Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet in Australian service/archive1


 * 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 GrahamColm 09:16, 12 August 2012.

McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet in Australian service

 * Nominator(s): Nick-D (talk) 10:46, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

This article covers the service history of the main type of fighter aircraft the Royal Australian Air Force has operated since the mid 1980s. During this period the RAAF's F/A-18s have been deployed around the globe, and took part in the Iraq War in 2003. However, they're starting to wear out, and the Air Force is hoping to replace them by the end of this decade.

I started this article as an experiment to see if it was possible to write a detailed article on this kind of topic, and have been pleased with the results. The article was assessed as a good article in April, passed a Military History Wikiproject A class review a couple of weeks ago and has since been expanded and improved. As such, I think that it should now meet the FA criteria. Thanks in advance for your comments. Nick-D (talk) 10:46, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. I've looked at the changes made since I reviewed this for A-class. These are my edits. (Edits may take several days to show up on that page.) One bit I don't like, have a look please: "To avoid pilot fatigue, additional aircrew were posted to the Middle East from Australia. However, the number of sorties dropped to between six and ten per day ...": I'm not sure if the "however" means "however, the new aircrews were not needed" (or used). And fix my "pilot fatigue" tweak if that doesn't work. - Dank (push to talk) 11:44, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot Dank. You're right about that 'however', and I've just removed it. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 11:52, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Images: unsurprisingly for a military article with US resources to draw on, images are fine copyrightwise. I'm unsure about the statement "Hornet A21-3 in August 2010. The aircraft is carrying a LITENING targeting pod and ASRAAM missiles as well as training bombs and external fuel tanks." is that obvious from the photograph? is it in any way controversial? is it possible to cite it in some way? address the issue on the file description page? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:41, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for those comments. In regards to that photo, it's obvious from looking at the aircraft and the date the photo was taken. The missiles on its wingtips are clearly ASRAAMs (the alternative, the Sidewinder missile, has a quite different appearance), the targeting pod appears to be a LITENING based on its appearance and practice bombs are always blue (the real things are always green). Nick-D (talk) 23:52, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Support Source review - spotchecks not done.
 * Reviewed/supported at MilHist A-Class Review, having found prose, structure, coverage, referencing and supporting materials more than satisfactory; went through changes made since and happy with those apart from a few very minor things I copyedited -- well done!
 * No source spotcheck per se on my part but I'm pretty familiar with this topic and the sources, and am confident the story's been faithfully rendered.
 * Minor suggestions:
 * The Upgrades and maintenance section includes a pretty big paragraph on armament, so perhaps adding "ordnance" or "armament" to the section header is in order.
 * I'm assuming you're redlinking Bob Richardson in part at least because he rose to two-star, so consider referring to him as "Wing Commander (later air Vice Marshal)". Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:02, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks Ian. I've added that note about Richardson, and created a new section for 'armament' (which, happily, provides room for an extra photo). Regards, Nick-D (talk) 08:42, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Comments: Supported below very interesting, well written article, glad I reviewed it. Just a few small comments and then I'll likely support.
 * "with the last aircraft leaving service in the early 2020s." I'd suggest "and the last aircraft will leave service in the early 2020s."
 * Done
 * "At about the same time, the RAAF rejected an offer of F-14 Tomcats that had been ordered by the Iranian Government but not delivered due to the revolution in that country." I'm a bit confused here, was it that they thought it wasn't safe to deliver them with the revolution ongoing, or that they didn't want to arm the new leadership?
 * From memory, the source specify why, but it would have been the latter (the US obviously didn't want to hand any more high-tech weapons to an unfriendly government, and didn't allow several arms deals to proceed). I've tweaked the wording a bit. Nick-D (talk) 11:05, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Try to be consistent about date commas, i.e. "In 1973, a team of RAAF" vs " In November 1978 the F-15 and Tornado were removed"
 * The first comma was used because the sentence is long and a bit complex, so it needs to be broken up a bit. The second sentence is very short, and I didn't think that a comma was necessary. I'm happy to defer to your judgement on this though if you really think that a comma in the second sentence would help. Nick-D (talk) 11:05, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
 * "A21-42 crashed, killing the unit's commanding officer, and the other aircraft was damaged but managed to return to base" I'd suggest a semi-colon instead of a second comma here.
 * Done Nick-D (talk) 11:05, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Try to be consistent with the use of the serial comma, i.e. "squadrons rotate between four-month training "blocks" focused on air-to-air combat, air-to-ground tactics, and Australian Defence Force support tasks." vs "the Hornets' computer systems, navigation system and radio were replaced"
 * Fixed (the first instance was, from memory, a hangover from this sentence being even longer) Nick-D (talk) 11:05, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd consider abbreviating a few of the "United States" as "US". Mark Arsten (talk) 21:01, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I've tweaked once instance of 'United States' to 'US Government', but 'US' would look a bit odd occasionally sprinkled through the text in what's a pretty Australian-focused article, particularly as in most instances the article is referring to the country itself where this is used (I'm not going to claim cross-article consistency though; in Air raids on Japan I mainly used 'US', but this is a fairly American-centric article so it's not jarring - I think!). I hope that this is OK, but again I'd be happy to defer to your judgement if you think that this change should be made. Thanks a lot for your comments. Nick-D (talk) 11:05, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Suppport Alright, I'm satisfied with the fixes and explanations, good wook! I enjoyed reviewing this. Mark Arsten (talk) 21:31, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks again Mark Nick-D (talk) 08:45, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Check alphabetization of references
 * Done (Davies 2011 changes halfway through the title of the paper. Nick-D (talk) 08:45, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Frawley or Fawley?
 * Frawley; fixed Nick-D (talk) 08:45, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
 * No citations to RAAF 1995. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:23, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oops; I've just removed this. Thanks for your comments Nikki. Nick-D (talk) 08:45, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Comments by Gnangarra Outside of that a very interesting read and filled gaps in my knowledge of the life of these craft. Gnangarra 13:55, 10 August 2012 (UTC) Support: I reviewed this at Milhist ACR and having reviewed the changes that have occured since then, I am confident that it meets the FA criteria also. I have one suggestion:
 * at the end of the Selection section it finishes with This led to a complicated arrangement whereby the aircraft were ordered by the US Government, delivered to the US Navy upon completion, and then transferred to the RAAF once initial flight testing had taken place.[14] The process worked well in practice, however, and was cost effective.[16] can these be rolled into one sentence.. something like a This led to a successful cost effective though complicated arrangement....
 * I also think that the delivered to the US Navy upon completion,.. upon completion is redundant
 * I agree with you on the second suggestion and have made that change, but incorporating the first suggestion would lead to what I think is an overly complex sentence: "This led to a complicated, but successful and cost-effective, arrangement whereby the aircraft were ordered by the US Government, delivered to the US Navy, and then transferred to the RAAF once initial flight testing had taken place". I think it's clearer to have one sentence about how the arrangement worked and another sentence about it proving successful. Nick-D (talk) 02:46, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * not convincd that this The process worked well in practice, however, and was cost effective. is good prosed, I find it difficult unnatural wording. Gnangarra 08:24, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That's a good point: I've removed the 'in practice', which is unnecessary, and tweaked the rest of the wording. How does this look? Regards, Nick-D (talk) 08:49, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * is there a info box that can give the specifics of the Australian service as info boxes appear in almost every article probably every military article this one looks incomplete without one.
 * That's a good suggestion. There's no infobox that's designed for this purpose, but I've adopted the generic infobox fields. Nick-D (talk) 02:46, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot for your review. Nick-D (talk) 02:46, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I wonder if this shouldn't be clarified slightly: "which was vulnerable to attack and damage from cyclones". Perhaps, "which was vulnerable to damage from cyclones that are prevalent around the coast of northern Australia and also to attack due to its proximity to the nations to Australia's north". Admittedly, though, that might be just making the readers suck eggs. Anyway, good work as always, Nick. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 06:27, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments. I've tweaked that wording to a new sentence which reads "Until this time the squadron had been stationed at RAAF Base Darwin which, due to its location on Australia's north coast, was vulnerable damage from cyclones and difficult to defend during wartime". Regards, Nick-D (talk) 06:48, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That works well. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:13, 12 August 2012 (UTC)


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