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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Promoted Peacemaker67 (send... over) 01:43, 20 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No. 1 Flying Training School RAAF

[edit]
Nominator(s): Ian Rose (talk)


I'm putting this article, which passed GAN almost two years ago, up for ACR now because of one of those chance things that IMO makes what we do here so enjoyable. Back in the day when I only took biographies to ACR and beyond, I asked Nick-D's opinion on a few of my unit articles, since he'd already taken some through the ACR/FAC processes. When it came to No. 1 FTS, he thought that we really should explain why it was disbanded during World War II. It was a very valid point but none of my research up until then made it clear, so I left the article as GA and thought little more about it. Then a couple of weeks ago, during some routine trawling of records in the National Archives, what did I find...? Well, that was all I needed to revisit the article and expand the entire history to what I now think is an A-Class (and indeed FA-Class) level of comprehensiveness, so please have at it and we'll see if I'm right... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:42, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support: looks quite good to me, Ian, as usual. I have the following comments for review and a couple of suggestions:

  • images look correctly licenced (and I liked the personal touch), although I'm not sure of the date on "File:RAAF CAC CA-8 Wirraway A20-309.jpg" (probably better to have "c. 1950s" instead of "6 Febraury 2011" etc
    • Tks mate -- if anyone ever thinks I'm going to far with snapshots from the family album, as it were, I'm more than willing to reconsider them but OTOH, aside from its aesthetic qualities, I'm not aware of another shot out there labelled specifically as a cadet about to take a solo flight... ;-) As to the Wirra, I didn't upload it myself and the Flickr source file says 2011 (presumably the upload date) but the design and paint scheme is certainly consistent with post-war livery up until the mid-50s, when the now-familiar leaping kangaroo roundel was introduced (e.g. this, which I didn't use because I wanted the subject facing 'inwards' if possible). I could also use this instead...
  • referencing seems comprehensive (no action required);
  • there are no dab links, and no duplicate links;
  • one external link reports as dead: [1] (if possible, can you please try to re-aim this one?)
    • Gah, thought I caught 'em all... Old faithful AWM has changed its urls for the official histories yet again in the past year or so... ;-)
  • "resemble more closely the cadet colleges run by the Royal Australian Navy and the Australian Army" --> this might be better as "...resemble more closely the cadet colleges run by the Royal Australian Navy and the Australian Army: the Royal Australian Naval College and the Royal Military College, Duntroon" (as it might avoid the slightly confusing link);
    • Heh, I thought it was quite elegant piping but happy to alter...
  • J.H. Summers' full name was John Hamilton, if you want to use his full name instead of initials: ([2])
    • Tks, laziness on my part... ;-)
  • "Its complement of aircraft included one Anson, two Tiger Moths, and 55 Wirraways, though little flying was carried out..." --> do the sources state why little flying was carried out? AustralianRupert (talk) 21:51, 22 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Training had effectively stopped dead around that time and most units were just responsible for 'care and maintenance' of their aircraft -- should be able to source something to that effect... Many tks for review, Rupert! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:00, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support Excellent work Ian, and I think that this has the legs to go to FAC. I have only the following comments:

  • "It was re-organised several times in the ensuing years, beginning in World War II." - this is a bit clunky. How about "It was re-organised several times between 1940 and 1952"?
    • I preferred not to use dates there as I think its whole existence was marked by reorg, including in 1969. If it helps to lose "beginning in WWII", I'd be happy to do that...
  • The gap between the formation of the unit in 1921 and its first training course in 1923 is a bit odd. Do any sources explain this? - it would appear to be the fault of the organisational problems in the RAAF at the time (which I imagine may have had more pilots than it needed) from what's in the article though.
    • Re-checking The Third Brother, the implication seems to be a combination of time spent organising the new service as a whole, a plentiful supply of veteran pilots from WWI, and funding issues, but nothing specifically tying those to delays in commencing flying training. FWIW I did tweak some other info in the pre-war section...
  • "the total duration varied during the war as demand for aircrew rose and fell." - I think that the overall capacity of the training system (and in turn the supply of pilots) also affected this, especially if Australia could sustain longer training courses in 1942 than in 1940.
    • Tks, will look into that...
  • In regards to the unit's disbandment in 1944, there's some useful material in Air Power Over Europe, 1944–1945 on the over-supply of aircrew in Europe which you could possibly draw on to illustrate this issue (I included some material on this topic at Australian contribution to the Battle of Normandy#Aftermath) Nick-D (talk) 10:25, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note -- For those interested, I've just taken advantage of a lull in reviewing after addressing Nick's comments to add/clarify some details. I'm not planning to make any other changes now, except in response to further review comments. Tks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:56, 7 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support
    • The citation check tool reports one minor error with ref consolidation:
      • "Stephens, Going Solo, p. 151" (Multiple references contain the same content)
        • Well spotted!
    • The Earwig Tool reveal no issues with copyright violation or close paraphrasing [3] (no action req'd).
    • Is there a typo in fn 18 ("Coulthard-Clark, The Third Brother, pp. 186–i187"). I.e. should the "i" be in there?
      • All I can say is "oops!"
    • Otherwise this looks very good to me. Anotherclown (talk) 21:25, 18 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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