Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/General aviation in the United Kingdom

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 01:14, 6 August 2008 [1].

General aviation in the United Kingdom[edit]

Nominator(s): FactotEm (talk)


This article has received two detailed peer reviews: first, and second. All points raised during these have been addressed, and positive comments were made about its quality and suitability for FAC. FactotEm (talk) 08:55, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support: I was involved in both of the peer reviews. This article has been most thoroughly researched, is comprehensive and very well presented. My only criticsm - and the editors will sigh, because I've raised this before - is still with the fatalities table in mid-article. My understanding is that in cells where no figure is given, this is because the requisite figures are not available from the source, and "n/a" presumably means "not available". But n/a can equally mean "not applicable". To avoid confusion, therefore, I'd add a footnote explaining what n/a in this table actually means. It's a small point, but worth doing to avoid confusuion. All in all, however, this is an excellent article, well worthy of promotion. Brianboulton (talk) 16:09, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Made a sighless amendment to the reference, and the abbreviation is now footnoted. Thanks. --FactotEm (talk) 16:48, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support: I thoroughly enjoyed reading the article. I know very little regarding aviation, but I found this article very clear and detailed, but not crammed with confusing facts. Good job. Calor (talk) 16:14, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Issues resolved, Ealdgyth - Talk 12:49, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ealdgyth (talk • contribs) 16:46, July 27, 2008
Deadlinks resurrected. Cite web is now cite journal (does it matter that the actual issue is not referenced? There is no indication online which issue the article originally appeared in). Ref 77 publisher information added to the ref.
Rainair is the sole flying club operating out of Beccles airfield, and the page referenced provides references of its own. Does that answer the question? --FactotEm (talk) 17:17, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Further to the above, Rainair is listed in the UK Aeronautical Information Publication (official source of info for licensed aerodrome facilities) as the aerodrome administrator. See item 6 here. --FactotEm (talk) 12:28, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you have the date of the original publication, that's fine. Some journals don't do issue numbers per se. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:15, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The web site lists recent issues and their contents, and the article I've referenced comes from the July 2008 issue. I've added this info to the ref. Thanks. --FactotEm (talk) 19:37, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support Excellent article: informative & well written. A couple of suggestions:

  • The lead section is a bit wordy. See the suggested reworking in my sandbox. As it stands, the first sentence reads more like a scholarly essay than a WP article: I suggest moving the CAA review reference to a footnote. I've changed one or two links, too, to make them more relevant (eg there was no point in linking the word pilot in glider pilot).
  • Speaking of gliding—how did you guess I was a glider pilot?—there's no reason to limit the discussion in para 2 of the sports section to international gliding comps: there are plenty of national & regional UK comps as well (& this is supposed to be about GA in the UK, after all).

Please feel free to lift anything you want from my draft. Good luck! --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 11:36, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PS Some of the 19,000 pilots who hold professional licences are also engaged in GA activities. Any idea how many? 1,000? 10,000? Or do you mention this somewhere else? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 11:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments. I've incorporated some of your suggestions into the article, but others I am not so sure about...
  • The definition is a tricky issue. There is no formal, agreed definition, and even the CAA varies (the regulatory review uses a slightly different one from the strategic review). To simply state that it "...is defined as..." is inaccurate, hence my qualification in the first sentence. You do have a valid point here, I just don't know how to get around it and still be accurate, and my preference is for accuracy at the expense of conciseness. Does that seem fair to you?
  • I want to keep "corporate aviation" as an additional descriptor for business aviation. This is because business aviation by itself might be confused for business travel on airlines, whereas corporate aviation has a better connotation of travel by business jet etc.
  • I have rejected your sandbox link to commercial pilots because it links to an article on the Commercial Pilot Licence. This is a specific licence, rather than a collective term, and excludes the other professional licence (ATPL).
  • I have edited the info on planning down a little, in a meet-you-half-way kind of action. I think that "...far from favouring..." can be construed as POV. It tends to imply that the planning system should favour GA. I also cannot exclude mention of the national significance of GA public transport operations, as you have done in your sandbox version, because this is a key issue in the sources and needs to be in the lead.
You make a very good point about the focus of gliding sports in the article. My difficulty here is that the source only describes international competition. If you can point me to a reliable web source that describes nationally based glider sports (perhaps a glider club web site), I will happily change this section.
Not to worry, found Lasham's web site, lots of useful info. Updating now. --FactotEm (talk) 15:13, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And all done now. Thanks for prodding me on this one. That paragraph was my least favourite, and now I think it looks good. --FactotEm (talk) 15:53, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Finally, no, there is no indication of whether a professionally licensed pilot is operating a GA or CAT flight. The data are simply not collected. --FactotEm (talk) 13:38, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Yes, I agree: the gliding section is much better & meatier now. If you want any extra details you could look at the BGA website; but you seem to have got most of the essentials already from Lasham. Thanks for going the extra mile.
Re my sandbox suggestions:
  • First sentence. I'm sorry, but it just won't do as it stands. OK, by all means say has been defined rather than is defined; but For the purposes of a strategic review, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) really ought to be relegated to a footnote. My reason for saying this is that the casual reader coming to this topic for the first time just doesn't need to know all this: it's information overload! And there is, I think, a general principle on WP that the boldened topic of the article should come at the beginning of the first sentence. If you stand back for a moment from your close involvement in this article, I hope you'll agree that the introduction will be much crisper & read better if you follow my suggestion. Having said my piece, I in turn will now stand back & leave it to your judgment ...
  • If you follow the link to Lighter than air you'll see that, apart from a cursory mention of aircraft, it's mainly about gases. Fascinating, of course—but not all that relevant in this context. That's why I suggested the link to the (admittedly unfamiliar) term aerostat, which turns out to cover all lighter-than-air craft.
  • Re planning & POV. Don't you think that The planning process has become a mechanism for restricting aerodrome use sounds just a tad POV?
Another sentence from the lead section which could be trimmed a bit: Although GA operates from more than 1,800 aerodromes and landing sites, ranging in size from large regional airports, through predominantly GA airfields, to informal farm strips, over 80 per cent of GA activity is conducted at 134 of the larger aerodromes. My suggestion: Although GA operates from more than 1,800 sites ranging in size from airports to farm strips, over 80 per cent of GA activity takes place at 134 of the larger aerodromes. Readers wanting more detail will find it in the Aerodromes section.
All the best. My Support remains undiminished. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:24, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Good points all...
  • I think "...has been defined..." strikes the right balance between accuracy and crispness, and the issue is after all fully explained in the definitions section. Well argued.
  • Aerostat is of course a better link. I missed that change when I reviewed your sandbox.
  • Removed the POV from the planning statement. Good catch.
  • Agree with the aerodrome info, though I've retained the text "...large regional airports...". "Airports" alone is I think too vague in the sense of scale it conveys (I don't think I need point out to you the comparison between East Midlands Airport and Wolverhampton Airport).
You have picked up on a number of points that I was already vaguely uneasy about, and pointed the way to a better solution. I appreciate your input. Thanks. --FactotEm (talk) 11:04, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You're welcome. Looking very good now. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 11:59, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
PS The quote from the CAA strategic review in the opening sentence does need a footnote giving the reference—especially in light of the quotation marks. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 18:10, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fair point, but I really do not like cites in the lead. Because the WP:LEAD is fairly unequivocal about citing quotes, I've actually chosen to remove the quote marks instead. The text is still quoted and properly cited in the main body. Fair enough? --FactotEm (talk) 08:04, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. All the images seem to be in order copyright-wise, except for Image:Grid AstonDown.jpg. It is not clear whether the creator, Stephen Cook of the Cotswold Gliding Club, is the same person as the uploader, User:Ndsg. At least one other upload by Ndsg says it is by Stephen Cook and from the Cotswold Gliding Club website, although I was unable to verify the source. I've left a note for Ndsg, so hopefully this can be sorted out quickly.
Also, the article seems undercategorized; it has only a single category, "Aviation".--ragesoss (talk) 00:36, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I found it difficult to identify any other relevant categories for what is a wide ranging subject. Would you consider, for example, the categories Aviation history, Air sports, and Airports in the United Kingdom as suitable for this article, i.e. the main sections within the article? If so, I can add the article to suitable categories for all main sections. --FactotEm (talk) 08:20, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Added to Categories:Civil aviation :Aviation statistics and :Aviation terminology, and changed the original category to :Aviation in the United Kingdom. These seem to represent the best selction in terms of the general nature of the article. Dropped a note on the reviewers talk page asking him to revisit his comments here in the light of this. --FactotEm (talk) 18:47, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've dealt with the query about the gliding image. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 08:51, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Very happy to hear that. It's an excellent image. --FactotEm (talk) 19:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me to be in the wrong place, however. Shouldn't it be attached to the Sports section rather than to Private flying (which makes no reference to gliding)? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 22:00, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. As a side note, it was not attached to Private Flying either. The selection and placement of images for this article proved awkward. As my starting point I wanted to illustrate as much as possible all the main types of aircraft and activities covered in the article, but the sections that deal with this info can sometimes barely hold a single picture, let alone the many that are required. The other difficulty is that images should not be placed directly under level 3 sub-headings. My solution is to place images at the beginning of the larger sections so that they stack right aligned throughout that section (this is the case for the Activities and Regulation sections). Where these images appear in relation to the sub-sections is purely a function of the viewer's screen resolution. Having said that, the Sports sub-section is (just about) big enough to accommodate two images, so the gliding comp and aerobatic aircraft images are now attached to that section. --FactotEm (talk) 08:37, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The position of the images now looks fine on my screen. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:28, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
BTW I too, like one of the contributors to the peer review, feel a little unhappy with the section title Scale: it's not obvious from the ToC what it refers to (though that becomes clear enough when you get to the section itself). Would Scale of operations be better? Be that as it may, there still seems to be some overlap between Scale and Aerodromes (eg the number of aerodromes/airfields). Anyway, just how many aerodromes did GASAR identify?! You do point out, however, that "[t]he number of aerodromes that support GA in the UK is difficult to establish with certainty," which is fair enough.
You might like to mention that there are some 85 gliding sites in the UK. The majority of these operate from gliding-only airfields, though some do share facilities with other GA activities. There's a useful clickable map of these sites on the BGA website. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 11:04, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK. "Scale" seemed a perfectly adequate title, but I'm outnumbered now, and the ToC comment is a fair point. Changed to "Scale of the sector".
  • Subtle distinctions. The number of aerodromes analysed by the GASAR study is given in the Aerodromes section, and the purpose of this section is to characterise the nature of aerodromes used by GA. The number of aerodromes identified by the GASAR study is given in the Scale section, the purpose of which is to describe the size of the sector. I can't see any overlap.
  • I'm not sure about mentioning the number of gliding sites. Notwithstanding the suitability of a clickable map as a source for this figure, the article is a general overview of GA. With the exception of an additional footnote in ref#52 (intended more to explain the GASAR study than to identify the number of aerodromes in any particular segment) the usage of aerodromes is characterised rather than specified. --FactotEm (talk) 13:13, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fine: it's your call. Ref 52 does however say Of the 687 aerodromes, 113 were used for glider, microlight, balloon and parascending operations which were nowhere described in detail, and could not therefore be included in the classification analysis ...—& my point is simply that roughly 85 of them are described (in detail) as gliding sites on the BGA website. But I certainly take your point that this article is about GA rather than gliding! --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 14:10, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Am I right in thinking that this is not an issue that affects your support for this FAC? If so, I would like to take this to the article talk page rather than clutter the FAC discussion with what is, for the purposes of the FAC, irrelevant detail. If this issue does affect your support, we can continue the discussion here. --FactotEm (talk) 21:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[outdent]Sorry, I must have got carried away. You're right, this isn't really an issue for the FAC. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 22:46, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Responded over at article talk --FactotEm (talk) 12:18, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[Just to be clear, since FactotEm asked,] the concerns mentioned in the above comment seem to have been addressed, although I've asked NigelG to make the source and permissions of the Stephen Cook photo more clear on the image description page.--ragesoss (talk) 18:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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