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The aircraft length needs to be changed from 159 ft. to 98 ft. Having worked onthese aircraft for over 4 years at Minot AFB I can say for certain that the 159 ft. length is a gross overestimation. Our general airframe technical manuals on the B-52H cited 98 ft. lenght with the rear turret removed.
Don't know where you figure came from. I'd say you need a new ruler: [1]. Or, try this. Go to google maps with the link I'll give you here to a Barksdale B-52. Check the scale. Now, mark that distance on a piece of paper held to the screen. Then, put the piece of paper next to a BUFF. You tell me what you come up with. Yeah, this is original research, but it confirms the above source as well. Here you go: [2] --Nukes4Tots (talk) 13:46, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
First off, I appreciate your input. Unfortunetly your link just sends me to random page here on Wiki. So i did a little searching and found a near perfect top down view of a B-52H in flight. I picked this pic because there's no ground clutter or shadows to mess with the sizing. Since we agree that the aircraft has a 185 ft wingspan I used that as my base to find scale. Wingtip to wingtip was 4.3125". If we take 185'x 12 we get width in inches, devide that by 4.3125 and we get the scale... 514.7826 Multiply this by the measured length of 2.3777" and then divide by 12 (to put the number from inches to feet) we get a length of just under 102ft. My ruler may be wrong, but the math agrees with Boeing's Air Force Technical Data the 1B-52H-1-1. But as I stated, This wasn't a perfect top down. Even if I added .5 inch it still wouldn't make the 159' mark. Something I've learned over the years, never trust the engineer's specs. Looks like you and me have a little work ahead of us to find an actual length that we can agree on. Shoot me an email at fmd_dragon@yahoo.com, being a modeler and perfectionist I know that there is an error in the length due to the angle. My curiosity is perked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.240.136.86 (talk) 10:05, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
I'll try to be helpful. Try to zoom in to an Aircraft on the tarmac on this google map. Hope it works this time. You need a picture with a scale. Trying not to be silly about it as EVERY reference out there says the right length so I'm not sure why there'd be an issue. This is original research, but that's what you're asking for. --Nukes4Tots (talk) 11:49, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
Since Boeing's site references 157'7" as the length, I'm inclined to believe that the 159' length used on this site is either correct, or close enough that I would chalk it up to slight variations in production. www.boeing.com/history/b52. My own personal experience as a crew-member some years ago also bears out the general length of this plane, a length that is far in excess of the 98 feet mentioned above. Jongleur (talk) 23:11, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
I think we should use the Boeing site for the official length. The 98 feet claim doesn't seem to be backed up by any references (no offense to the modeler IP above). I'm also at Minot AFB right now and I think your recollection may be a bit off. A B-52 is significantly longer than 98 feet. — BQZip01 —talk 02:47, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
Peer review underway
A peer review for this article has been started. Add comments there. -Fnlayson (talk) 23:20, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
2007 Nuclear weapons incident
I added a reference to the incident here into the article. LordShonus (talk) 11:34, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Flight of the Old Dog, a 1987 novel by ex-B-52 crew member Dale Brown, many of whose works involve the B-52, EB-52, or other variations of the Stratofortress
Added "See article" link which probably should have been done before.LanceBarber (talk) 05:07, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Largest aircraft to achieve an aerial kill
The claim that the B-52 is both the largest aircraft to achieve an aerial kill in combat and the largest aircraft to be shot down in combat has been challenged. Please present evidence that this information is incorrect or the challenge will be removed. - Ken keisel (talk) 18:47, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Didn't realize that. Will modify the article accordingly. - Ken keisel (talk) 20:49, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
The article still states this, however, the B-52 is one of the largest combat aircraft with an air-to-air capability (admittedly it is a past capability). It has two confirmed kills. If there is a larger aircraft with a kill, it should be easy to find, but I cannot find anything. While it is still unreferenced it is a logical inference. I'm going to leave it for now, but I am also researching it. — BQZip01 —talk 20:49, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Now what
Ok. I think the best way to go about this is to do a proof by exclusion. There are not many combat aircraft larger than a B-52 (in terms of mass, wingspan, length, or payload) and most of those are unarmed cargo aircraft. I think the best way to prove this is to conclusively show why this claim is true by showing all larger aircraft did not have a kill.
The following military aircraft are larger than the B-52 in some manner (the parameter listed in parenthesis may not be the only one that exceeds the corresponding parameter of the B-52, but is one characteristic that does exceed it):
There are several other cargo aircraft (civilian/military) which have payload capacities and/or wingspans above that of the B-52; none of these were ever armed with air-to-air weaponry. Feel free to add them to the list. — BQZip01 —talk 05:42, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
FA push
To those who have contributed to this article, I intend to work on this in the near future and press for FA status. The prose needs a little bit of work here and there, some sources are needed, and some formatting needs to be done with respect to the references (dates, italics, authors, etc), but it largely appears to be ready for FA. Thoughts on anything else? Please add them to the list below. Once one of the items below is done, strike it out and put your signature after it.
I'm just trying to coordinate efforts here. If you have a better way to do it, I am all ears. — BQZip01 —talk 02:24, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
Still have one sentence about the BUFF being the largest a/c with an air-to-air kill, but I don't think that one is controversial and I don't know of a larger a/c with a kill. If it is incorrect, a simple link to another claim would be easily sufficient to remove it. Simple process of elimination reveals the truth. — BQZip01 —talk 10:24, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Fix problems with the references
Really needs more about the Cold War role as it served in that capacity for nearly 40 years. Only 3 paragraphs seems disproportionate.
Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), there should be a non-breaking space - between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 500 kg, use 500 kg, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 500 kg.[?]
Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), when doing conversions, please use standard abbreviations: for example, miles -> mi, kilometers squared -> km2, and pounds -> lb.[?]
Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), please spell out source units of measurements in text; for example, the Moon is 380,000 kilometres (240,000 mi) from Earth.[?] Specifically, an example is 480 mi.
Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) may be too long – consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per Wikipedia:Summary style.[?]
As done in WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes usually are located right after a punctuation mark (as recommended by the CMS, but not mandatory), such that there is no space in between. For example, the sun is larger than the moon [2]. is usually written as the sun is larger than the moon.[2][?]
Please provide citations for all of the {{fact}}s.[?]
One point that arose from the F-4 Phantom Featured Article review is that Vectorsite and Joe Baugher's website are not considered WP:RS - they will need to be replaced if this is raised to FA.Nigel Ish (talk) 21:18, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
This comment and the one following it were originally together, but I have split them for clarity. I would largely prefer not to remove them. If the information is accurate, we can add another reference to show that this information is indeed reliable (better to have extra references than not enough. — BQZip01 —talk 05:21, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Was the reason that Mr. Baugher's website was not reliable because it wasn't peer reviewed? — BQZip01 —talk 05:30, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
It should be relatively easy to fix as he gives his references. — BQZip01 —talk 05:35, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes, Baugher's pages, GlobalSecurity and similar web pages are all self-published. They don't pass WP:Reliable sources. -Fnlayson (talk) 16:51, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
The article could do with expansion of the section on the structural issues encountered in the early days that caused a number of crashes. Referencing also needs improvement. Socrates2008 (Talk) 23:22, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
I concur; added. — BQZip01 —talk 05:21, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Need a better/updated image
File:B-52 3-view.svg looks more like a B-52D (IIRC, B-52D has the tall tail/vertical stabiliser and is the only model that can carry more 750lb bombs than the other B-52 variants) than a B-52H to me, and in my view, this file should not be use as it does not correspond to the header of Specifications for B-52H, kind of misleading to place it there in the first place. Thoughts, anyone? --Dave1185talk 16:30, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Nevermind all, I've switched the image to that of a short-tailed B-52G instead, which is similar to the H-model except only for the tail-gun. But if there's a better image or outline drawing of a H-model, please feel free to change it to correspond to the B-52H specification. Thank you. --Dave1185talk 16:43, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Reference format
Is there any consensus for the complete change in the reference format?Nigel Ish (talk) 22:10, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I expect not, it is normal practice just to keep to the style adopted by the first editor. MilborneOne (talk) 22:27, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
And do we really want all the adverts for Google books sprinkled into the references? They don't add anything.Nigel Ish (talk) 22:33, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Nope. The links aren't needed unless maybe there's some dispute over the info from it. -Fnlayson (talk) 22:36, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Three of the Google books links gave no preview and no additional information, so I deleted them (as its easily reachable if you click on the ISBn link its no great loss.) One of them has a review (but no preview) and one has a limited preview, which could theoretically be used to find information.Nigel Ish (talk) 00:14, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Was trying to lend a hand to get this towards FA, but clearly folks are unhappy with my efforts, so I'll leave you to it - good luck with the review. Socrates2008 (Talk) 08:15, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Question, what is the current reference format used here? I've seen examples of manual coding, citation template'd ones, and half finished ones; so which actually is the standard we're supposed to be adopting as one right the way though? While I recognise that we should keep to whatever standard is dominant and first used, I'm unable to tell what that is, so the clarification would be appreciated. Kyteto (talk) 02:44, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
The article originally mainly used manual coded references - an attempt by one editor to impose cite templates on the article and change the layout of the standard appendices without any prior discussion resulted in the above discussion and the current mix of reference formats.Nigel Ish (talk) 16:12, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Ah good. Just thought I had better get that established, so that I and other editors know what to work towards on this article. Kyteto (talk) 02:21, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
