Apparently in - "Wikipedia 1.0 discussions it's been suggested that all specific aircraft articles be excluded." as I've been informed.

• As aircraft are a critical piece of world history and it would be very much shame if this were to happen, I propose that that 20 (30?) of the most important famous/popularized aircraft are selected, completed and polished to sufficient quality- that there inclusion is all but insured.
• For example the problem see the article on the famous Wright Flyer. While there's a decent article on the brothers themselves I think this illustrates (albeit extreme example) of the issue fairly enough.
• This list I've come up with is focused on "popularized" aircraft that would receive more common lookups. Of course which planes are "famous" is subjective and varies from country to country.
• We can either modify this one and see where controversy develops (by adding more aircraft etc), or alternatively other lists could be made then cross references ( the ones with the most votes getting in). Certainly, as surely as I'm arbitrarily selecting 20, a couple more wouldn't matter-however sacrifices would have to made to keep the list from going much over 30.
• Lesser known competitor aircraft (Fw190 to Me109, Buran to space shuttle) are often linked to/mentioned in the more well known type's page so I did not try include these. I also tried to put a short reason why for some.
• Remember I've tried to focus on aircraft that would be commonly looked up, not the lesser known competitors/alternate superelative/underdog or aircraft that are important in some other way but not as well known.
• Other issues- a focus on the more commonly known name?
• Numbers so we can easily keep track of how many are there are
• In future it might be nice to have important planes from every nation- and I'm sure many would see this and say how could you leave that one out. Well certainly I've forgotten some but really tried to cut it down here. Of course in some countries famous aircraft might be very different but that can be handled by there own languages encyclopedia.
• Of course many important planes that I could not think of off the top of my head aren't here- but that can all be worked out if this actually comes to anything.
• I tried to include planes people on the street would know the name of or be familiar visually with.

Early Years

• 1 Wright Flyer first really successful heavier than air craft, famous
• 2 Bleriot Monoplane Crossed English channel, important harbinger of design. (i think its design bumps it about other early year planes)

WWI

• 3 Fokker Dr.I The popularized Red Baron's plane much more popular recognition then other WWI types
• Spad is a close second. Should it be here?

Intra war

• 5 Spirit of St. Louis crossed Atlantic nonstop, famous
• 6 DC-3 famous and important common transport. Extensive use.
• 7 Hindenburg infamous/famous of all dirigibles

WWII

• 8 Spitfire famous WWII fighter
• 9 Me 109 famous WWII fighter
• 10 P-51 Mustang famous WWII fighter
• 11 Zero famous WWII fighter
• Should bombers be included? The first Jet fighters?

Post WWII

• 11 Bell X-1 fully broke sound barrier, arguably the most famous of the x-planes (other experimental planes included)

• Famous cold war fighters (also for the US vs Russian rivalry in plane design):
• 12 MiG 17 early jet fighter
• 13 F-86 Sabre early jet fighter

• 14 De Havilland Comet first commercial airliner, infamous design problem

• 15 SR-71 Blackbird most famous spy plane, stealth tech, fast

• 16 Huey has got to be the most famous chopper

• 17 Boeing 747 the first jumbojet, common
• 18 Concorde first supersonic jetliner, famous, technology

• 19 F-16 Probably the most well known of modern jet fighters

• 20 Space Shuttle most famous of the space planes

• Glaring omissions.... too many to count. Some choices are probably weak.
• I think its ok for the English speaking wiki to focus on US(11) and UK/Euro(8) aircraft.
• I really made sacrifices here. 30-40 is probably a better number.
• We need the other wikpedians to recognize - and therefore accept the planes so some aircraft get into Wiki 1.0

• Alternatively a series of combo articles could be crafted that includes mention of important aircraft. For example
  • Early Aircraft
  • WWI planes
  • Intra war aircraft
  • WWII
  • Cold War Aviation
  • Post WWII civilian Aircraft
  • Flying boats, dirigibles, and helicopters

--Greyengine5 03:10, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)~

At some point we should start noting which pages have reached 'minimum acceptability' for the project. Possessing data table, footers if needed, photo if possible (sometimes not) and sufficiently informative/NPOV text. —Morven 18:44, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)