Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul R. Hill


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete, as follows:
 * This is a person, but not a live one, so the guideline in question is Notability (as opposed to the more restrictive Biographies of living persons policy).
 * Thus we're looking for evidence that the subject of this article has been covered "to a significant degree by independent sources."
 * Unpacking the general notability guide...
 * As indicated, he's a person, so we go down a level to Notability (people)...
 * Then one more level to Notability (academics)

Working back up from the bottom and looking at the point-by-point on "academics"...
 * As noted by several of the commentators, the evidence that he's "made significant impact" varies, and it does not appear that the participants in this debate are convinced enough to decalre consensus on that issue.
 * None of the other criteria were raised.

As such, the rough consens to delete appears to be in line with policy.

With respect to the information provided by User:Dr Fil... Aaron Brenneman (talk) 23:23, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Firstly, as noted, the material is presented in a manner that makes it very difficult to get to the heart of. Of the 4,700 total words int his debate, 3,700 were by this single user.  While I do understand the passion, please try to be somewhat more concise in the future.
 * The presence of multiple other articles that (allegedly) have lower bars to inclusion, the remedy there is to either A) go to the pages were the inclusion criteria are set (as linked above) and get them loosened or B) nominate those articles for deletion. These deletion debates are purposefully inconsistant in this regard, and do not in any way go by the least common denonimator.

Paul R. Hill

 * – ( View AfD View log )

A punt from FTN. People trying to find independent, third-party, reliable sources for this biography have been unsuccessful. This would seem to indicate the guy fails WP:BIO. jps (talk) 17:04, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete No independent secondary sources found to establish this individual's notability or verify the highly detailed work history given. He may have a following within UFO subculture but nothing found that might satisfy WP:PROF.- LuckyLouie (talk) 22:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Retain What do you mean "no independent secondary sources"? Which "people"? It seems to me some "people" like LuckyLouie aren't trying very hard to find anything and instead are deliberately trying to write this man out of aviation history simply because they don't like some of his views expressed in his book on UFOs. Here are many links to Hill's extensive work for NASA/NACA from the NASA history web site:    EXAMPLES:  This NASA web page shows Hill being born 1909, starting employment with NACA in 1939, and continuing through NASA days.   Another one with Hill's contribution to NACA's 1950s Project HYWARDS (hypersonic weapons R&D) "As the work progressed, a number of other specialists were added, notably: Paul Hill, configuration and propulsion..." Here's a book on the history of NASA Langley Research Center mentioning several of Hill's research positions. EXAMPLE (p. 233) "The Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous Concept:  Paul R. Hill of the Aero- Space Mechanics Division was in charge of a committee on propulsion, flight testing, and dynamic loads." (p. 274) "The First Space Station Task Force: (Photo caption) Two key members of Langley's early space station research were Paul R. Hill (left) and Robert Osborne (right)."  Here's another one with a little bit of history on Hill's contribution to the flying platform and early thrust vector research along with another aviation pioneer, Charles Zimmerman:    And that was with a very brief search.  "LuckyLouie" is also guilty of deleting the ENTIRE article on Hill except for the opening sentence, then the article was quickly marked for deletion.  Strikes me as dirty pool.  How is a reader supposed to judge the value of an article when you delete 99% of it?  Hill was indeed a pioneer in aviation`and deserves an article.Dr Fil (talk) 00:58, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the links. Do you have some additional verification to justify that Hill's was a "lifetime spent on the cutting edge of research and development", he was thought to be "pioneering", and that his career and views were the subject of serious, in depth coverage by mainstream sources? I'm asking because, in the links you gave, I only see Hills name mentioned in passing among literally dozens of other, equally obscure employees. Also the article seems to be functioning as somewhat of a coatrack for Hill's views on UFOs, which weren't given much attention at all by mainstream reviewers, and as a result would not warrant any degree of coverage here. - LuckyLouie (talk) 03:44, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems that Hill's views on UFOs were your "coatrack" or rationale for wholesale deletion of the article, something for which you have never provided a decent reason for, other than it personally rubbed you the wrong way, which is totally irrelevant. As for "mainstream sources", how about all the NASA/NACA publications of Hill's? I will continue to look for others (though I doubt you will ever consider them adequate--the moving goalpost thing).  For some of his pioneering research, maybe you should have read the article first before deleting it.  From the article, here were some of his major R&D contributions in the field:
 * ==Sample personal research involvement==
 * P-47 aerodynamic design: Early in World War II, personally did aerodynamic prototype design and wind tunnel testing of P-47 Thunderbolt fighter and long-range bomber escort plane.
 * Ram-Jet design: Wrote first published NACA report on supersonic Ram-Jet engine theory.  Subsequently set up and supervised ram-jet research and flight programs at NACA’s research facility at Wallops Island.
 * Wind tunnel design: Complete design responsibility for first supersonic wind tunnel in the United States operating at Mach 2 at full supersonic temperature.  Design responsibility of NACA’s Flutter Research Tunnel, the first tunnel to use denser freon gas rather than air and in which high heat generated had to be removed by refrigeration.
 * Flying platform research: First kinesthetically-controlled “flying platform” research program, 1950-1953.  Eventually led to the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) design.  (Hill also applied research to analysis of UFO dynamical performance, such as observed wobble and falling-leaf motion.)
 * Spherical solid-fuel motors: Initiation of research on spherical solid fuel motors.
 * Space station technology: Initiation of space station  research in the 1960s in inflatable and other self-erecting space structures, regenerative life-supports systems, closed environmental chambers for life-support systems tests, laboratory for study of direct gyroscopic control.
 * Lunar low-gravity simulation: Invention along with David Thomas of lunar low-gravity simulation for lunar transport-flyer research; directed
 * Dr Fil (talk) 20:45, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I looked at each of our articles on those subjects, and I don't see Hill mentioned, which would be odd if he indeed played a notable role in their development. There are hundreds of aerospace engineers who worked on such programs who have equally diverse resumes, however that doesn't qualify them as particularly notable and deserving of their own Wikipedia article. Are there any mainstream publications or authors that have written works specifically devoted to Hill? A biography of his life or a review of his work? Perhaps there was an obituary published in a major newspaper or magazine? I'm just not seeing the sources that would indicate the high degree of notability you feel he possesses. - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:06, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Your reasons for deletion keep changing as the former ones get proven bogus. You were first questioning whether Hill was even a research aerospace engineer for NACA/NASA, and here under reasons for deletion claimed literally no independent, 3rd party references existed. Your latest argument seems to be that Wikipedia is allegedly the world's most comprehensive, accurate, and authoritative source of information.  If it isn't currently written up in Wikipedia, it just isn't worth mentioning. Of course, we all know that isn’t true.  Like any encyclopedia, it can’t go into great depth on much of the subject matter. Thus you are misleading the readers again with your argument that Hill isn’t notable or he would have been mentioned in the Wiki articles on the research he was involved in. The Wiki article on ramjets doesn't even include a section on development in the U.S.  It briefly mentions Naval research but not NACA research at the time, which Hill headed.  There is no article on the history of flying platforms.  Maybe that explains why Hill isn't mentioned.  The space station article doesn't discuss early research, which Hill headed at NACA on a rotating, inflatable space station.  The article on rotating wheel space stations is little more than a stub article, again not detailing research.  Articles on wind tunnels, supersonic wind tunnels, and hypersonic wind tunnels generally discuss principles and do NOT have comprehensive histories, particularly for later supersonic and hypersonic wind tunnels, which Hill was deeply involved in.  You won’t find a single name of one person involved with these listed in these Wiki articles.
 * Wiki basic guidelines on notability of academics, research scientists & engineers, etc. are that they are considered notable in their field, i.e., widely respected by colleagues, did pioneering research, were influential in their field, etc. It does NOT require that their work or life be written up in detail. The point here in the Wiki guidelines is that many people in research fields who do significant work are largely unknown outside of their fields and not rock stars who may be extensively written up. I am, however, trying to get Hill’s writeup in “Who’s Who in Technology”, but it will be several days before it can be retrieved from library storage.
 * Here is one recent example of where Hill is noted as being highly respected in his field of aerodynamics, in fact one of the leading experts of his day. (I have previously provided a reference where Edward J. Ruppelt of Project Blue Book referred to Hill as "a very famous aerodynamicist" and "high-ranking civilian scientist" for NACA.)  Hill is mentioned twice (pp. 31, 45-46) in Dr. Robert F. Brodsky’s 2006 memoir “On the Cutting Edge”, with Brodsky devoting about half a page to Hill’s contributions in his slim 200 page book.  Hill was on a specially-assembled advisory panel of “great men” aerodynamicist advising Sandia Labs physicist like Brodsky in the early 1950s why their atom bomb fin designs were breaking.  Besides Hill (“Chief of NACA’s Pilotless Aircraft Division”), the “great men” Brodsky names are  Jack Northrop (of course, founder of Northrop Aircraft), George Schairer (Chief of aerodynamics at Boeing), Ira H. Abbott (“a legendary engineer”), Ed Heinemann (Chief engineer Douglas Aircraft), Dr. Alex Charters (“a famous ballistician”), Al Sibilia (Vought aircraft chief of aerodynamics), Dr. Charles Poor (Chief Scientist Army’s Ballisic Research Laboratory), and “several other distinguished engineers”.  Of the group, it was Hill and Charters whom Brodsky labels the “heroes” who quickly figured out what was going wrong, though Brodsky says at the time they were ignored.  It wasn’t until a year later that the Sandia scientists realized they were right.  “Both experts were correct, but they were too far ahead of us technically.  This was not surprising, since they were the only ones present with ballistic-type experience.”  You’ll notice that of these other “great men”, only three have Wikipedia bios and four do NOT.  I myself had only heard of Northrop.  That doesn’t some how prove they weren’t “notable” in their fields, only that nobody has written about them on Wikipedia.  They were certainly considered very notable in their day, or they wouldn’t have been selected for this high-level advisory panel.  Brodsky makes this very clear. (Incidentally, Brodsky also doesn’t have a Wiki bio either, despite being considered another aerospace pioneer, including well-publicized research on a space station “lifeboat”.  You also won’t find that mentioned in the Wiki articles on space stations either, so obviously he too must not be “notable.”)
 * Others of comparable “notability” to Hill have bios on Wikipedia. One example is Charles H. Zimmerman.  He is primarily noted as performing the first flying platform research at Langley 1950-1953.   The research literally would never have gotten off the ground without Hill.  Hill championed the research, as noted in a national newspaper article I have already cited, in fact was in charge of it.  They co-authored NACA technical reports, which I have cited here. Hill was at least Zimmerman's coequal in that research.  If Zimmerman is "notable" for that alone, so is Hill.
 * Hill had a better or at least equal resumé and did at least as important or more important work than many listed and bio’ed over on List of aerospace engineers. (Like any similar Wikipedia list, it is hardly exhaustive.  Just because someone isn’t listed there doesn’t mean they aren’t somehow noteworthy.)  Just one example, check out Ron Ayers.  (This is no criticism of Ayers BTW.  Nor is he special.  I started with “A” and he was the first one with a similar bio to Hill’s.)  Like Hill, he was an early R&D aerodynamicist.  His main listed "notability" in the Wiki article was for “aerodynamics of the land speed record-holding vehicle, ThrustSSC.” Well, I guess that has some minor notability, but is it really that important in the history of aeronautical engineering, in contrast to say Hill’s ramjet or flying platform/LEM or inflatable space habitat work for Langley Research Labs?  Ayers also worked on design of a post-war British nuclear bomber, much like Hill designed the aerodynamics of the P-47 Thunderbolt.  In my judgment, the P-47 was the more important historically.   After the War, like Hill, Ayers worked in missile and aerodynamic research; like Hill headed up some departments. The total listed source material for this are two short bios on Ayers, one by himself, and an interview with Ayers on the ThrustSSC web page, thus basically self-sourced and NOT  independent, disinterested, source material.  Besides the lack of what constitutes proper Wiki “reliability” sourcing, what exactly makes Ayers more notable than his many colleagues who he worked with, or other department heads like himself?  Yet you are putting the exact same knocks on Hill as suitable justifications to delete the article.  In what way is Ron Ayers deserving of “notability” and a bio but not Hill?  Why isn’t there a similar push to delete Ayers?  I see a double standard at work here, and it is clearly related to the labeling here of Hill as a “crank” and “fringe” for daring to write a book analyzing possible UFO physics and engineering. Dr Fil (talk) 22:47, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep based on the outstanding research by Dr Fil which establishes Hill's notability. Just because he held some eccentric views on UFOs doesn't mean his long aerospace career wasn't notable. Cullen328 (talk) 01:59, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 02:25, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Paranormal-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 02:25, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 02:25, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 02:26, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep I believe the article satisfies notability for the subject. I would strongly suggest that section 5 Interest and Research in UFOs" be heavily edited for NPOV, if not removed entirely for its lack of reliable sources. If reliable sources -- something other than excerpts from his own book -- can be found to substantiate this section then it may be applicable to keep. Punkrocker1991 (talk) 13:46, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think as long as it is made clear that these comments on UFOs were made by Hill, there is no reason to delete them. Many things in any of our lives are impossible to verify through a second source, and many biographies on people are necessarily based on their own autobiographical information.  E.g., astronomer Clyde Tombaugh reported six UFO sightings, only one of which he officially reported.  Are we supposed to never mention what Tombaugh said because there is no independent way to verify the information?  Hill, like Tombaugh, did report one of his UFO sightings and has a second source already included in the article, Cpt. Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed the USAF's public UFO investigation in the early 1950s.  Ruppelt also mentioned Hill's notability in his day:  "While discussing the huge 1952 UFO sightings "flap", Hill’s sighting was briefly described (with some variation from Hill’s) by Project Blue Book head Edward J. Ruppelt in his 1956 book, but with Hill's name not given.  Ruppelt referred to Hill as a 'high-ranking civilian scientist' from NACA, and concluded saying that, 'the man from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was a very famous aerodynamicist and of such professional stature that if he said the lights weren't airplanes they weren't.'" Ruppelt, Chapter 12 Hill's 1952 UFO sighting can also be found in the list of official Blue Book unknowns. (See case 598, July 16, 1952; Tombaugh's sighting is also there, Case 248).  Anyway, thanks for your vote to keep.  I will be checking other "mainstream" sources to see if Hill is mentioned there.Dr Fil (talk) 19:59, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete Working somewhere, with someone, on something, isn't enough. If the very enthused Dr. Fil can't do better than that, I don't think anyone else will either. EEng (talk) 20:58, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Followup My above comment apparently overlapped Dr. Fil's adding thelist of research and invention. That's all fine, but where are the sources for these things? EEng (talk) 20:59, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * These were quick searches of Google News, Google Books, Google Scholar, also the NASA history website. Hill also has at least one patent, which I haven't listed here. The point is "Paul R. Hill" is quite easy to find in mainstream, independent sources (such as his NACA/NASA publications) and the claims of those pushing deletion that no such sources existed were made up.  These searches also turned up references to Hill in a recent memoir by Dr. Robert Brodsky, who refers to him as one of the "great men" of aerodynamics in his day.  He is also supposed to be listed in "Who's Who in Technology, 1989", which I have on order from a local university library.  I will report what I find when it comes through.  (Unfortunately other biographical information in two other books are not available through the library.)Dr Fil (talk) 18:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

--- This is yet another search of the Web. Please don’t say again there isn’t any independent, mainstream material on Hill to verify anything in the Hill article or his book. Is this “mainstream” enough for everybody? It was even being questioned whether he ever worked for NACA or NASA.

1990 Obituary, From Google News, search "Paul R. Hill" : ‎ Paul R. Hill search in Google Books (stopped at page 10): (Sorry, had to delete all tinyurl links, since they were considered spam by Wikipedia, so just do your own search and the following will turn up)
 * Pay-Per-View – Hampton Roads (VA) Daily Press - Apr 12, 1990, "PAUL R HILL. HAMPTON Paul Richard Hill 81 died Monday April 9 in James River Regional Convalescent Center Newport News. Mr Hill was a native of Odebolt Iowa ..." (Sorry, but you’ll have to pay $3.95 to get it)


 * Listed in “Who's who in Technology: Indexes”, Amy L. Unterburger – 1989

Apparently biographical information here:
 * Engineering Educators: Herbert Kroemer, Robert C. Michelson, ‘’’Paul R. Hill’’’, Antonio Pérez Yuste, Richard Felder, Petr Beckmann, Robert Seamans


 * Listed in 2010 “American Aerospace Engineers: Neil Armstrong, Robert Zubrin, Wright Brothers, Howard Hughes, Samuel Pierpont Langley, Geoffrey A. Landis….Paul R. Hill…”

Research:


 * “The effect of altitude on bomber performance”, Wartime report, Paul R. Hill, John L. Crigler, NACA, 1943, 19 pages
 * “The effect of external shape upon the drag of a scoop”, Wartime report, Irven Naiman, Paul R. Hill, NACA, 1941, 22 pages


 * Generalized selection charts for bombers with four 2000-horsepower engines, Wartime report, Maurice J. Brevoort, Paul R. Hill, George W. Stickle, NACA 1942, 31 pages


 * Previous article mentioned here in 2009 book by Philip M. Parker, Engines-Webster's Comprehensive Bibliography (1590-Modern Times) under entry “Hill, Paul R.”


 * Three of Hill’s early NACA articles listed in Aircraft Engineering, Vol. 20, 1948

Ramjet work:
 * Technical information pilot, Library of Congress. Science and Technology Project, Library of Congress. Science Division, Library of Congress. Technical Information Division - 1949, PARAMETERS DETERMINING PERFORMANCE OF SUPERSONIC PILOTLESS AIRPLANES POWERED BY RAM-COMPRESSION POWER PLANTS, by Paul R. Hill. nd 43p. diagrs. table (Wartime rept. L-755, originally issued June 1946, as Advance confidential rept.)


 * ARS journal: Volumes 24-25, American Interplanetary Society, American Rocket Society, “An Analysis of Ducted Airfoil-Ramjets For Supersonic Aircraft”, by Paul R. Hill and AA Gammal, NACA, Sept. 1947 (Declassified 1953)


 * “A method of computing the transient temperature of thick walls from arbitrary variation of adiabatic-wall temperature and heat-transfer coefficient”, Paul R. Hill, Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, NACA, 1957, 54 pages


 * ARS journal: Volume 28, American Rocket Society, American Interplanetary Society – 1958, “High-Temperature Oxidation and Ignition of Metals”, by Paul R. Hill, David Adamson, Douglas H. Foland and Walter E. Bressette, NACA RM, March 1956 (Declassified from Confidential by authority of NACA Res. Abstracts, 1957)

More on Hill’s work on flying platforms:
 * “Preliminary experimental investigation of the flight of a person supported by a jet thrust device attached to his feet”, NACA research memorandum, C. H. Zimmermann, Paul R. Hill, T. L. Kennedy, NACA, 1953, 31 pages


 * “Flight tests of a man standing on a platform supported by a teetering rotor”, NACA research memorandum, Paul R. Hill, T. L. Kennedy, NACA, 1954, 26 pages

Flying platform research mentioned:
 * Aviation Week magazine, Vol. 64, 1956, “At NACA in 1951, he joined with ‘’’Paul R. Hill’’’ to extend the research using supersonic air jets to support the platforms. The team proved that directional control could be achieved by shifting the body weight of a person standing on the…”

3rd Party biographical commentary on Hill’s space station/flying platform research:
 * Astronautics, Vol. 7, American Rocket Society, 1962, “PAUL R. HILL and EMMANUEL SCHNITZER, coauthors of ‘Rotating Space Stations’ on page 14, head research groups at NASA Langley Research Center. Long a research leader at Langley, Paul Hill carried out the first jet- and rotor-supporting flying platform research there…”

Flying platform research and lunar lander:
 * “A simulator study of the control of lunar flying platforms by pilot body motions”, Paul R. Hill, David F. Thomas, David F. Thomas (Jr.) - NASA, 1970 - 52 pages "This paper presents the results of an investigation of body-motion control of lunar-flying-platform configurations utilizing shirt-sleeved operators and a simulator with five degrees of freedom. The results show that lunar vehicles with moments of inertia up to…”

Dr Fil (talk) 00:37, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * AAS science and technology series: Volume 17, American Astronautical Society - 1967, “COST OPTIMIZATION OF MULTISTAGE ROCKETS Paul R. Hill* The optimization of large rocket systems for minimum cost rather than minimum system weight may possibly save millions of dollars per flight. A simple method of optimizing ...”


 * Thanks for your personal research in digging Hill's name out of a variety of technical publications, Dr. Fil. However, we need a source that specifically states what makes Paul R. Hill more notable than, let's say, "Emmanuel Schnitzer"..."David F. Thomas...."T.L. Kennedy", or any of the dozens and dozens of engineers who are also listed in these publications as working on these projects in contributor or supervisory positions. (Also can you please avoid cutting and pasting large masses of text to the discussion? It makes it difficult for others to follow. A link will do.) - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:07, 12 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia does not allow tinyurl links, which I wanted to use. The original links often run several hundred characters, typically longer than the summaries.  I listed everything in detail to refute the unsupported allegations that there were no independent, "mainstream", 3rd party sources on Hill to be found.  Even his existence as a NACA/NASA research engineer was being questioned.


 * Hill was one of the pioneers of the ramjet, the flying platform (eventually incorporated into the lunar landing module), directed Langley's research into an inflatable space station (an idea that still has legs), designed the streamlining of the P-47 Thunderbolt (at one time the fastest propeller plane in the world), designed the first hypersonic wind tunnels for Langley. Those contributions alone would make him a "notable" in aviation history, at least as "notable" as most of the people listed over on Wikipedia's List of aerospace engineers with their own biographies.  If you are like me, I have never heard of at least 80% of these aviation "notables" listed there.  Ever hear of Roy Fedden?  Anton Flettner? Raoul Haffner? What exactly does "notable" mean anyway?  Celebrities are widely known to the public, making them "notable", though not necessarily particularly important, e.g. Miley Cyrus.  But many people work in specialties generally not known to the public but well-known and respected in their fields in their day, who do make important contributions.  Hill was one of those in aviation engineering R&D.


 * Hill was also a notable in the subject of Ufology for the book he wrote on the subject, applying his aerospace engineering background to analyzing the principles he believed behind their operation. (So did another aviation pioneer, Hermann Oberth, who, unlike Hill, was very publicly outspoken on the topic.)  That is Hill's real "sin", and the real reason why skeptics are trying to delete the article on him, whether they like to admit it or not.  They are also currently on a campaign to delete biographies on other UFO-related notables, people widely known in the field and considered to have made important contributions to it, but because the subject is UFOs are deemed worthy of censorship.Dr Fil (talk) 19:06, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Get off your soapbox, please, and assume good faith. If he's notable for being a UFO-related crank, or for his other non-cranky academic work, his article should be kept, and if he isn't it shouldn't. We shouldn't be defending or attacking the subject here, only reporting on how it is received in the mainstream, and we shouldn't be basing our decision on whether to keep or delete the article on whether we want to defend or attack the subject. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:18, 12 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Move to Unconventional Flying Objects, trim all the uninteresting material about his day job, and keep, per WP:BIO1E. Hill himself does not appear to pass WP:PROF or to have any notability beyond that of his book. However, a Google book search convinces me that his book is widely cited in the UFO literature. The current article is far from neutral (it takes the WP:FRINGE point of view that all of this is true rather than reporting any mainstream criticism) but I don't think deleting it is the right way to address that. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:26, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * On second thought, delete. As above, Hill has no notability independent of his book, and I think that a mention of the book in the UFO article as Xxanthippe suggests below should be sufficient. The more this AfD drags on, the more this article's proponents are convincing me that maintaining a properly neutral article on its subject is likely to be very difficult. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:29, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "Hill himself does not appear to pass WP:PROF or to have any notability beyond that of his book." "As above, Hill has no notability independent of his book." Please see my more detailed reply to LuckyLouie above.  I would like to understand why Charles Zimmerman is considered notable enough for a separate Wiki bio including for his research on the flying platform at Langley from 1950-1953, when Hill was his boss, made the research possible because of his own interest in it, contributed as least equally to it, and coauthored with Zimmerman and separately authored NACA technical reports on the research, three of which I have cited.  Zimmerman's entire short bio is based almost entirely on NACA technical reports from the 1930s.  Why don't Hill's approximately 30 NACA/NASA technical reports from 1940-1970 also count in a career more diverse than Zimmerman's?  Similarly, I would like to know why British aerospace engineer Ron Ayers, with a similar, perhaps less impressive resume' than Hill's, is deserving of his own Wiki bio and meets notability requirements, but not Hill.  Please also explain why Dr. Robert Brodsky, himself considered an aerospace pioneer, in his memoirs refers to Hill as one of the "great men" of aerodynamics in his day on a special advisory panel Brodsky assembled to figure out why their A-bomb designs were screwing up at Sandia Labs.  I would think somebody like Brodsky, who actually knew Hill and obviously thought very highly of him from his book comments, felt him highly "notable," but people here who know nothing about Hill claim he is not.  My point is that the "notability" standard here seems entirely arbitrary.
 * "...a properly neutral article on its subject is likely to be very difficult (therefore delete)." This is now getting ridiculous.  Hill's career at NACA/NASA can and has been objectively verified right here.  This is nothing but a matter of historical record.  Why should there be any problems with neutrality on that? The ONLY thing that seems to be controversial are the views in his UFO book.  Since when is it a proper Wiki rationale to delete matter simply because some of it is controversial?  Clyde Tombaugh, Hermann Oberth, Michio Kaku, Gordon Cooper, Edgar Mitchell, and Peter Sturrock have also express controversial views on UFOs, but their career facts aren't in doubt.  Should we delete their bios too because of their controversial UFO opinions?Dr Fil (talk) 01:20, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete and put a mention in UFO article. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:07, 12 January 2011 (UTC).
 * Delete. Low citation count. Abductive  (reasoning) 03:58, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.