Talk:1940 Brocklesby mid-air collision

Title
Should this have the "1940"? It is not necessary for disambiguation.--Grahame (talk) 01:10, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Heh, I agree it isn't required for dab purposes -- it's my first air accident article from scratch and it looked like including the year might be a standard but, if not, I have no problem with losing it. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:49, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not particularly worried.--Grahame (talk) 07:44, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Telekinetic pilot?
How could the pilot of the upper Anson have controlled the engines of the lower Anson from the upper Anson? Sounds like a hoax to me. --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 21:43, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't believe it says he controlled the engines of the lower aircraft; it says that with the engines of the lower aircraft still running, couple with the control surfaces of his own (upper) aircraft, he was able to fly the interlocked planes. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:52, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but once the pair of planes is on the ground, and the engines of the lower plane roaring at cruise speed (or higher, probably), how would they be throttled down or turned off? Also, what's a "tailplane"? Terry Thorgaard (talk) 16:59, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * , It appears from the photo that the landing gear of the lower aircraft was crushed on landing. The propellers would have hit the ground. From Image:WhenAnsonLandsOnAnson1940.jpg it appears the tips of the propellers snapped off and it's likely the engine was still running. In that case, the pilot of the upper aircraft likely climbed into the lower aircraft and shut down the engines.


 * I too wondered what a "tailplane" was. The term is not listed an 1942 aviation dictionary that I have which also includes slang used by the American and British flying forces. That dictionary's definition for "tail" uses the wording ".. a group of stabilizing planes, or fins, to which are attached certain controlling surfaces such as elevators and rudders".  I usually call them the horizontal stabilizers and vertical stabilizers and had to laugh when I saw that "horizontal stabilizer" redirects to tailplane.  FWIW, neither horizontal stabilizer nor vertical stabilizer are listed in the dictionary. I've started a talk discussion on the tailplane page as it's a UK term. --Marc Kupper&#124;talk 17:52, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * “Tailplane” distinguishes the little wings at the back from the “mainplane”, the big wings. That said, don’t know how I failed to link it when I linked flaps and ailerons – tks for taking care of it. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:55, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

a/an historic marker
Is it because "a historic marker" tends to imply "a marker indicating an historically notable place or event" while "an historic marker" tends to imply "a marker which is, itself, historically notable"? But if it's the latter, doesn't any application of "historic" to a marker, without further elucidation, imply that the maker itself is notable, history-wise? Some other word or phrase might be called for. On the other hand, "historic marker" is idiomatic and most everyone understands what is meant. Herostratus (talk) 20:48, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi Hero, you're replying to my edit summary? No, they mean the same thing. I'm currently working on copyediting software, and the advice on word usage falls into two piles: things that pretty much everyone agrees on (after they read up a bit), and things that some writers really want to know and others don't care about. This one is in the second batch; so far, I've only seen one South African writer and Ian use "an historical" on Wikipedia, and commenters on usage for the last 200 years have almost universally recommended against it (because it suggests that you're dropping the "h" sound, which ... sadly ... makes some readers assume things about your class or education). But Garner's admits that this usage is "widespread" in the journalistic corpus he uses, so I would never put this in a list of "mistakes" (such as the list at WP:RETF) ... but if writers are interested in knowing the opinions of copyeditors, we generally recommend against it (in all flavors of English). - Dank (push to talk) 21:44, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh, OK. Well, you should stop doing that I guess, since "an historical..." is both common and correct. Certainly in America; you may be from one of the more minor English-speaking countries, and I can't speak for them. It's not a class or education issue, at all, and has nothing do with dropping aitches but rather the way sounds are formed in the mouth. In America at least "a" is generally pronounced more or less "ah" rather than "ay" as may be found elsewhere, thus making "a historical..." ("ah hi..") physically awkward (the technical terms for this -- unvoiced subglottal fricatives or whatever it is -- are above my pay grade, but you can look it up). Since that's how people talk, that's how it's written -- commonly.


 * Commonly, I say; not universally, or even (as far as I know) most often; but often enough to be common. Since it's common, it's not "wrong" but just a matter of personal preference. Since it's personal preference, it's not recommended to substitute yours for a previous editors, since that's sterile roiling of the text to no objective gain, and let's not do that, and I've restored the previous version on that basis. Herostratus (talk) 02:37, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

FAC blurb is longer than article lead
I noticed that the FAC blurb is longer than the article lead itself (181 words versus 120 words). Normally the FAC blurb is shorter than the lead; what do you think about replacing the current introduction with the more descriptive FAC blurb? AmericanLemming (talk) 00:46, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The FAC blurb does well as a standalone summary of the article. Really, either quote works well to summarize the article. But the FAC blurb seems too detailed for the article's lead section. MOS:BEGIN says "The first paragraph should define the topic with a neutral point of view, but without being overly specific." The article lead should not give all the details that are in the FAC blurb, not with the more detailed coverage of the collision in the main text. NealCruco (talk) 02:57, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with Neal. FAC blurbs need to be of a certain length to occupy the space allocated for them on the main page, and so sometimes end up longer than the lead of the article. In general it's best to keep the length of the lead of articles to a short summary, and not go into more detail than is needed to provide readers with an overview of the topic. Nick-D (talk) 11:36, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict with Nick-D) Perhaps a word from the person who writes most of the TFA blurbs would be helpful. The TFA blurb is always a Procrustian solution since it works to a target of 1,200 characters to ensure regularity of size of blurb to help with balance between the left- and right-hand sides of the main page every day. Leads that are longer than this get chopped down, leads that are shorter get expanded. The arbitrary character count requirements of the TFA blurb should not dictate the contents of the lead of an article. BencherliteTalk 11:39, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Control with second aircraft's engines
"The pilot of the upper Anson found that he was able to control the interlocked aircraft with... the still-functioning engines on the machine underneath."

Having been raised on this page in 2011, it's remarkable that this nonsensical claim is on the main page today. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:13, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure why you omitted the part of the sentence which connects these facts? "The pilot of the upper Anson found that he was able to control the interlocked aircraft with his ailerons and flaps, together with the still-functioning engines on the machine underneath" seems sensible to me - the pilot used the controls of his aircraft to steer, and the engines of the other aircraft powered the two aircraft along. There's scope to clarify the wording (perhaps "The pilot of the upper Anson found that he was able to control the interlocked aircraft with his ailerons and flaps, with the still-functioning engines on the machine underneath providing propulsion" or similar?), but it's not "nonsensical" IMO. what do you think? Nick-D (talk) 11:25, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I think that two people in the space of two years have forgotten that in English, "aircraft" is plural as well as singular. I mean we could say the "pair of aircraft", or "the combination" was being controlled, but we've already established the two were locked together so it seems superfluous to me. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:33, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * It's true that the original wording was comprehensible once you thought about it and understood what it meant, but it still sounded odd, and it threw me off at first. So I took the trouble to reword it to remove the ambiguity. In so doing I realized that the original statement never explained that the upper aircraft's engines had stopped, so I pointed that out. --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 13:32, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Fair point about clarifying that one Anson's engines stopped, I just re-tweaked a bit. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:54, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Definitely an improvement. Thanks. :) --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 15:35, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Well done
Rather brilliant FA, well done involved editors! Best wishes 77.96.249.228 (talk) 21:25, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Collision and emergency landing question
Shouldn't the last sentence of the paragraph, "Well, sir, I did everything we've been told to do in a forced landing—land as close as possible to habitation or a farmhouse and, if possible, land into the wind. I did all that. There's the farmhouse, and I did a couple of circuits and landed into the wind. She was pretty heavy on the controls, though!" be in quotation marks? Ward20 (talk) 21:57, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * From memory the quote marks are discouraged these days. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:12, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Ward20 (talk) 23:18, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

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Clarify "pancake landing"
As above. 178.16.15.40 (talk) 14:10, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No need to. It is already linked in mainspace to Belly landing which is simply another term for it. Irondome (talk) 14:40, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Tks Irondome, I was about to respond that I don't think "pancake landing" is a particularly obscure or hard-to-understand term, and that it's linked anyway. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:42, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * That's not an argument against changing it to something else that could be clearer, though, is it? It's just you asserting that, subjectively, you yourself don't see a problem. 178.16.15.40 (talk) 16:44, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * In fact, if you would, would you mind specifying any reasons you see pancake landing as better. 178.16.15.40 (talk) 16:47, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * See below. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:40, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Presumably then it could simply be changed to use the term belly landing with absolutely no other change in as far as you you can see then? 178.16.15.40 (talk) 16:43, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:ENGVAR comes into it. Pancake landing was a widely used term in the R.A.F, R.A.A.F and other Commonwealth air forces. Belly landing was the U.S.A.A.F preferred term. I think Pancake landing in this subject context would be the preferred term here. Irondome (talk) 17:36, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Fully agree, I mentioned "pancake" being the preferred Commonwealth term in my edit summary when the term was first changed in the article prior to this discussion. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:40, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

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