Talk:Northrop YF-23

Useful sources - YF-23 Chief Test Pilot Paul Metz Interview

YF-23 Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) - Paul Metz (Part 1)

YF-23 and F-22A - Paul Metz (Part 2) IAmAttractedToFemales (talk) 14:40, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

FA review nomination

I have nominated Northrop YF-23 for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Steve7c8 (talk) 22:37, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

FA review

Northrop YF-23

Notified: Example user, Example WikiProject, [diff for talk page notification]

Review section

I am nominating this featured article for review because over the past few months, I've added a considerably amount of additional information about the aircraft's design history gathered from multiple sources. The prose has doubled in length, so I would like other editors to review my work to ensure that it still meets FA standards. Steve7c8 (talk) 22:33, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi Steve7c8, did you discuss this on the article's talk page at all? Nikkimaria (talk) 04:48, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Negative. However, given the amount of content added since it was last listed as FA over a decade ago such that it has more than doubled in size, with much of the new prose written by myself, I believe that this warrants a FA review especially from a neutral party to ensure that it meets the quality standards. Steve7c8 (talk) 04:59, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Could you please notify other editors and relevant WikiProjects? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:46, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Steve7c8, I've worked a little bit on the article. I believe you have the technical knowledge of the subject, while I can do source and reference formatting. I changed the sources to cite book or cite journal templates, and changed some of the references to sfn tags. Would this and any further work I do on formatting be okay with you? Matarisvan (talk) 06:09, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

The changes look good. I'll notify some other editors and relevant WikiProjects to have another go at it. Steve7c8 (talk) 15:48, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi Steve, we need a link for the Aerospace Daily article, otherwise any reviewer doing spotchecks would fail the source review. Matarisvan (talk) 12:52, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

The original link from years ago is gone and I don’t think it’s ever been archived, but it’s transcribed in a forum post here, which I’m not sure is considered adequate. Steve7c8 (talk) 15:56, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Can you post the link here, I can search for it on archival sites. Matarisvan (talk) 09:27, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't have the original link. Perhaps search for key words and phrases in that article that's transcribed in the forum post? Steve7c8 (talk) 23:44, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Then we'll have to remove this reference, we already have another one (Chong 2016) at the same place. Is that OK with you? Matarisvan (talk) 13:08, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

That's fine then. Steve7c8 (talk) 21:23, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Also, @Steve7c8, do you have access to either of Sweetman 1991a or 1991b? I put in these in the sfn tags on a placeholder basis as I wasn't able to get access to them. This is the last thing left to do here, once it is done we can safely say the article is back again at FA level. Matarisvan (talk) 16:30, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Currently I don't. I have limited access to these sources as I'm in the middle of an SLTE currently, but in a few days I'll check my shelves. Steve7c8 (talk) 19:22, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

As a follow-up, @Matarisvan, a friend of mine has hard copies of these publications, I can borrow them if need be. Steve7c8 (talk) 14:45, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Both of these, @Steve7c8? That would be great, we would be able to finally close this FA review. Matarisvan (talk) 14:50, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@Matarisvan, I'm not quite sure how to Wikimail these sources. My friend has the physical books on hand which I borrowed. Steve7c8 (talk) 18:30, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

You would just need to photograph the pages we have cited here, and attach these photographs to an email which you can send through Wikipedia. Also, I'll be reviewing the YF-22 article at ACR soon, I haven't forgotten about it, just have too much work both on WP and IRL. Matarisvan (talk) 18:34, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

@Matarisvan I have emailed you one of them, working to borrow the other book again to get pictures. Steve7c8 (talk) 13:14, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

@Steve7c8, received. Working on spot checks on refs cited to this source. Cheers Matarisvan (talk) 13:48, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

@Matarisvan I have emailed you the other one. Steve7c8 (talk) 20:45, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Comments

• What establishes that Speciality Press located at Forest Lake, Minnesota has a reputation for fact checking, etc? The article is cites several works published by this company, which appears to lack and internet presence.
• If File:FB-23 Rapid Theater Attack.png is a Northrop Grumman image as stated, it's been wrongly uploaded. The source PDF doesn't establish that it was released under a creative commons licence.
• I suspect that none of the external links are needed. Nick-D (talk) 00:45, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

• I'm not familiar with Specialty Press overall and I believe they went under just recently. However, the cited books in this article are written by people with direct connections to the YF-23, namely Alfred "Paul" Metz, YF-23 PAV-1 test pilot, and Air Force Materiel Command researchers and archiver, Tony Landis and reputed aviation author Dennis Jenkins.
• If that is the case, I can upload a non-free thumbnail version under fair use.

Steve7c8 (talk) 00:13, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

• Could we get an update on status here? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:05, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Nikkimaria, I believe we may be able to put up this FAR for votes soon. I just received scans of Sweetman 1991b from @Steve7c8, now to complete my review I only need scans of Sweetman 1991a, which could be available soon. Matarisvan (talk) 13:48, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Matarisvan I have Wiki-mailed pictures of both sources to you. Do we have enough to close out this review? Steve7c8 (talk) 14:52, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

  Hi @Steve7c8, I did spot checks for both sources and all of them seem to be ok. I can conclude my review, but the votes of other reviewers will be needed for the review to be closed fully. Matarisvan (talk) 16:19, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

  I forgot to add this in the above comment, but I would like to vote keep. Matarisvan (talk) 16:53, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

@Nick-D, before you leave for your break, could we have your vote? Matarisvan (talk) 13:49, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

• The FB-23 image did originate from Northrop Grumman, but it was published by a U.S. Air Force article. Is that not considered a U.S. government image then? Steve7c8 (talk) 17:50, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

• My understanding is that the original image needs to be the work of a US government employee to be covered by this PD category. Nick-D (talk) 09:46, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  @Gog the Mild, @Matarisvan, @Nikkimaria I've seen some conflicting information on this, how should we adjudicate? Steve7c8 (talk) 17:23, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

• It's not quite so cut and dried. A work of a US government employee as part of their official duties is PD. A work of a non-government employee can be PD as USGov, for example if there was a contract in place establishing that, but it's not a guarantee. See Copyright_status_of_works_by_the_federal_government_of_the_United_States#Limitations. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:24, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@Steve7c8, I would suggest removing the FB-23 image, since its copyright status is uncertain per Nikkimaria's comment above. I would reccomend adding an image of the FB-22 in its place, because it was competing with the FB-23, and because I reckon there would be more copyright free images of the FB-22 available. Matarisvan (talk) 17:51, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

• I forgot about the external links, and I agree that none of them seem necessary. I'm okay with removing them, but I'm not sure if I should without consensus from others in this review.

Steve7c8 (talk) 17:50, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

• There are a number of areas where a copy edit is needed. Some examples below.

• Translation of technical terminology per Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable and Wikipedia is not a scientific journal is needed in some places. Eg: "The YF-23 was statically unstable — having relaxed stability — and flown through fly-by-wire with the flight control surfaces controlled by a central management computer system." and the following five sentences. Or "the chiseled shape of the nose generated vortices to improve high angle of attack (AoA) characteristics".
• There seems a lot of reliance on providing Wikilinks rather than in line explanations, falling foul of MOS:NOFORCELINK: "Do use a link wherever appropriate, but as far as possible do not force a reader to use that link to understand the sentence. The text needs to make sense to readers who cannot follow links." Implementation of this is subject to debate, but taking the article as a whole it seems to me to fall the wrong side of the line.
• There seems to be an overuse of upper-case initial letters. Eg "Engineering and Manufacturing Development" or "Avionics Ground Prototype"
• Some abbreviations are given but not reused. Eg "a domestic 5th/6th generation (F-3) fighter" or "Avionics Ground Prototype (AGP)".
• Or "infrared homing (IR) missile detection" where the abbreviation is given at the third mention of infrared, which is not mentioned again.
• The paragraph starting "The Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) launched ..." should be deleted. Its only connection to the F-23 is "there was speculation that it could offer a modernized version of the F-23 to the JASDF". This seems to be "going into unnecessary detail" and/or not using summary style.

The article is not IMO to FAC standard. It is getting there and has clearly had a lot of TLC, but it needs a little more. Note that the examples given above are just that - examples. Resolving just these will not bring the article up to scratch. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:16, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

We can address these in stride.

• Would the phrase "flown through fly-by-wire which provides artificial stability" help clarify that?
• "the chiseled shape of the nose with its sharp edges generated vortices to improve high angle of attack (AoA) characteristics"
• I'll do a pass through this article to try to address this, although I would appreciate it if others can help because as an engineer, some of the terminology that's intuitive for me may not be for most readers.
• Those are formal names in DoD acquisition language and also ATF program language, so I'm not sure how they should be handled.
• I'll do a pass through to eliminate unneeded acronyms.
• In this instance, I agree that there is a bit of undue weight. The only reported fact is that Northrop Grumman had offered to partner with the Japanese industry for the F-3 program, but no information was given on what was proposed, and as far as I know, the F-23 derivative is the journalist's own speculation. So again, this may be undue weight and if others agree I can adjust the wording.

Steve7c8 (talk) 22:54, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

FARC section

Moving to get additional perspectives. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:18, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

• Delist The external links still obviously don't comply with WP:EL. Nick-D (talk) 09:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

  See my amended reply above. Steve7c8 (talk) 17:48, 5 December 2024 (UTC)