Talk:Fixed-wing aircraft/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

interwiki

some of the links are wrong

French: fixed-wing aircraft is aéronef à voilure fixe not avion

Portuguese: fixed-wing aircraft is aeronave de asas fixas not avião

Spanish: fixed-wing aircraft is aeronave de alas fijas not avión — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.131.80.19 (talk) 19:30, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm assuming that "avion" etc. are the equivilents of the English words airplane and aeroplane? That is the subject of this article, so those interwikis are correct. - BilCat (talk) 21:04, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Not quite right. The subject of this article is "fixed-wing aircraft", of which air/aeroplane is a subset. English Wikipedia does not have a separate article on the air/aeroplane. I think that's what the IP was referring to. Dohn joe (talk) 21:13, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, this really is the article on air-/aeroplane. It's called "fixed-wing aircraft" because it was too contentious to name it either airplane or aeroplane. We would still probably have an article at this title, but perhaps not. So again,the interwikis are correct. - BilCat (talk) 23:05, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Interestingly, only a fraction of it is nowadays dedicated to aeroplanes, the rest is about gliders, kites and aspects common to all three. That's a big change from when its name was changed because it barely mentioned anything other than airplanes. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:00, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

The IP is claiming that the interwiki links are "wrong" - the links are not, as those articles do not exist on the other sites. So the interwiki links here are correctly pointed to avion, avião, and avión. If those articles did exist there, then that would be where our interwikis should point. And they would point to "air-/aeroplane" if we had a separate article on it, which of course we don't. The IP seems to be assuming that the interwikis are merely translations, but they aren't always - it depends on the content of the article also. - BilCat (talk) 21:18, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Meaning of the name

why is it called air+plane? what is a plane? why are there no landplanes or seaplanes (a boat, not a sea+plane)? or a spaceplane? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.244.22.193 (talk) 02:37, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

a "plane" is a more or less flat surface, in this case used to provide lift, i.e. a wing plane. A monoplane has one wing plane, a biplane has two wing planes, and so on. A given wing plane is often divided into two (left and right) wings, like a bird's wings. An aero+plane or air+plane contrasts with say an aero+stat, which is a balloon filled with a lighter-than-air gas. HTH. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:57, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Hey look what I found! Hydroplane (boat). Powers ^T 19:50, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Not as simple as that - the "plane" part of "aeroplane" is actually from the Greek word for "wander" - as in "planet". So that "aeroplane" literally means "air-wanderer". We do use "landplane" to mean an "aeroplane that takes off from land", as opposed to a "seaplane", which means an "aeroplane that lands and takes off from the water". "Monoplane", "biplane" etc. on the other hand do seem to derive from "plane" in the sense of "level". As somebody pointed out many years ago, a "level" aeroplane wing would have next to no lift, as most of this comes from the curved top surface. The only logical human languages are ones like Esperanto, that have been made up from scratch - all "real" langauge is muddleheaded, even English. (And especially American, of course - which enshrines all the illogicalities of English and adds its own on top). -Soundofmusicals (talk) 20:05, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Dictionaries seem to differ on whether the "plane" bit of "aeroplane" comes from the flat plane or wandering planets. The lighter-than-air "aerostat" derives its lift from static buoyancy, and the word was coined a century before "aeroplane". Aerostats can also wander the skies. The flat plane surface was a feature of many early wing designs and model aeroplanes made by Cayley and others. All this suggests that the term "aeroplane" was coined to contrast with "aerostat" in order to emphasise the presence of the 'flat' wing. To me, the wandering bit sounds more like the minds of those who dreamed that idea up.

Also, the curvature of the top surface is more about reducing drag. A flat plane may be made to deflect air downwards very effectively, simply by tilting the leading edge upwards to give a positive angle of attack to the airflow. To a rough approximation, the lift generated depends on the angle of the trailing section to the airflow (this sets the overall downward acceleration against which the lifting force is the reaction). If the wing is curved to reduce the angle of the leading section, the lift is affected only a little but the drag is much reduced. The idea that "plane" implies "level" is a red herring. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:45, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, there's also the issue that "airplane" refers to the vehicle, not to the wing. The wing's shape is an airfoil, not a plane. Powers ^T 03:02, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Except, "foil" basically means leaf-thin and the term as coined a century after "aeroplane" - two centuries after "aerostat". Think of a foil as a curved plane. Wings did not grow appreciable thickness, with separate upper and lower skins, until even later. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 22:17, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Hey folks - doesn't anyone actually read the articles? It's all explained at Airplane#Etymology_and_usage... Dohn joe (talk) 03:06, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, the 'plane' part of 'aeroplane/airplane' correctly refers to the horizontal wings and tail surfaces, hence 'mainplane', tailplane' and/or 'foreplane'. Like most specialised areas of human endeavour the aeronautical field needed its own precise terminology in the beginning, hence 'mainplane' (wing), 'tailplane', etc. This may be seen in issues of Flight[1]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 11:31, 27 January 2013 (UTC)