Talk:De Havilland DH.88 Comet/Archive 1

Wood in aircraft
I've added Ref. 5 If this is not in Wikipedia preferred format any expert editor may alter it. Dendrotek 15:16, 2 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dendrotek (talk • contribs)

Wing construction - all wood not unusual in 1934
In the second para of Design & Construction we read: "Unusually for such a highly-stressed design the wings were all-wood." I wonder how many examples there are of non-wood wing construction in the early 1930's? Even if the inference is that wings that were NOT "highly stressed" were commonly all-wood?Dendrotek 21:47, 1 November 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dendrotek (talk • contribs)
 * As you have noticed, the key point here is that the wings were highly stressed in comparison to the (huge number of) other wooden designs. There was a general realisation that a very fast aircraft would require a thin cantilever monoplane wing, and that meant very high stressing of the wing - a level so high that it had never yet been achieved using wood and most in the industry believed to be unattainable without using metal. Other contemporary high-speed wings used metal extensively or exclusively. de Havilland realised that certain novel artificial adhesives had the potential to take wood beyond its then existing limits and when he achieved this, it caught the industry by surprise. The only reference I have in my own possession is the brief mention by Winter, hence the far-too-brief discussion in the article. I'll try and make it a bit clearer. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 22:42, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Replicas
Additional information : Also at Derby Airfield Ken Fern is building DH88 Comet Replica G-RCSR celebrating G-ACSR (The Green Comet)link to his site is www.kenfern.co.uk. The registration was chosen to be as close to the original as it is a replica not a rebuild. Glidewatch (talk) 16:09, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Additional Comets
The statement that both French Comets were destroyed together at Istres is incorrect? The source of this statement is usually, in which he (Badre) reports this. However Phillipe Ricco interviewed him and from looking at logbooks and CEMA records he found that Mr Badre had only flown F-ANPZ from Villacoublay to Istre on 22/1/1937. From other sources he found that F-ANPY was flown to Etampes by Mr Viguier on 6/5/1938, where the occupying germans eventually took a picture showing F-ANPY in very poor condition picture. He (PhR) is confident that the evidence is definitive. In this state F-ANPY may well have been scrapped as not being in a state for evaluation. Other photographs taken at Etampes show it in better condition, conjecture previously, but in the same place at the back of the hanger with flat tyres. Etampes was bombed by Ju88 in Operation Paula on 3rd June 1940. Glidewatch (talk) 14:53, 1 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Now updated per Ricco. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:28, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Wooden aircraft
In the "legacy" paragraph The line beginning "The DH.88 might have been the only wooden British high-performance monoplane...." Gives the impression that only the DH88 and Mosquito could be considered British wooden "high performance"(whatever that means) aircraft. This seems to ignore the Heston Racer, DH93 Don, DH 91 Albatross, Airspeed Oxford and the Various Miles and Percival designs. The article implies that the Mosquito was the next design evolution from the DH88 Comet, when in fact it resulted from requests to design a bomber version of the later DH 91 Albatross airliner (see "Royal Air Force Bomber Command and it's Aircraft 1941-1945" by James Goulding and Philip Moyes).82.70.80.249 (talk) 12:09, 22 May 2015 (UTC)JD

List of records
Most of the Comets took multiple records. Just listing those of 'CSS is inappropriate. I have moved the list here until it can be expanded to something sensible. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:37, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
 * more much-needed work on this article...I'm ashamed to say I gave up on expanding the section on the Macpherson race.TheLongTone (talk) 15:15, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I have added a bit more. Not sure where encyclopedic stops and trivia creep in, we don't want to cover everything that Ogilvy's book does. For example is every bout of low oil pressure, cute anecdote and stopover point that significant? I am inclined to say no, no and yes respectively. What about the England-Australia phone conversation with Halford, the engine designer, who rang through when he saw a newspaper headline that Grosvenor House had engine trouble at Darwin and talked the resolution through? &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:45, 16 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Exactly, I think that is what stopped my progress. I think the Halford anecdote is probably worth including.TheLongTone (talk) 15:48, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

B.Ae Systems an unreliable source
The BAe Systems web page on the DH88 Comet, http://www.baesystems.com/en/heritage/de-havilland-dh88-comet#, has rather obviously been copying some of its facts from this article and so we cannot use it as a reliable source. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:50, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Okay. The alleged plagiarism certainly wasn't obvious to me, but I guess I'll take your word for it. Not sure how 'unreliable' equates to 'most of that is rubbish' either. Kyteto (talk) 19:13, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The £50,000 was the estimated overall cost of development and manufacture of the three race machines. Afterwards DH said it had cost around £10,000 per machine. G-ACSS was indeed requisitioned at the outbreak of war but was never used and was presently passed on to de Havilland, the event is not noteworthy enough to go in the lead, especially as the French and Portuguese governments did fly their Comets but are not mentioned in the lead either. There was a third, auxiliary fuel tank behind the cockpit. The Croydon-Le Bourget flight was F-ANPY's delivery flight prior to modification in France before entering service. The mail compartment was not unique to F-ANPZ, its sister plane F-ANPY had one as well. I don't know how many of those mistakes come from the BAe web page or how many are your own, but I trust that you can now see what I mean. FYI the reason I spotted the plagiarism was because I recognised some of my own Wikipedia edits appearing there. Also, tag-bombing with endless cites of the same source is unnecessary. Ogilvy gives most if not all of the information you tagged (and more accurately) and is already cited in the bibliography, so only contentious facts need to be individually cited. There's a policy or guideline about that somewhere. Sorry, such a mass of errors does equate to "rubbish" in my book. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 21:02, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

A Few Things
Ref : BAeS source and plagiarism - probably needs a mea culpa from me, as I prompted some changes to them and will do some more when next there. Yes this illustrates the circularity of web sources. This current page is vastly improved on previous and controls / defines some of the more wild rumours about DH88 Comets that are used on other sites but many of those are not updated so these rumours return e.g that the New Zealand replica at Croydon is a) original - untrue b) Contains some parts of the two French Comets - also untrue.

Suggested correction : ref G-ACSR pilots : Originally Rubin and Ken Waller were the piloting crew (they even flew the route previously together) but Rubin's illness meant he was replaced by Cathcart-Jones (Source CJs book), Waller was already in, not recruited, very petty note!!

Thanks and Best Wishes Glidewatch (talk) 10:13, 12 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I have corrected the slip about Ken Waller. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:37, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Comet Inn (Comet Hotel)
Is it worth adding somewhere that the Comet Inn (also called the Comet Hotel, and currently the Ramada Inn) in Hatfield (Hertfordshire UK) was named after the DH.88 (and not the Comet airliner as sometimes stated). The Comet Pillar outside the building (carved by Eric Kennington) has a model of the plane on top of it (and the model is clearly of the DH.88 and not the airliner). I haven’t found many good references for this. The best so far is “The Face of Courage” by Jonathan Black, at page 18, see https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UeoyygujmVwC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=Hatfield+comet+inn+history&source=bl&ots=S_VCXecIrZ&sig=OQve3tkqf-LKsl1h3iKm0p1SPsY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjPqfSywtzYAhXBOhQKHRlfBSo4FBDoAQg1MAQ#v=onepage&q=Hatfield%20comet%20inn%20history&f=false.

--51.52.8.222 (talk) 13:06, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, because that's the one that's contemporaneous with the aircraft. There are several others since which aren't significant. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:39, 16 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Another photo and brief caption may be found in J.M. Ramsden; "Comet G-ACSS Reborn", Aeroplane Monthly, August 1982, p.412: "The Comet pub, just outside Hatfield aerodrome, with its famous model of Comet G-ACSS". Note the adjective "famous" describing the model. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:11, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

I have now added it to the popular culture section, as it is more a model than a replica. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:14, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

The French Comets Destruction
Now that there is more evidence (cite : Facebook Comet Racer Project) of the two Comets at Etampse, photograph showing them side by side in striped condition, is it not time to conclusively record that both F-ANPY and F-ANPZ were last seen at Etampes in at least terrible condition? Glidewatch (talk) 13:51, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The image concerned has not been published anywhere beyond the low-resolution copy by the Facebook group. Is such user generated content on Facebook reliable? Was the key information endorsed by a verifiable expert? (Disclaimer: I am a member of the Group concerned) &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:36, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

The Hatfield Galleria Model at Sywell
In constant pursuit of Rumour Control, is the recording possible, for example in the replicas section, of the 7/8th Plastic / Fibreglass model of G-ACSS that was constructed to hang in the Hatfield Galleria Mall and is now at Sywell Aerodrome with published plans for restoration as a replica in the colours of "The Burberry". Source : http://www.sywellaerodrome.co.uk/burberry-racer.php  Glidewatch (talk) 14:01, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The Sywell model was never and will never be airworthy, perhaps it could get a mention in the popular culture section. It should probably also be mentioned in the Hatfield Galleria article. A photo would be nice too. I have no suitable sources/free images to hand, I don't know if anybody else might have? &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:43, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Comets In popular culture section
"Grosvenor House and Black Magic, together with their crews, feature prominently in the 1990 TV two-part dramatisation Half a World Away made in Australia and also sold as The Great Air Race." Bit clumsy, sound like the original aircraft and their crews survived this long to take part! But also a chance to mention the two working for taxying aircraft built for this film and that one model pf G-ACSS Grosvenor House" was acquired by Ralph Steiner at the DH Museum at Sutton Colney where they are restoring it in the colours of G-ACSP "Black Magic". All info from Comet Racer Project Facebook. Glidewatch (talk) 14:09, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The only other sources for this information are self-published and related hearsay. The reliability of the Group's discussions is the key issue for verification, as mentioned in the French Comets thread above. As a member of the Group, I cannot possibly endorse it myself. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 15:48, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Proposed changes of July 2019
As per the recommendation of User:Dolphin51, I present the following ten (in my opinion) improvements:

1. The Specifications section had zero citations after it had been remodelled. I have replaced the three citations traditionally used in the References section, so that readers and editors alike have a clue where any of this information is meant to be coming from.

2. I have restored a mention in the lead of who built the aircraft. Not sure why the mentioning of what organisation designed and built it was controversial; pretty much every aviation article does mention this in their leads. Users shouldn't have to fish through the body of the article or infoboxes to work this out, the lead is meant to stand on its own, and not explicitly saying something so fundamental is unusual, unradical - I could link over 100 articles where this exact expression is made e.g. McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon, Avro Lancaster.

3. Merging of duplicate citations for "Ogilvy 1988" (without page number stated), and tagging for lack of page number. I would normally expect in a book with hundreds (or in the case of Flight issues sometimes going into thousands) of pages, the specific pages should be given. Fact-checking editors shouldn't be expected to spend hours or days (not counting delivery time/procurement issues of out-of-print material) because citing editors lacked the effort to spend a single second to type the four characters needed to cite the page of the information.

4. Adding Citation needed tags to the Operational History section. There are as many as seven consecutive paragraphs (or around 35 sentences) without any shred of sourcing for where any of this is meant to be coming from. It's hardly asking for a case of WP:Overcite to wonder where any of this is meant to be sourced to, and how readers are supposed to validate almost any of this history.

5. Adding citations back to the entirely uncited paragraph beginning "The fuselage was built principally from plywood over spruce". Surely an uncited large block of text should have some (or any) citation to justify itself? After all, the only reason this article is C class rather than B is due to a lack of citation according to the info box, and I'd dare presume that's due to a helping of uncited large paragraphs.

6. Readding of citation to the historically tagged-as-uncited paragraph beginning "The resulting design had a low, tapered..." If this didn't need citation, why has it been tagged as such for two years? Normally, I'd assume this to be as uncontroversial as they come, I'm sure an alternative view can be produced with enough detirmination however.

7. Readdition of reverted sentence: The exterior skin was treated via a time-consuming and repetitive process of painting and rubbing down to produce a highly smooth surface to reduce air friction and increase overall speed" I feel that, as a fairly unusual process (especially for an aircraft that was essentially rushed into the air to meet an unmovable deadline), the design attention given here warrents mention, and seems less obscure/random that some design information that has been included for a long time e.g. the number of turns of a wheel needed to fully retract the undercarriage. We are talking about a low friction, high speed, efficient racing aircraft, and this was one of the measures exercised directly to achieve this.

Stopping here due to bad faith accusation of not following procedure. Kyteto (talk) 17:46, 4 July 2019 (UTC)


 * First, Dolphin51 said to post here first, BEFORE making your edits to the article. Please take heed of what they actually said, thanks.
 * 1. Thank you for restoring the bit that I missed.
 * 2. See below, which I had already posted above here. I have now moved it below and pointed it out to you so that I hope you can respond to it.
 * 3.-6. You are turning this into a WP:TAGBOMB (tag-bombing) exercise. Facts only need inline citations where they are contentious. That does not apply to the stuff here. Some improvements may be needed, but not this mass descent.
 * 7. Too wordy. I will trim it back. Also, as I said elsewhere, the NACA piece is a ripoff of a UK publication which has better-quality illustrations, is also readily available on the Internet, and is now cited in the article. The ripoff aspect might also suggest a copyright violation, so you would need to check that before citing the NACA source. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:13, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
 * To be precise, the NACA reference is an attributed copy of two contemporary magazine articles, the Flight one and an article in the Aeroplane which was used for the specifications in the cited article.Nigel Ish (talk) 10:01, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Unit cost
While de Havilland charged his three race customers $5,000 each, he is on record as saying that the manufacturing cost was nearer £10,000. When he built a fourth machine for the French and a fifth for another buyer, that was what he charged them. Which number should we use for the "Unit cost" in the infobox? I would argue that he gave his race customers a 50% discount and that we should use the full price of £10,000. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk)


 * I understand the £5,000 was a "nominal" sum and does not actually reflect the sale price at the time, if £10,000 is reliably sourced then we can use that. MilborneOne (talk) 18:19, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Repeating the manufacturer's name
There is a clue in the name of the aircraft, the "de Havilland DH.88 Comet". I feel it is absurd to repeat the name of the manufacturer in the lead just for the sake of it. Another editor insists on it. Can we build a consensus about that? &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:05, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
 * According to WikiProject Aircraft/page content, the introduction should repeat the aircraft's manufacturer. - ZLEA  T \ C 18:02, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Yikes! I stand corrected. Thank you. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:14, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Potential sources
Tried to find a source for "71 hours 18 seconds", found Flight 1937. It doesn't cover the rest of that paragraph though; a source that covered more of that would be ideal. Kyteto (talk) 23:22, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Got a lock on Portugal's sole Comet here: Janes 1984 Also, first few pages of this cover a fair bit of the race: Mosquito 1977 Kyteto (talk) 23:36, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

I believe I have found the vague source (simply indicated as Light Aircraft as the publisher) for Black Magic's rediscovery - I believe this ought to be linked somewhere in the article to ease verification and to provide information not present in other sources. Kyteto (talk) 10:26, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Possible source for Croydon Aircraft Company's replica - "Croydon Stuff". Also, possible source for Replica N88XD - "Spruce aircraft". Both presently uncited. Kyteto (talk) 12:20, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Removing trite and superfluous phrases and words is perfectly justified
Example: "as well as" when "and" is the appropriate conjunction. Example: "multiple" when these are preferable: "many", "numerous", or when replaced by the specific number. If you want to read trash, open the pages of any American newspaper. Articles here should adhere to a higher standard. Autodidact1 (talk) 07:26, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
 * It is not justified when it changes the meaning of the sentence, consequently nor were the words removed superfluous, you are quite wrong there. Thank you for judging my edits as "trash" and "trite" but sadly (or perhaps fortunately) I have never had the pleasure of reading an American newspaper, so I wouldn't know what they regard as such over there - this is a UK-locale page and I write according to my native tongue. Please observe the policies on civility and assuming good faith from now on, and stop your edit war immediately - you are right on the edge of the three-revert rule. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 08:00, 23 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Actually, those words are aimed at me. He wrote the above about twelve minutes before you reverted him. I wasn't careful of 3RR on Flap (aeronautics). However, I do agree that the phrases didn't need to changed, and appreciate the support. - BilCat (talk) 08:11, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Pretty sure it was my writing not yours, but now I know is into aviation topics I will keep an eye out on my watchlisted articles at least; their talk page shows a history of such combative pedantry and some sanctions. The silly thing is, there are far worse examples of pompous superfluity in this article that really do need ironing out, I just did a few but there are more. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:02, 23 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Ah, you meant the original wording? As I was the one who was reverting him, and given his reverts in several articles, most of his barbs were aimed at me. If you meant that you were the original author of the section, then yes, they would also apply to you. As an American with some Commonwealth education in my formative years, my style isn't exclusively American, but I don't think your original word choices here are unique to British English. I certainly didn't revert them on that basis. I hope that clarifies my comments. - BilCat (talk) 09:30, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Indeed, no problem there. Thank you for catching all this before more damage was done. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:46, 23 June 2020 (UTC)