Talk:Rotor wing

Canard Rotor/Wing

I have started an informal merge/delete discussion at Talk:Canard Rotor/Wing — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:49, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Article title

This article is about a type of wing sometimes called a stop-rotor. Can the current article title, "Rotor wing", be verifiably associated with the stop-rotor type, to the exclusion of other types of rotor lifting surface such as those based on variations of the Flettner rotor or Magnus effect rotor, (see for example Seifert, Jost; "A review of the Magnus effect in aeronautics", Progress in Aerospace Sciences Vol. 55, 2012, pp.17–45.[1])? Or, should this article be moved to say Stop-rotor? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 22:24, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

It depends on what a majority of the reliable sources covering the subject use. In the absence of a clear choice, we'd probably need to use the most unambiguous and clear title. I do find it odd that you created the article, but are now questioning the title you apparently chose. :) - BilCat (talk) 23:31, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Did I? I plead the human condition. But this discussion was prompted when, having discovered Flettner/Magnus rotor wing designs, I added a citation tag. Somebody, evidently of the same frame of mind as my original one, promptly deleted in on the grounds that the term means specifically a stop-rotor type (which assertion is of course my exact reason for adding the tag). I am finding reliable sources had to track down online. So rather than crash ahead with another rash guess, I thought it better to ask if anybody actually knows - there may not even be a sensible industry consensus. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:31, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

I have very little knowledge of such things, and came across your citation tag while patrolling RecentChanges. It seems to me that there is no need for the citation tag. The rotor wing is designed to create lift, whereas the Flettner rotor in a rotor ship is not. That said, the "see also" section could be expanded to include Flettner airplane. And all these articles could benefit from being listed in the rotor dab page. With respect to the Canard Rotor/Wing article, I think there is a strong argument to be made for merging its contents into this article. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:31, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia has it grossly wrong at the moment and I suspect that this has misled you. The "Flettner rotor" is the device not the application: mount it one way for a sailing ship, mount it the other way for an aeroplane. Anton Flettner was more famous as an aircraft designer. But yes, a good deal of merging/reorganizing/disambiguation is called for. Oh, and thank you for the link to the Flettner airplane, I hadn't found that article. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:20, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

So, I rescued the Flettner rotor from a misguided redirect. I also note that Seifert carefully avoids calling the rotor a "wing", which suggests I may be wrong in questioning my original instinct. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 21:39, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm glad you are more well-versed in this than I am. Like I said before (and as you have correctly surmised), I know nothing of the subject matter and I was only really concerned with what I perceived to be an odd use of the citation tag. It seems that you are on top of the matter and we are more or less of one mind going forward. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:51, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

D'oh! Simply googling "rotor wing" reveals a prominent usage among the practical flying community as a synonym for "rotorcraft", evidently as a counterpart to "fixed wing". I find isolated usages referring to Magnus rotor designs too. All in all, there can be no way that the title "Rotor wing" can be confined to stop-rotor convertiplanes. This article definitely needs moving to a better name. H'mm.... — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:35, 27 December 2015 (UTC) [Update] The Focke-Wulf Triebflugel did not stop its rotors/wings in level flight, they continued to rotate. So this article is not just about stop-rotors after all and my opening remarks were off target. I'll settle for introducing other kinds of rotor wing, especially Magnus rotors. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:17, 12 January 2016 (UTC)