Talk:Robert F. Travis

Year of death

...General Travis was killed on 5 August 1950 .... Fairfield-Suisun AFB was officially renamed Travis Air Force Base on 20 April 1950, in his honor.

The second year must be wrong, The Travis AFB page mentions the name changing in 1951, which would make more sense, honoring him after his death.

208.107.114.145 (talk) 04:49, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Travis B29 crash

To user 70.240.213.105 (Robert L. Duquette):

Thanks for your edit about the B29 crash that killed General Travis. However, I'm moving it here, because Wikipedia has a policy of "No Original Research". You can read about it here: WP:NOR. Essentially it says all edits to Wikipedia must be supported by reliable published sources.

Here's the edit:

The mission on which General Travis attended, and lost his life was highly classified. The B-29 bomber on which he attended that day (for a training mission) was carrying a nuclear weapon. After the crash of the B-29, the plane went up in flames, and only a remote chance was seen in stopping a nuclear accident that would have leveled San Francisco, and all neighboring communities. It was only sheer luck that the blast of the other weapons aboard (12-500lb demolition bombs) blew the nuclear bomb safely away, and the military retrieved what was left.

The Department of Defense claims that the bomb was a dummy, except that Col. Louis Duquette stationed at Fairfield Suisun AFB during the incident was told by his good friend General Travis that the plane would be carrying a live nuclear bomb for the test flight the night before the training mission. In the end, Col Duquette helped carry his dead friend from the plane after the accident. In closing, the sight in which the plane crashed is still to this day being monitored for radiation, pretty good for a dummy nuclear bomb.

Additional Note: Col. Louis Duquette is my father, and he has recounted this story to me all of my life, and thought I would share this information. Col Duquette is still alive today at an age of 94, he can only recount bits and pieces of the story. Weather you use this information or not, is entirely up to you.

Thank You

Robert L. Duquette

There's a description of the crash on the Travis Air Force Base page (History section, 6th paragraph). It's supported by these two published sources:

• The Crash of the B-29 on Travis AFB, CA
• Jimmy Doolittle Musem - The Travis Crash.

The sources say that it was not a training mission, but a live mission to carry a nuclear weapon to the eastern Pacific, because of an escalation in the Korean War. The nuclear weapon was carried on two planes. General Travis' B29 carried the outer casing, including the 5000 lbs. of high explosives, but the uranium core was carried on another plane at another time and route. A nuclear explosion is only possible if the core is installed in the casing, so no nuclear explosion could have occurred. However the high explosives ignited 20 minutes after the crash, killing several more people. User:Davemck (talk) 19:15, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Robert F. Travis/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Auntieruth55 (talk · contribs) 19:19, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll do this in the next couple of days! auntieruth (talk) 19:19, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Early career

• William Livingston Travis ... you probably don't need his last name.

  Y Removed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:11, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

• in class of 1928 ... in the Class of 1928 or is a class of 1,928.....

  Y Didn't occur to me that it could be read that way. Changed to "115th out of 261 in class of 1928" to make it clearer. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:11, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

• His brother, William, .... ? should be another comma there, right?

  Y In AmEng, no, but added. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:11, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Post War

• when it commenced take off from Fairfield-Suisun at 2200 ...when it took off? Presumably every one was still on board when it crashed. :( I think that sentence needs a rework. It sounds strange to say commenced.

  I'm not sure what to do here. By "commenced take off", I mean that the plane started to roll down the runway. There is a long list of things the crew have to do. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:11, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

At one read through, I noted a missing comma, but now I cannot find it. Nice article. I can probably find the citation on his descent from guy at Alamo if you want it. auntieruth (talk) 14:04, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

That's okay. I believe it was an error. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:11, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Failed "good article" nomination

This article has failed its Good article nomination. This is how the article, as of March 23, 2017, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: y

2. Verifiable?: y

3. Broad in coverage?: y

4. Neutral point of view?: y

5. Stable?: y

6. Images?: y

interesting, thanks for the article!

When these issues are addressed, the article can be renominated. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to have it reassessed. Thank you for your work so far.— auntieruth (talk) 19:06, 23 March 2017 (UTC)