Talk:Kabale Airport

Two Kabale airports

"The airport has a single unpaved runway. Aeronautical charts show the runway length at 610 metres (2,000 ft),[1] and satellite images indicate a maximum length of 1,400 metres (4,600 ft),[7] while a newspaper article stated the land set aside for the runway was 1.5 miles,[4] which is approximately 2,400 metres (7,900 ft)."

The confusion here is that we have two airports at Kabale

The western airstrip at 1°13'S 29°57'E is the one referred to in the newspaper article and in OurAirports.com. It has room to expand to 2400m as stated in the article.

The eastern airport on the SkyVector chart is marked at 1°15'49"S 30°1'0"E, and is labeled Kabale National (HUKB). The coords are on the side of a hill, but 1600m north we find the 610m grass runway, with no room for expansion.

Great Circle Mapper has HUKB coords of 1°15'S 29°59'E, which is in town, about midway between the two airports, so no help.

I'll add the OurAirports ref and separate out the SkyVector ref temporarily.
I ask for discussion of options here: Should we split this into two articles, one for Kabale National Airport and one for Kabale Airport? Or should we drop the National since the town plans to expand the western airport?
Cptmrmcmillan (talk) 15:30, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for figuring out there are two airstrips in Kabale. If the new airstrip was built to replace the old one, even though in a different location, you could update this article and its infobox to show the coordinates and runway information for the replacement airstrip, then include a paragraph about the old one (see Alakanuk Airport for an example). If both are still in use and not private airstrips, I think each could have its own article. -- Zyxw (talk) 23:07, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion

Hi Cptmrmcmillan, Until you brought it to my attention, I was not aware that there were two airports in Kabale town. As a compromise, since the grass airstrip is the smaller of the two, with no possibility of expansion, let us call it either "Kabale Airfield" or "Kabale Airstrip". If we have to use the world "Airport" in the title, let us use the title "Kabale National Airport" (HUKB), since the reference that you cite, calls it so. Thanks.Fsmatovu (talk) 22:18, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Fsmatovu and Zyxw. I'll keep looking for more sources. In any case, it will call for a complete rewrite.
Thanks again for your help.
Cptmrmcmillan (talk) 02:18, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Reliable sources? Wikimapia and Our Airports

Both are community/publicly edited. So how and why are they reliable sources? 75.34.103.237 (talk) 04:16, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi 75.34,

Community editing isn't by itself an indication of unreliability. If you recall, the UgCAA web site has Kisoro Airport at coords 60 km north of the town of Kisoro, so official sources can be in error. Regardless of source, the important thing is that the information itself is verifiable. Aerial imagery from Digital Globe, Landsat, CNES/Astrium, et al. as published by Google, Yandex, and HERE/Nokia are very reliable, and that's why we use them to verify locations and runway information from the various airport lists. We even cross check image date between sources, and with the Google Earth Historical Image tool, we can cross check the same location at different times.

The eastern Kabele airport is the HUKB one from the SkyVector map, while the western airstrip is Batuma Memorial Airstrip, the one mentioned in the news story. If you can find any more documentation on these airports, that would help greatly.

Thanks
Cptmrmcmillan (talk) 11:33, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

What you may not realize is that there is already a consensus on Wikipedia that Wikimapia (specifically) is not a reliable source. Nor is is any open wiki except those "with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors." How does OpenAirports satisfy those criteria given that Wikimapia does not? Maybe you should consult with User:Sfan00 IMG. I will delete these sources in the near future. 75.34.103.237 (talk) 13:28, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Didn't even see the Wikimapia in the title. Don't know anything about it.Cptmrmcmillan (talk) 18:23, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Batuma Memorial runway setaside length

The newspaper article mentioned in "Facilities" section actually stated, "He said they had put aside a 1.5m land for the runway." The "m" following 1.5 could be either miles, metres, or a typo for km, kilometres. Previous edits had it as 1.5 miles, but 1.5 km is verified from the aerial images.Cptmrmcmillan (talk) 05:34, 29 December 2015 (UTC)