Aircraft Photos-Minimum Descriptions Requirement

DougRobertson

Recently added on this terrific site is the requirement for a minimum aircraft photo description of five characters on photo uploads. BRAVO! for this new feature to exclude meaningless character descriptions too prevalent heretofore on the site such as single characters or duplicate airport designators which should already be designated for photos taken on or near airports.

MalcolmClarke

As a member of the Admin team I very much welcome Doug's positive reaction to this significant new requirement and hope that many more members will share his enthusiasm.

This feature has been introduced as a direct result of the very large numbers of unprofiled images which are contained within the database and the continuing reluctance of the few who continue to avoid raising profiles for their images, even though quite often, the attached notes fully identify the airframe .

I should point out that such unprofiled images are not seen by those using the front page search procedure and this surely defeats the object of sharing ones images with members and visitors.

What is most important is that we do not wish that anyone is disadvantaged by the new procedure and anyone who may have difficulty with the data required for the upload page in respect of a particular airframe should feel free to contact the Admin team through the Forums.

Bluedharma

It is good news!

ChrisHall

I agree that this is a welcome addition to the site.

Also I would like to stress the point that Malcolm raised about unprofiled images, correcting these take up a large amount of time by the admin team. Only yesterday there were 6 unprofiled images uploaded to the site by a single regular contributor. All the info to create a profile for these images can be found with a quick search on the internet. For Civil airliners just enter the tail number into either of these sites

http://www.airframes.org/

http://www.planespotters.net/

there are also many sites that offer details on military aircraft.

If the aircraft has been previously registered, check to see if the previous tail number has a profile on this site, if it has, then use the link option to create a profile for the new tailnumber. If not then create a new profile via the Search Tail Number feature on the front page.

Recently I added a profile for a image on the site only to find that there were eight other images of the same aircraft by eight different contributors, none of whom had taken the time to create a profile.

There are currently nearly 20000 unprofiled images on the site, which as Malcolm says these are not seen by those using the front page search features.

Another request would be more help with Data Corrections. There are currently 6550 registered members on this site, but less the a dozen that make regular contributions to Data Corrections. Have a look to see if your name is in the Top Photographers list on the front page, then think to yourself, "when did I last contribute to Data Corrections or add a new profile"

Lets all work together to make this the number one aviation site on the internet.

Rant over and happy spotting

regards

Chris Hall

Admin Team

Ztex

I like the idea! I also like the idea that a valid profile is required. And the fact that there is a quick link/ pop-up that comes up to help with the process.

It can only make the site better.

Where can on view the unprofiled photos? is there a way that us in the general population of the site help to fill in the blanks without spending copious amounts of time searching through member profiles looking for them?

I know every once in a while I try to upload a military aircraft only to find no profile. I create one on my own and then when I load the photo it comes up with my created profile with some other persons already loaded photo in it. Is this an example of unprofiled photos?

Thanks for the good work out there guys!

Zane (on the front page and do what I can to help) Adams

Ztex

Also...what do we do with UNKNOWNS?

The profiles that show up for that are getting rather crowded again.

MalcolmClarke

The number of unprofiled images is reducing gradually as the Admin team deal with them and as you say Zane, the creation of new profiles by uploaders is continuing to mop-up some of them.

As has been said before, these images can be readily located from the front page More Random Aircraft Photos where the registrations of unprofiled airframes appear in black print rather than blue. These pages can be instantly changed by using the refresh page feature of the software so you can quickly roll through many pages quickly. Incidence? - around 2 to 5 every 10 pages.

However, please check the accuracy of the declared registrations as errors have been made, e.g. XX+YY for German aircraft rather than XX YY, the use of a code rather than the registration, etc. This will avoid having to make profile corrections at a later date.

Your point about UNKNOWNS is a valid one and any suggestions as to how to deal with these would be most welcome.

Off the top of my head, we could subdivide these into UNKNOWN Civil, UNKNOWN Military, UNKNOWN Light, etc., to make the list more manageable.

Other idea's?

Malcolm.

Admin team.

ChrisHall

Another way to find unprofiled images is by looking at images at a single airport. When viewing these images you will have 12 thumbnails on a page, if you move your cursor over the image a pop-up will appear, ie "G-BNJT @ EGNR "

If the image has no profile, then no tail number will appear in the pop-up, ie " @ EGNR "

Click on the image an the title will read " Aircraft G-BNJT Photo "

If you google search the tail number or search one of the online data bases, you will find enough details to create a basic profile. BUT always check previous ID's and see if a profile exists on the data base, if it does then use the "Link this airframe to another registry number " option

If 10 members created 10 profiles over 10 days, that would be 1000 new profiles. If you create a duplicate profile by accident, post a message in the "Data Corrections" forum and a member of the admin team will quickly fix it for you.

The more you do the easy it gets. Thanks in advance for everyones help

Chris

Ken Wang

However, please check the accuracy of the declared registrations as errors have been made, e.g. XX+YY for German aircraft rather than XX YY, the use of a code rather than the registration, etc. This will avoid having to make profile corrections at a later date.

Sorry for hijacking the thread. But as now it's required to have a profile to upload an aircraft photo, some guidelines about how registration numbers are necessary, as I am sometime confused about how to enter a military registry.

For example, German air force numbers are seen in 3 common formats on this site: XX YY, XX-YY, XX+YY. My personal preference is XX-YY, as the white space in first format and + in last one can sometime cause trouble in a URL. All aircraft profile pages on this site have registration number in it, for example:

http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/45 89.html

In some cases the whitespace will cause the URL be interpreted wrongly which will cause a 404 error. One example is exact this forum. It does not know the URL actually ends after the whitespace:

http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/45 89.html

But, for now, most German air force numbers are in "XX YY" format.

Also for french air force, what is the right format, 999-XX/99-XX?

It would be great if some of our members can create such guildlines.

Thanks all,

Ken

Ken Wang

Where can on view the unprofiled photos? is there a way that us in the general population of the site help to fill in the blanks without spending copious amounts of time searching through member profiles looking for them?

I can make the unprofiled photos publicly available to all members.

Ken

MalcolmClarke

Ken.

Regarding German Air Force registrations, I have a strong preference for a straight four digit numerical sequence as applied by other aviation websites, no space, no hyphen, no cross.

However there is a considerable number of airframes in the database with the XX XX sequence which would require a good deal of work to change.

Modern French Air Force registrations are uninterrupted alpha numeric sequences such as E46, 113, J28, etc. The problem we have, which is graphically illustrated in the list of unprofiled images, is that all too often members mistakenly use the code for the registration, the predominant fuselage marking on French military aircraft, e.g. 112-ER, 33-CN, etc,.

Malcolm.

FBE

Ken, Malcolm,

is it useful to create a profile that includes only the registration and Type of aircraft? I got many planes within my general aviation folder, were I can´t find appropirate informations.

Fritz

MalcolmClarke

Fritz.

You say the type of aircraft but then presumably you know the manufacturer.

In which case you can state the manufacturer, aircraft type, the registration and if you lack the cn you can state "Not found"

Perhaps you may give us an example of the information you have for one of these airframes?

Malcolm.

Ken Wang

Regarding German Air Force registrations, I have a strong preference for a straight four digit numerical sequence as applied by other aviation websites, no space, no hyphen, no cross.

However there is a considerable number of airframes in the database with the XX XX sequence which would require a good deal of work to change.

That is a way around. But I think the distinctive 2 by 2 registry format is unique to German air force, using a separator between two sections will let many people know it's german right away. For example, if you see:

"Tornado IDS 43-06" or "Tornado IDS 43+06"

you can tell it's german without looking into details, but

"Tornado IDS 4306"

wouldn't help much, as a few other countries use such straing-all-digits format.

Ken

FBE

Fritz.

You say the type of aircraft but then presumably you know the manufacturer.

In which case you can state the manufacturer, aircraft type, the registration and if you lack the cn you can state "Not found"

Perhaps you may give us an example of the information you have for one of these airframes?

Malcolm.

Malcolm,

as you wrote, when I know the type I know the manufacturer and of course the registration. I do not know the C/N nor the year of manufacturing and the delivery date. So I will do as you stated above and start creating the missing profiles.

Fritz

ChrisHall

when I know the type I know the manufacturer and of course the registration. I do not know the C/N nor the year of manufacturing and the delivery date. So I will do as you stated above and start creating the missing profiles.

Fritz

Hi Fritz

If you google search the registration number, 9 times out of ten you will find the C/N

Chris