Talk:Boeing RC-135 Air Seeker

Merger proposal
Since the RAF's Rivet Joint aircraft will be essentially the same as the USAF's RC-135V/Ws, and only 3 airframes are involved, I suggest it would be better if this article was merged into the Boeing RC-135 article. Letdorf (talk) 21:52, 22 January 2011 (UTC).
 * Agreed, merge. Kelly  hi! 22:03, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Support - per nom. - BilCat (talk) 22:25, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Support - per nom, not really enough material for an aircraft that is not in service yet and at the moment has no big differences from the USAF variants. MilborneOne (talk) 23:09, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Support - per nom, and noting that both USAF and RAF E-3s are covered in the same article despite minor spec differences. Simon Brady (talk) 08:25, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Strong disagree I started this page, because the aircraft will be different so warrant separate pages - I could cite the F111 and F111C, there being a separate page for the Australian (C) variant. Bear in mind that the page has only been active for two days - when the aircraft come in to service all the information would form a huge bloat in the section of the RC-135 article, so would be more appropriate in a separate article. To merge the articles now, only to split them again once more information on the aircraft is available, would seem a bit pointless - and a bit of a waste of my time as a lot of work went in to the page!ANHL (talk) 12:28, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I can sympathise with the frustration, having also worked hard on article splits only to see them re-merged, but I've yet to see any sources that confirm the Air Seeker will be different enough to justify its own article (bearing in mind that the RC-135 article already covers multiple variants and has in fact absorbed more specific articles in the past). Obviously there will be some differences in fit-out and maybe mission systems, just like with the E-3, but this ref says the Air Seeker will be "converted to the RC-135W standard" - that's different from the F-111C which was a unique variant. In the absence of more info, it seems a separate section in the main article is more appropriate for now (something more detailed than what we had under Future Operators, anyway). Simon Brady (talk) 02:18, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Alright. A separate section in the main article may be more appropriate, in fact there are many other precients for this.
 * I therefore change my vote to Support.
 * I think we have reached a consensus then!
 * The article is to be merged in to a section of the RC135 article.
 * As I started the article and did much of the work on it then I would like to do the merging work. I am a bit busy at present but should have it done within a few days. No counter edits for a while, please, so I can make a nice tidy merge.ANHL (talk) 22:33, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Remember that if anybody else other than you has edited the text then remember that a cut and paste is not appropriate without acknowledgement of the source. MilborneOne (talk) 22:58, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Err...what? If its on a page of Wikipedia then I can copy it to another page freely, that's what the GNU free license is. Are you saying that I would have to add something like 'Source: Bloggs159, Wikipedia, Jan 2011"! Nope, I can copy anything on Wikipedia freely, that's in fact one of the basic principles of Wikipeida!ANHL (talk) 08:12, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You cant just copy text from one page to another without attributing the source, whats happens is that you paste it on a new page and the history of who created it is lost. You just need to say where it came from and in some case with big chunks we have tags to add to each article. So really not a basic principle of wikipedia. MilborneOne (talk) 12:40, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Just for info refer to MERGE which give examples of how to attribute the original source. In most cases it can be just in the edit summaries but for big chunks the Template:Copied should be used. MilborneOne (talk) 12:47, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Airframe age
We seem to have a thing about the age of the airframes which I have removed, the KC-135s being older airframes appears to be commented on as some sort negative point of view. The importantance is how long the airframes will last and the fact that they have the latest USAF systems. They were originally happy to fly the Nimrod R1s until 2025 so age wasnt a big issue either. The important factors in the choice of the RC-135 was the escalating costs of Project Helix and the withdrawl of the MR2. The removal of the other Nimrods from the fleet would increase the maintenance costs of the three aircraft and is a factor but the complete Nimrod (MRA4) withdrawl was actually decided after the RC-135 path was choosen. MilborneOne (talk) 23:36, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Merger
As of 29.1.11, this page has been merged with Boeing RC-135. ANHL (talk) 13:28, 29 January 2011 (UTC)