Template talk:Aircraft specs

To do

Based on usage in articles the following items should be fixed/updated:

• Pilatus PC-9 - needs power/mass a max-takeoff parameter in addition to gross weight, , TAS/IAS clarity, stall speed note (e.g. clean or dirty)
• Rockwell X-30 - Thrust/weight parameter
• Lockheed P-7 - max takeoff, power/mass issues fixed
• Focke-Wulf Fw Triebflügel -
• Cessna 441 - power/mass, TAS/IAS in cruise issues fixed
• Canadair CL-84 Dynavert - range note, max t/o w/notes no problems
• Embraer Legacy 450 -
• Fisher Dakota Hawk - seems to work fine
• Fisher FP-101 - wing loading does not display - did I do something wrong there? - Ahunt (talk) 23:28, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
• No, wing and rotor loading is still hidden from showing, the convert template doesn't work for this yet. If convert doesn't get fixed soon, we'll have to go with entering both values. - Trevor MacInnis ^contribs 00:00, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Ah that explains it - I tried a number of different configurations, but no joy! No problem - if it can't be made to convert automatically then perhaps a hidden comment would suffice to explain the need to do a manual conversion. Incidentally while I have you here - congratulations on this template in general - the layout and the auto-conversions are brilliant and save a lot of time when writing aircraft articles! - Ahunt (talk) 00:17, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
    • I finally figure out how to create the convert tsub-templates to do it, so it should be displaying correctly now. Trevor MacInnis ^contribs 00:53, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
      • Looks great! Thanks! - Ahunt (talk) 01:02, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
• Fisher Flyer - no problems encountered
• Cessna 180 - no problems encountered
• Cessna 185 - specs updated, no problems encountered, used abbreviated version with a few extra parameters added in, worked fine
• Cessna 310 - specs updated, no problems encountered
• Supermarine Attacker - no problems encountered
• Cranwell CLA.4 - no problems encountered
• Cranwell CLA.3 - no problems encountered
• Cranwell CLA.2 - no problems encountered, note use of upper/lower span and references
• Polikarpov TIS - needs "time to climb" parameter
• VZ-9 AV Avrocar - no problems encountered
• Yakovlev Yak-8 - needs "time to climb" parameter
• Fokker 70 - note cruise and max speed mach issue
• Birdman Project 102 - no problems encountered
• Birdman Atlas - no problems encountered
• InterPlane Griffon - no problems encountered
• Piper PA-47 PiperJet - no problems encountered
• Mikoyan-Gurevich I-250 - no problems encountered with mixed-power aircraft
• Kaman HUK - no problems, note use of hp with "met" prime units.
• InterPlane Skyboy‎ - no problems encountered, thanks for fixing "Combat range", Trevor! Not sure why I did that!
• CGS Hawk - no problems encountered
• JDT Hi-MAX - no problems encountered
• Mini-MAX - no problems encountered

formerly using Template:Aerospecs

• RQ-4 Global Hawk - no problems, fixed "each" issue with old template, adds knots to speed
• Schempp-Hirth Nimbus-2 - no problems
• Cirrus SR22 - no problems encountered
• Epic LT Dynasty - no problems encountered
• Cessna 414 - no problems encountered

formerly using Template:Aircraft specifications

• UH-1 Iroquois - no problems
• Tupolev Tu-16 - no problems
• Airbus A400M - no problems, many notes
• AMD Alarus‎ - no problems encountered
• Aviat Husky - no problems encountered
• Gulfstream American GA-7 Cougar - no problems encountered - Template is not converting kts (primary) to km/h correctly. Entries seem to be done right - can you check and see what the problem is there? Just checked and the same problem is cropping up on all uses of the template where Kts are primary, like AMD Alarus and Piper PA-47 PiperJet, it displays like this: "360 kn (410 mph; 360 kn)" instead of Km/h.
  • Whoops, the convert temples there were using the wrong units. Fixed it, . - Trevor MacInnis ^contribs 09:39, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
    • Just checked it and it works fine now - thank you for taking care of it! - Ahunt (talk) 12:43, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
• Fantasy Air Allegro - no problems encountered - the template handled mixed units (imp/kts and metric) very well
• Liberty XL2 - no problems encountered
• Beechcraft Musketeer - no problems encountered
• Glasair I - no problems encountered
• Adam A500 - no problems encountered
• Sonex Aircraft Sonex - no problems encountered

to update

Currently no spec template

• HNoMS Start -
• PAC Cresco -
• IAR 99 -
• Grumman Gulfstream I -
• Myasishchev M-101T -
• Hispano Aviación HA-1112 -
• Eurocopter Fennec -
• UAC/HAL Multirole Transport Aircraft
• Korea Aerospace Industries KF-X
• Aérospatiale Corvette
• Mitsubishi Regional Jet
• HESA Shahed 278
• American Aircraft Penetrator

Currently using Template:Aerospecs

• Dassault Falcon 10
• Diamond DA42
• Avro 501
• British Army Dirigible No 1

currently using Template:Aircraft specifications

• B-25 Mitchell
• Concorde
• Messerschmitt Me 163
• Piper Cherokee
• Convair 990
• Gulfstream IV
• Eurocopter Tiger
• Piasecki H-21

Does not support "," as decimal separator?

Hi, I noticed in Volocopter Volocity#Specifications that the template does not seem to handle "," as a decimal separator. For example, "length m=9,5" was rendered as 95m instead of the intended 9.5m, and the imperial units were also multiplied by 10. I fixed this by switching the comma to decimal point. Is comma supported as a decimal separator in this template? Harris7 (talk) 16:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Most likely not to comply with MOS:DECIMAL. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 19:48, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Avoiding double bullets by using only * to indent

I recently noticed a problem with the Kawasaki P-1 article; the "Armaments" section had double bullets for the "Bombs:" and "Other:" sub-headings, as seen here.

By comparing the formatting on that article to other military aircraft articles (example: Nimrod MRA4), I discovered the problem: the P-1 article was using :* to indent the individual items of armament, but it should have been using only * to the required indent level. I made that change to the P-1 article and the double bullets went away.

In other words, this is incorrect and likely to result in double bullets:

|hardpoint missiles=<br>
:* bottle rocket

This is correct and will likely render as intended:

|hardpoint missiles=<br>
***bottle rocket

This might be obvious to editors who have more experience than me, but it took me a little while to figure it out, so I thought I'd document it here. I don't think this is a problem with the template itself - it's (potentially) a problem with the user-supplied formatting for some of the template elements.

Thanks! 73.185.200.182 (talk) 02:28, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

You've identified exactly what the problem was. Sadly there's not much we can do to automate the detection as this is a confusing quirk built into mediawiki. If you try to do a simple search of page with this template and mix colons and asteriks most are false positives. I added a link to WP:COLAS in the documentation which I believe is our best description of how to do indentation. --Trialpears (talk) 23:47, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Edit request: add Aspect ratio link

Can someone with admin privileges add the link Aspect ratio (aeronautics) to the aspect ratio label in the specs template (or suggest alternate way)?

Thanks, -Fnlayson (talk) 19:36, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

 Done * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 15:20, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 15 February 2024

Please fix the "Never exceed speed" link to go to V speeds § VNE instead of the incorrectly capitalized V speeds § Vne which doesn't work because anchors are case sensitive. Thanks! DemonDays64 (talk•contribs) 14:10, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

 Done * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 15:20, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

max speed note coming out in the wrong place

I used the "max speed note" for the first time and found it prints out in the wrong location. If you look at the source for Gloster P.370, I have put in an altitude that the speed is maximized. I expected it to come out beside the speed, so it would say something like "Mach 1.82 at 36000 ft", but instead, the "at 36000 ft" comes out on the title line after "Performance". This appears to be a bug? Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:44, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

It's because you put "at 36000 ft" in the "max speed note" parameter without putting any value in "max speed kmh" or "max speed mph". When only the mach number is specified, the notes should be put in the "max speed mach note" parameter. I've fixed the template in Gloster P.370, but I do think that something should be done to prevent the text from appearing even when the MPH / km/h parameter is hidden. - ZLEA _T\^C 16:56, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

add parameter "prop number" for amount of propellers

This parameter still missing currently. Please add ASAP!! D4n2016 (talk) 18:34, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Why do we need "number of propellers" when we already have the number of engines? There have been only a handful of aircraft over the years where those two numbers differ (i.e. those with contra-rotating props driven by the same engine) and those are adequately documented (for example the Shackleton) in the relevant article. I can't see any reason why this is a requirement at all, let alone an ASAP one. DaveReidUK (talk) 21:51, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, the parameters in this template were carefully chosen to be a balance between being encyclopedic and containing enough detail for those who need it. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 08:33, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Many readers only visit aircraft articles for the specifications section, that's why. D4n2016 (talk) 12:29, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

How do you know that's true? And even if it is, there are many aspects of an aircraft's configuration that are in the body of the article but not in the template. Should we be specifying in the template whether an aircraft type has a high/low wing, tricycle landing gear, t-tail, etc? I don't think so. DaveReidUK (talk) 13:37, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't believe it's technically possible to state which specific sections of articles readers visit, the only stats available are page views. Widely held opinion is that most readers only view the lead section and infobox of aircraft articles. Adding the number of propellers is outside what a general encyclopedia should cover, specialist publications like monographs are often found in the reference sections of articles for readers who want to know everything about a type, to my knowledge though I've never seen the number of propellers listed in the publications that I have. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 14:39, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Dry thrust/afterburner thrust

There is a hidden tracking category that is related to this thread in 2010. The category is Category:Aircraft specs templates using afterburner without dry parameter. The category is supposed to hold articles where no dry thrust value has been entered but its 200 members appear to have both thrust ratings correctly showing. I suspect that there is a small glitch in the source coding, I've tried to isolate the problem with sandbox tests but failed. It is most likely related to this edit of the code. Cheers. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:29, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 13 November 2024

This edit added code to find articles where afterburning thrust had been entered without dry thrust being present. There are 200 articles in Category:Aircraft specs templates using afterburner without dry parameter but most (possibly all) have dry thrust values By experimenting the template is looking for completed hp (horsepower), shp (shaft horsepower) and kW (metric power) parameters, none of these apply to jet engines. I believe that if those three conditions of the code are removed it would work as intended and empty the category. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:19, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: please make your requested changes to the template's sandbox first; see WP:TESTCASES. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:55, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

If I knew how to I would, hence the edit request. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 16:56, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

 Done * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:17, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, that's cut the category in half, seemed to have fixed articles using Imperial units but not metric. The usefulness of this code ought to be discussed as it is causing more problems than it was originally intended to highlight. Some articles missing the dry thrust parameter do not have it in the source so they will always be tagged. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 18:57, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

I've fixed the check for metric units. Feel free to take the category to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion if you think it should be deleted wholly. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:32, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, it's working as intended now. The articles remaining in the category mostly do not have a dry thrust available, one had the dry thrust entered in the afterburner parameter for an aircraft with no afterburner. It is a hidden category so I suspect not more than one editor is viewing it at the moment! Cheers. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 10:57, 17 November 2024 (UTC)