt there was a need for such an aircraft.

Operational history, describing the history of the aircraft in use. This section is something like a "biography" of the aircraft.

Variants, describing major subtypes or variants of the aircraft. These can be arranged in subsections - see Messerschmitt Me 163 for an example of how this can be done.

Markings, describing the livery, camouflage, or markings that the aircraft flew in, especially any especially noteworthy or unusual schemes.

Users, usually a collection of links to airlines or individual air force squadrons that used this type.

Specifications

Note: through much of 2004, WikiProject Aircraft was using a table to present aircraft specifications. This old table standard is archived here.

This is a short summary of the aircraft's characteristics and performance. If an article doesn't have specifications, you can either tag the article with {{aero-stats}} or add them yourself. By convention, it is laid out:

Specifications (variant described)

General characteristics

• Crew:
• Capacity:
• Length: m ( ft)
• Wingspan: m ( ft)
• Height: m ( ft)
• Wing area: m² ( ft²)
• Empty: kg ( lb)
• Loaded weight: kg ( lb)
• Maximum gross takeoff weight: kg ( lb)
• Powerplant: Engine type(s), kN ( lbf) thrust or
• Powerplant: Engine type(s), kW ( hp)

Performance

• Maximum speed: km/h ( mph)
• Cruise speed: km/h ( mph)
• Range: km ( miles)
• Service ceiling: m ( ft)
• Maximum rate of climb: m/s ( ft/min)
• Wing loading: kg/m² ( lb/ft²)
• Thrust/weight: or
• Power/mass: hp/lb ( kW/kg)

Armament

where applicable

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Note that these specifications should relate to a specific variant of the aircraft, and be labelled accordingly. Usually this will be the most famous/noteworthy/numerous one.

Please keep in mind that if a line is not applicable to a particular aircraft type, it should be omitted, for example "powerplant" for sailplanes. On the other hand, if data is applicable but you simply don't know it, please leave the line in place to remind others to fill it in.

• Capacity is for airliners and military transports

• Power for piston engines, Thrust for jets and rockets. Of course, a few types will have both. Therefore, Thrust/weight will also apply only to jets and rocket aircraft, and Power/mass to propeller aircraft. Delete whatever's not appropriate.

• Maximum speed may (and probably should) be given as a Mach number for supersonic aircraft.

• It is a suggested project standard to have Imperial (English) units first for US and British aircraft and metric first for everyone else's.

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The two different orders as well as templates for different types of aircraft on the following pages are here, note that these pages have not been updated to the new standard yet:

• This one has imperial units first.

• This one has metric units first.

Templates currently available include versions for fixed wing piston engined, fixed wing jet, sailplanes, and helicopters in both sets of units. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Units for a more detailed discussion of units.

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References

This section contains details of print references and/or external links to websites used in the article. Wikipedia preferes the APA format, so that's what we should use as well. (See here for a comprehensive example set, and here for a list of templates). Examples of citations:

Book source

Lincoln, Abraham; Grant, U. S.; & Davis, Jefferson (1861). Resolving Family Differences Peacefully (3rd ed.). Gettysburg: Printing Press. ISBN 0-12-345678-9.

Journal

Brandybuck, Meriadoc. (1955). "Herb-lore of the Shire". Journal of the Royal Institute of Chemistry 10 (2), 234–351.

Newspaper/Magazine articles

Blair, Eric Arthur (Aug. 29, 1949). "Looking forward to a bright tomorrow". New English Weekly, p. 57.

Websites

Gates, Bill & Ballmer, Steve (1998). "The Big Open-source Advocacy Homepage". Retrieved Aug. 5, 2003.

Other Wikipedias

Citau les fonts from the Catalan-language Wikipedia. Retrieved December 27, 2004.

Company press releases

Siemens AG (July 13, 1999). Shell and Siemens to develop emission-free fuel cell power plant. Press Release.

External links

This section contains links to external websites that were not reference material for the article, such as image sites.

Related content

This section contains links to other aircraft-related material in Wikipedia. There is a template available with parameters for the below sections as well as external links. It also automatically includes the {{airlistbox}} template mentioned later.

By convention, this section includes:

Related development: are those that this aircraft were developed from, or which were developed from it. Many aircraft will be stand-alone developments with no relatives, in which case this line should not be used.

eg - For the P-51 Mustang, "Related development" would include at least the F-82 Twin Mustang, CAC Kangaroo, Cavalier Mustang and Piper Enforcer.

Comparable aircraft: are those of similar role, era, and capability to this one. This will always be somewhat subjective, of course, but try to keep this as tight as possible. Again, some aircraft will be one-of-a-kind and this line will be inappropriate.

eg: aircraft comparable to the Boeing 707 include the Convair 880 and Douglas DC-8

Designation sequence: will usually be that of the aircraft's manufacturer, but there are exceptions, such as designations issued to aircraft of the Third Reich, or by the US armed services. Conventionally, the Sequence should stretch to three aircraft before and three aircraft after the one described in the article.

eg: the sequence for the F-15 Eagle would read "F-11 - YF-12 - F-14 - F-15 - F-16 - F-17 - F/A-18" (note that the non-existent F-13 designation is skipped).

Variants: Some aircraft have variants that are covered in their own separate articles

See also: Links to other related articles not already linked.

Finally, the "Related content" section ends with a small footer that links together the bulk of Wikipedia's aviation content:

This is implemented simply by typing {{airlistbox}} at the end of the article which adds the footer template.

Category

Aircraft are categorised primarily by their nationality, role, and era, for example Category:British airliners 1960-1969. A number of secondary categories also exist that link together aircraft with certain noteworthy features, such as Category:Swing-wing aircraft. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Categories for a full description of the Category system.

Hints, tips, and finishing touches

Remember wherever possible to wiki powerplants and weapons, preferably in the article, but in the table if not mentioned in the text.

Where appropriate, use "year in aviation", instead of "year" (eg. [[2004 in aviation|2004]] instead of [[2004]]). Add significant events pertaining to the aircraft to the "year in aviation" page.

When you're done, please make sure to add your new article to list of aircraft, new powerplants to list of aircraft engines, and new weapons to the list of aircraft weapons. (Then, above them, there's also list of aircraft manufacturers and list of aircraft engine manufacturers and list of aviation topics,...)

Units

For general Wikipedia conventions on units, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers).

There are plenty of converters to be found on-line, but if you want to do them manually, the conversion factors are:

Conversions

• Imperial to metric
  • m = ((inches/12)+ft) / 3.28
  • m² = ft² / 10.76
  • kg = lb / 2.2
  • kW = hp × 0.746
  • kN = lb_f (thrust) / 224.26
  • N/kg = lb_f/lb (thrust/mass) * 9.81
  • km = miles × 1.61

• Metric to imperial
  • ft = m × 3.28 (subtract the whole number from the result, then multiply the remainder by 12 to give the number of inches)
  • ft² = m² × 10.76
  • lb = kg × 2.2
  • hp = kW/0.746 (ignore "metric" hp [0.735 kW])
  • lb_f (thrust) = kN × 224.26, or kg × 2.2 (if thrust is quoted in kg)
  • lb_f/lb (thrust/mass) = N/kg / 9.81
  • miles = km / 1.61

Overprecision for performance figures is unnecessary — most of these are approximates under specific conditions anyway, and many published figures show evidence of having already been converted between Imperial and metric and back again.

Thrust-to-weight ratio

Whereas thrust has units of force, Weight here can either mean mass (kg or lb) or force due to gravity (N or lbf), . If the latter, the figure is characteristically dimensionless and requires no conversion. Note that any metric and imperial unit usage must be consistent- use of lb's or kg's or the word "mass" implies a thrust/mass ratio is specified:

• Recommended:
  • Thrust/weight ratio of 1
  • Thrust/mass ratio of 1 lbf/lb (9.81 N/kg)
  • Thrust/weight ratio of 1 lbf/lb (9.81 N/kg)

• Deprecated:
  • Thrust/mass ratio of 1
  • Thrust:weight ratio of 1 (9.81 N/kg)
  • Thrust/weight ratio of 9.81 (1 lbf/lb)

Specific Impulse

The correct units for specific impulse are seconds in both imperial and SI units. (See Rocket Propulsion Elements by George P. Sutton and Oscar Biblarz, seventh edition et al). Therefore no conversion need be employed.

Sometimes specific impulse is incorrectly, but not unusually listed as a velocity or as Ns/kg. This is in fact a different quantity known as 'c', the effective exhaust velocity. This can take the units m/s (or equivalently, from Newton's third law Ns/kg) or ft/s. Its use is deprecated, but may be employed if quoted by a manufacturer, or added in addition to the specific impulse.

Finally, remember that you're in no way obliged to follow all, or even any, of these guidelines to contribute an article.