Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft/Specifications survey

message: The biggest problem is a "one-size-fits-all" attitude.  Well, not exactly one; in the templates Ingoolemo implemented, there were too.  Apparently too many of you think that the only significant distinction to be made is whether to put English units first or metric units first.  Oh, sure, there is also a defacto clumsy distinction between those giving power in watts and those with thrust, and an optional "armaments" field.
The notion that all the units of measurement have to be specified for either inclusion or exclusion is part of the nonsense.  There is no reason we cannot say that certain ones should be used, at least in certain contexts, and there are others which might be included or not.  The proposed survey is often not seeing the forest for the trees, and dealing with a lot of picky details that might be better dealt with in broader pricniples.
What should be standard is the order of the broad categories, which don't necessarily have to be specifically broken down that way, such as physical dimensions and weight, engine, performance, and tools.
Whether or not it should have a template depends on how the information is presented.  The main advantage a text listing has is greater flexibility in presenting information.  That is a stupid format to try to force into parameterized templates.
Infobox (in the conventional narrow, upper right format usually found on Wikipedia) and "text" list aren't the only options.  We can have a table near the end of the page as well, and tables can be with or without lines, with or without color changes, etc.  A table there might well present the information so that it is much more easily picked out than it is in the current listings.
There are several different ways of using templates.  I don't even understand all of them.  Explain better what you have in mind.
This survey and the example Editing Template talk:Aircraft-jet-mil illustrate one major problem in the paramerized templates.  This example has been drawn up identifies many variables as "imp" and "metric".  First of all, you get on my bad side right away by calling these units "imperial"; that is not standard terminology in the United States, where "imperial" is only used to identify those gallons and the other volume units based on them, which were invented and introduced in the 1820s.  We don't call feet and pounds "imperial" units in the United States.
But the bigger problem, as shown in this survey and in things not yet included in this survey, is that there are often more than one metric unit and more than one "English" unit (calling it that pisses off some other people, of course) that are used to measure the same quantity.  There are often differences in this regard based on type of aircraft, other differences are regional based on geographical location, and still others are mostly time-dependent.
Another spec calculated from other specs given is wing loading.
Another quantity for which other units are used include rate of climb.  For many users, the standard metric units are meters per second, not meters per minute, the units most often used in the Wikipedia articles.  This usage may vary among different kinds of aircraft.
Not enough attention is given to various distinctions, such as
How many zillion different things get put under the field called "Capacity" on the page content page?  Apparently this is implemented in the "pilot" and "crew" categories in the Aircraft-jet-mil example.  It includes passengers on passenger liners, and many other things such as volume of cargo area, fuel capacity of tankers, etc. in various Wikipedia articles.
What factors are relevant when you discuss special purpose aircraft such as crop dusters, fire fighting planes, flying cranes, etc.?
What information is really relevant in a passenger liner?  In a fighter?  In a bomber?  In a surveillance aircraft?  In a towplane for gliders?
#military vs. civilian
#engine types including not only piston engines and jet engines, but also rocket engines, no engines, and even a couple of human muscle engines in the general category of aircraft.
#passenger vs. cargo vs. special purpose
#fixed wing vs. rotary wing
#special purpose civilian aircraft
#lots more
Maybe somebody should just go through as see what useful information a couple of editors have discarded, when they shoehorned the given information into the so-called "standard"?  Wouldn't that be a good idea, if we want to see whether or not additional information should be included?  Could those of you who have been doing this tell us a little bit about what you have thrown away?  Surely you've noticed that you often have a few thing left over after you'll filled in whatever blanks you could.  Gene Nygaard 7 July 2005 06:55 (UTC)
:Just a few issues to address then :)
:I can't speak for others, but to me, specifying particular units for inclusion or exclusion is important because standardising this provides comparability between different aircraft. Are the engines of the F-15 Eagle "more powerful" than those of the Sukhoi Su-27? We can immediately get an answer because the information in the two articles is presented in a consistent, standard way. In this example, you can compare them in lbf or in kN, whichever you are more comfortable with. This survey asks whether people here think that we should offer this comparison in kgf as well. 
:Certain characteristics are basic and instrinsic to all aircraft, fixed-wing, rotary-wing, powered, unpowered, civil, military, Latvian, Pakistani, flown in 1911 and flown in 2005. These are the characteristics that the specification section has always attempted to detail. But these aren't the only numbers that are ever going to be important. An article about a water bomber should probably say how quickly it can scoop up its load - which is a figure that should feature prominently in the article. An article about an STOL plane should mention its take-off and landing performance, but that doesn't mean that this must be placed in the specifications section.
:I'll incorporate your advice on table vs infobox, on wing loading, and on units for rate of climb. 
:Capacity has always been intentionally broad - is there a problem with it being used to describe different things for different aircraft?
:In my experience, the only specification that is contributed with any great frequency that is not part of the current standard is cruise speed, which I'd certainly like to see included. It's a widely-cited specification. Other than that, unit cost shows up from time-to-time, as do landing and take-off roll, and fuel capacity. Generally, even first-timers contribute more-or-less what the standard asks for. This is no surprise, since the data set for our standard is very similar to the data sets for most of the sources that they're using to contribute from. And then, there will always be someone who wants to specify the distance from the ground to the centreline of the propeller hubs of the inboard engines. A uniform standard allows for less-frequently contributed pieces of data to be dealt with equally across the project. ("If that article has that measurement, why can't I specify the diameter of the oil cooler inlet?")
:Finally, this is a project to create an encyclopedia. It is not an anarchy. My impression is that few (if any) aviation encyclopedias or general reference works use one set of units to describe one aircraft and a different set to describe the next, and that such works generally adopt a single set of core specifications to describe aircraft. Is this other people's impression as well? --Rlandmann 7 July 2005 11:47 (UTC)
:*I agree with Rlandmann on pretty much every point. -Lommer | talk 9 July 2005 00:16 (UTC)
:Landing weight is another fairly common spec.  Gene Nygaard 06:03, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In some reference works, yes. In contributions here, very seldom. I've seen G-limits more often than landing weight, and they're rarely contributed. --Rlandmann 09:57, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fairly often here, too.  That's why I mentioned it. I suspect more often than you will find in current articles, with some discarded in past "standardizing" of the specs format. Gene Nygaard 12:09, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Flaws in the survey

message: I remember that there was a lot of hot debate over the proper abbreviation for knots statute miles, and nautical miles.  Specifically, should knots be kt or kts? should statute mile be abbreviated sm or mi or something else (and is sm even a valid abbreviation)?  and should nautical mile be nmi or nm?
Unless the issue was resolved, those questions should be included in the survey.
:The above was left by Ingoolemo.
*I would think that sm's use used as an abbreviation in many gov't of Canada publications makes it a valid abbreviation. Whether its use is correct in wikipedia is a valid survey question though I suppose. -Lommer | talk 9 July 2005 00:12 (UTC)
::You can also, of course, find "mi" in many government of Canada publications.  More than "sm", I'll bet.  Gene Nygaard 12:10, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Abbreviation 

message: Apologies all for my lack of progress on this for the last couple of days - Real Life stole some of my WikiTime. I intend to open the poll at 00:01 on 17 July. If anyone has any more changes to suggest, please speak up! --Rlandmann 12:54, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Last orders, please

message: Ack, I hope its not too late. I just thought of something we should throw in - When is the earliest date at which we should revisit the consensus achieved by this survey. (with options of bi-weekly, monthly, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, >2 years, never). By setting up something like that we can more authoritatively stick to a standard, though we can still evolve (i.e. if the template system gets improved). Can we throw this in now? -Lommer | talk 00:21, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've gone ahead and thrown it in. If I am in error it may be removed. -Lommer | talk 00:52, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hope I'm not too late 

message: There is the comment implying that statute miles may have been used in original data for U.S.-built aircraft prior to the 1970s. That seems to me to mean that the nautical mile is the default non-metric unit. Does anyone know any more about this? Bobblewik 10:19, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Range: statute or nautical miles