Talk:Conventional landing gear

message: I have a problem with the title of this article. I think the title should be the formal "Conventional Gear" and "Taildragger" should redirect to Conventional Gear, not the other way around. Comments? Rsduhamel 17:56, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Title

message: User:Towpilot recently restored the following statements, which I had removed as unsourced:
"There is no doubt that no more skill is needed to take off and land a tailwheel aircraft, just some different training. An old myth translate this to mean that tailwheel aircraft are harder to operate, but this is not really true."
and 
"There are experienced tailwheel pilots who insist that the added challenges of a tailwheel aircraft arise largely from a lack of skill that results from poor training when transitioning from a tricycle landing gear aircraft."
With the edit summary: "No reason to remove very general facts known to most pilots, at least everyone in the tailwheel comunity"
I have tagged these for "who said this" and "fact" as these are not generally well known and regardless if they are or not they must be attributed to who said them and referenced to a reliable source or they must be removed. As explained at WP:V: "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." 
See also the Jim Wales quote on that same page:
These insertions can also easily be challenged as a point-of-view, under WP:NPOV. They need to be carefully sourced or removed. - Ahunt (talk) 14:07, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As a tail-wheel pilot myself, I'm in agreement with User:Towpilot about the "general fact"-ness of the statements, but also agree that we need citations.  Stick and Rudder would be a good source for an early view on the ease of learning to fly tricycle gear, or as he calls them "modern safety airplanes" on page 186. -- Autopilot (talk) 16:21, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I have flown tailwheels, too, includes tailwheel twins (!). Well that is a fine suggestion, but that section of Langewiesche's book doesn't really cover the material that needs citing here, although it is a good explanation of the Ercoupe design. - Ahunt (talk) 17:40, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As per the requirements cited above these unsourced opinions have been removed. As explained at WP:V, what matters is not that these statements are "right" but that they are "verifiable". Without proper sources cited they aren't, so please do not put them back in without proper sources cited. - Ahunt (talk) 15:56, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

text: Some interesting comments there. I quite agree that WP:V should not be used as a reason to remove all unsourced material, regardless of its accuracy. That policy is pretty clear that if the material is accurate then it should be relatively easy to find a ref for it and keep it, which is the proper procedure, of course. That said I totally agree with your surprise that people would add (unsourced) statements like "There is no doubt that no more skill is needed to take off and land a tailwheel aircraft, just some different training. An old myth translate this to mean that tailwheel aircraft are harder to operate, but this is not really true." On that subject I have a solid reference that clearly states that this is untrue, as you have indicated as well above, which is why I challenged it, discussed it above and ultimately removed it. I think this brings the whole matter to a point - many of the myths and legends surrounding this particular subject are factually incorrect, even if they make good stories. To me this indicates the importance of have good refs for the article, otherwise it deteriorates into a blog of opinions about flying taildraggers. There is no problem with having a blog on that subject, but not on Wikipedia. There is certainly room in the article for more material, but to avoid the adding of opinions as cited above it has to be referenced to a reliable source. - Ahunt (talk) 12:49, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Disputed statements

message: The recent rewrite by Ahunt is positive in several respects.  Better references, better worded, new and good info.  But some very good material has been lost.  It should not be an either-or, a choice between this good version and that good version.  Info should not be lost.  I am glad I was not a writer of the material lost without explanation.  Paul Beardsell (talk) 00:58, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Paul. Glad you found something useful in the rewrite. Flying tail draggers is a subject that is rife with opinions, myths and legends. The old information is still there in the page history. As the edit summaries I left indicate, nothing was removed except text that was unsourced and most of it had been tagged as such for quite some time. Unsourced text can be challenged and removed any time. This text can obviously be re-introduced from the history anytime, provided a reference is included. If text is put back in without a ref then expect that it will be tagged and eventually removed again, as required by WP:V. - Ahunt (talk) 12:22, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:V does not "require" the removal of true material.  Paul Beardsell (talk) 22:23, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

text: For what my opinion is worth I continue to remain very impressed by your ongoing contributions in both aviation and computing related articles.  But, trying to be constructive, I think you may have removed one or two statements which, while not being supported by citation, remain true.  I am sure there is never any good reason for removing true material.  If one cannot find a reference for material which one otherwise knows to be true, or if a citation request has been outstanding on material which one knows to be true, then it can never be correct to remove the material.  At least let an editor who disputes the material (if there is such an editor) remove it.  Otherwise leave it alone or flag it:  Someone will find the reference should it ever be disputed.  Otherwise we'll be removing uncited statements such as "In the UK a rule of the road is to drive on the left.".  Paul Beardsell (talk) 22:14, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

text: I have been presented before with the argument that the deleted material is in the archive and so is not really deleted.  This is not persuasive.  The reader of an article is unlikely to suspect that a relevant (to him) deletion of true material may be found in the archives and so is unlikely to go looking.  Such (an unlikely) reader would in any event find the archives not particularly easy to access and that they are very difficult to search.  Paul Beardsell (talk) 22:14, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

text: To repeat:  If you know something to be true you should not remove it. You should, in descending order of preference, (a) find a reference, (b) flag it as "citation-required" or (c) leave it alone.  Paul Beardsell (talk) 22:21, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually what I meant to convey is that if there is material I have removed that you feel is worth re-inserting then please, by all means, do go back to the history, find it and put it back in. I thought I had captured all the best points from the previous version, but it is likely I missed something that should have remained. Perhaps the text you refer to is self evident and non-controversial or perhaps we can find a ref for it. I didn't mean to indicate that readers could look through the past versions of the article. While some editors will go back to past versions to save old text or refs and bring them forward to the current version, I consider those versions are "gone" as far as the casual reader is concerned. So please do reintroduce anything you feel will improve the article, that I cut. if there is a problem we can discuss it here. - Ahunt (talk) 22:27, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent rewrite 

message: Are we using British or American English in this article? I ask because someone got a bit perplexed by the appearance of 'Tyres' which is the British spelling of 'Tires'. --Eamonnca1 (talk) 22:50, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: As per WP:ENGVAR either is acceptable since this is not exclusively a subject that pertains to one country but the spelling should not be changed to make it USA-centric to the exclusion of other uses. As you will note the use of the spelling of "tyres" is consistent as the word is only used once and is not spelled differently in the same article. Just in case you wondered I am not even defending my own use here, I am a Canadian and we spell it "tires" where I live. - Ahunt (talk) 23:11, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: British or American English?

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Undercarriage which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 12:14, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Move discussion in progress

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Landing gear which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 06:14, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Move discussion in progress

message: This article includes a short list of examples. Is this really useful? Such a list can never be complete, because nearly all aircraft manufactures before 1945 had a conventional undercarriage. The few examples shown here seem randomly selected and don't contribute anything to the general understanding. Avmarle (talk) 13:35, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the current short list of examples is useful to the average reader in that they can see how this config is used in different designs, as long as the list doesn't get longer. I am not hard-set on this though, I could be convinced it should be removed. Perhaps a few more photos of representative types in this article would be better than the list? - Ahunt (talk) 16:32, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Do we need a list of examples?

message: Would it be appropriate to replace:
with:
As far as I can make out, the class of jet taildraggers amounts to these two and an assortment of experimental aircraft and prototypes; there are no others. Anybody with more knowledge care to comment?Catsmeat (talk) 11:11, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the only issue is whether these are the only two or not, hence the slightly vague wording. I could add that I am not aware of any others. - Ahunt (talk) 13:18, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Jet aircraft