Talk:Black Arrow

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Good articleBlack Arrow has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
June 27, 2009Peer reviewReviewed
July 29, 2009Good article nomineeListed
Current status: Good article


old talk[edit]

It would be nice to know who the 3rd, 4th, and 5th. nations in space were. Thanks. Fred.

The page for the Prospero x-3 adds australia to the list of previous nations, anyone know which to correct?

Pardon, but wasn't Canada the third country to put a satellit in orbit? (The Alouette 1, in '62: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alouette_1 )

There is a difference between owning a satellite that is put into orbit by someone else, and developing the capability to do it yourself - the Alouette 1 was launched by NASA which is different to developing a successful launch system.--Si42 00:34, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused: the page describes the Black Arrow first stage as a modified Blue Streak. But BS was a kerosene/liquid oxygen fuelled rocket. Is there a confusion here with the Black Prince design? This page http://www.fathom.com/course/21701717/session4.html sponsored by the London Science Museum mentions only the kerosene/hydrogen peroxide Black Knight technology.--213.78.103.133 20:50, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The BBC "TimeShift" television programme stated that Black Arrow was one of two orbital carrier rockets to be derived from the Blue Streak (The other being Europa). Looking at images of the two rockets confirms this. The only difference is the use of different engines, and H2O2 instead of LOX. --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 22:16, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone know how this thing actually flew without fins? Any info would be great, cheers - Acra

Thrust Vectoring. --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 20:11, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Article name[edit]

Black Arrow is too close to other uses, it needed to be disambiguated. For example Stevenson's novel is often called "Black Arrow" or "The Black Arrow" and its possible someone could refer to the rocket as "Black Arrow" or "The Black Arrow", or just "black arrow" for either one. -- Stbalbach 23:41, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That is what the disambig notice is for at the top of the articles. GraemeLeggett 09:04, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've reverted your move, as the point of discussion is to discuss the action before it is carried out. For the record, I am opposing the article being renamed. The point of disambiguation in the article title is to deal with pages with exactly the same name, which is not the case here, as the book's title is different from the name of the rocket in that it does not contain the word "The". --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 11:15, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.


Black Arrow → Black Arrow (rocket) — There are (currently) two articles on Wikipedia that a user could conceivably be looking for when searching on "black arrow" -- the rocket, or the novel (or the disambiguation page Black arrow (disambiguation)). According to "Deciding to disambiguate" in Wikipedia:Disambiguation, Ask yourself: When a reader enters this term and pushes "Go", what article would they most likely be expecting to view as a result? Since this rocket is not very well known to the general public (it was in existence for 4 years in the late 60s and had a total of four launches), and whereas Robert Lewis Stevenson's famous 1884 novel The Black Arrow is know the world over and a classic of English literature read by millions of people, the disambiguation guidelines would favor the novel having default for "black arrow", or at a minimum going to the disambiguation page. This would also apply to "Black arrow" or "Black Arrow". Although the novel is named in full "The" Black Arrow, many people just call it "Black Arrow" and could do so when typing it into the search field. Also according to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision): If a word or phrase is ambiguous, and an article concerns only one of the meanings of that word or phrase, it should usually be titled with something more precise than just that word or phrase. For example Nirvana (band) rather than Nirvana. -- since "Black Arrow" is an ambiguous name, a more precise "(rocket)" will give the reader a better understanding what the article is about, and solve the disambiguation concern at the same time. Stbalbach 00:03, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Survey[edit]

Add  # '''Support'''  or  # '''Oppose'''  on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~. Please remember that this survey is not a vote, and please provide an explanation for your recommendation.

Survey - in support of the move[edit]

  1. Support per above. -- Stbalbach 23:03, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, this is the nominator --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 12:19, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Survey - in opposition to the move[edit]

  1. That's the black arrow. We already have a disambiguation at the top of the page that leads there. Are you for real?WolfKeeper 00:41, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are you for real? Please address the issue, not the person. It's standard that articles drop the "The" in cases of disambiguation. If someone types "Black Arrow" into the search field, should it point to the novel, the rocket, or the disambiguation page. This is about "chances of confusion" per WP:DISAMBIG#Deciding_to_disambiguate and the more precise naming guideline. -- Stbalbach 23:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Oppose per my post above. --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 12:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is incorrect to use Nirvana (band) and Nirvana as an example in this case. In this case, Nirvana is an article about a more notable use of the term (i.e. oblivion), and therefore it is right to disambiguate. In this case, the book has a different title - The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, and therefore, this is the only article that uses the title Black Arrow. This means that this article is correctly entitled Black Arrow, and moving it would serve no purpouse whatsoever, other than contributing to the sloppy disambiguation of rocketry articles, which is bad enough as it it. I would also argue that the rocket is just as notable as the book. The difference between the number of search results for Black Arrow Book and Black Arrow rocket is less than 1% in Google. As for the sniper rifle, this doesn't bear worrying about. There were just 1.2 million search hits for the rocket and book, but less than 900 for the gun. Therefore it should be alright to just leave this page here, and link to the disambiguation page, as is currently done. I really think the book's title provides enough disambiguation as it is. I should also point out that over twice as many articles link to here than to the article on the book, with all but two being relevent. Finally, I should note that from your spelling of words, I would guess that you are an American. Therefore, I would put the fact that you are judging the rocket not to be notable down to the fact that it is not notable in America. The fact is that it is pretty notable for being the First and only British rocket to place a satellite into orbit.
I would also reccomend that Black arrow (disambiguation) is moved to Black arrow because it would be better suited to that location. --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 20:57, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Per Wikipedia:Disambiguation: Ask yourself: When a reader enters this term and pushes "Go", what article would they most likely be expecting to view as a result? When there is no risk of confusion, do not disambiguate. -- Clearly, there is risk of confusion, because we already have a disambiguation notice at the top of the page. The question is, should the term "Black Arrow/arrow" default to the Rocket, when other more common meanings exist:
  • Google '"black arrow" stevenson'[1] 113,000 hits.
  • Google '"black arrow" rocket'[2] 60,000 hits.
and per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision): If a word or phrase is ambiguous, and an article concerns only one of the meanings of that word or phrase, it should usually be titled with something more precise than just that word or phrase -- since "Black Arrow" is an ambiguous name, adding "(rocket)" gives it more precision and reduces the ambiguity. Renaming this article to {rocket} solves two problems: it makes this article name more precise, and it free's up "Black Arrow/arrow" which is a common, easily confused and ambiguous search term to point to a more common usage (or to the disambiguation page as a neutral ground). -- Stbalbach 16:31, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This seems to just be a nuisence disambiguation - Black Arrow is only a small part of the title of the book - The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses - Black Arrow is less than a third of the title. Therefore, this article is fine where it is. --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 20:00, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It says When there is no risk of confusion, do not disambiguate. Risk of confusion seems high, users should not need to worry about the definitive article when searching. Plus, there are other things called Black Arrow that have not yet made their way to Wikipedia but could at any time:
I suppose I could keep going, but the point is, there are many things "black arrow" that users could be looking for. It is not clear that any one is the "most common" - if there was a most common black arrow, it would be Stevenson's novel, but it's a close call on Google (about 2:1). -- Stbalbach 00:11, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is all incredibly tendentious. Look, we've satisfied the disambiguation rules by having a link at the top of the page. The title of the book is 'The Black Arrow' but the name of the rocket is simply 'Black Arrow' anyone lazy enough to shorten the title down probably knows the 'The' should be there anyway, and even if they don't they can follow the disambiguation. Given that the correct name of the rocket is Black Arrow whereas it's only one slang name of the book I don't really feel you've got a leg to stand on.WolfKeeper 01:09, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
1) The book is common usage than the rocket. 2) There are other meanings for "black arrow" besides the rocket. 3) The guidelines on naming precision say use more precise names when the names are ambiguous. -- Stbalbach 23:15, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

Add any additional comments:


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. --Stemonitis 06:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Paraffin / Kerosene[edit]

While Paraffin is technically correct, it is vague and confusing. Paraffin describes an entire class of hydrocarbons, from light volatiles to wax. Kerosene is much more specific. If there's another term that is as specific as kerosene, go for it. But I don't know what that would be.

This is not a color/colour issue. This is a less-specific/more-specific issue. This is also clearly demonstrated by the fact that the use of "paraffin" in the article *cannot* use the actual "paraffin" Wikipedia article, but has to use the kerosene article! Doesn't that clearly demonstrate that the use of "paraffin" in the article is at the very least vague? Tmassey (talk) 19:46, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Um. No.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 20:03, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To expand on the color/colour analogy, this is more an "inquiry/enquiry"-type issue. The word has different meanings in the two dialects. And the word "kerosene" simply isn't used in British English. Changing it would be like changing "inquire" to "enquire" in US English articles when it does not refer to official inquiries. (In British English "inquire" refers to an investigation conducted officially, whilst "enquire" is used for general investigation. In American English, "inquire" is used for both. For example, EN-GB: The police are conducting an inquiry and I didn't know the telephone number so I called directory enquiries. EN-US: The police are conducting an inquiry and I didn't know the telephone number so I called directory inquiries.) --GW… 20:35, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In the UK 'kerosene' is the chemical name for the compound and this is the name by which it is known by chemists, but kerosene itself was formerly widely used as a lamp and heater fuel and because of this kerosene is better known outside the chemical industry by what was originally IIRC a trade name, 'Paraffin'. IIARC Paraffin was originally a more refined grade of kerosene, formulated to burn more cleanly. It was for this reason that Frank Whittle's jet engines settled on using Paraffin as fuel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.220.123 (talk) 19:59, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ariel 1[edit]

The Ariel 1 and Ariel programme articles indicates that Britain was the third rather than the sixth nation to have a satellite, and that Prospero was Britains fourth satellite. Shouldnt this be mentioned in the article? 92.28.249.93 (talk) 21:22, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See here. ChiZeroOne (talk) 22:01, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

photo error[edit]

When I click the image in the upper right it goes to an image for a film with the title Black Arrow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.225.23.168 (talk) 17:47, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like a botched page move on Commons. I've requested that it be reverted. --W. D. Graham 21:37, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Turbo[edit]

Should the use of turbo pumps rather than pressure feed be mentioned. [3]--Kitchen Knife (talk) 23:12, 2 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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External links modified (January 2018)[edit]

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Low centre of gravity?[edit]

"The oxidiser tanks were located below the fuel tanks, following the practice of putting the more dense propellant at bottom in order to lower the centre of gravity and make the rocket easier to control.[4]"

Can this be correct? Like arrows & missiles, rockets are easier to steer by aft control surfaces (feathers, fins) or thrust vectoring if the centre of gravity is as far forward as possible: longer moment arm from COG. Jmostly (talk) 22:47, 8 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I also think this is incorrect. Higher center of gravity means larger lever the force of engines is applied to, and so the higher ability to turn, not lower. Avmich (talk) 01:52, 26 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
For stability the centre of pressue has to be behind the COG. Having the short thrust to COG length means, as the Rocket rotates around the COG to move through any angle means the latter distance the base moved is smaller. Leavers do not come into it as the COG is the pivot. To move the rocket by A degrees tha base needs to translate tan(a)*(L) when L is the dustance from the motos to the CoG. The shorter the distance between the CoG and the CoP the more responsive the vehicle. Typical fight aircraft of WWII had very a very small CoP/CoL difference and trainers longer. This makes the Trainers easier to fly as they are less twitchy but also makes them less manoeuvrable. Modern fighters have "relaxed stability" and are "Control configured vehicles" they fly like a dart going backwards with computers adjusting the fins to keep it that way. https://prezi.com/lgwzqgdrevr5/centre-of-gravity-centre-of-pressure/ --Kitchen Knife (talk) 16:43, 26 April 2020 (UTC) --Kitchen Knife (talk) 16:43, 26 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"The oxidiser tanks were located below the fuel tanks, following the practice of putting the more dense propellant at the top in order move the centre of gravity higher and make the rocket more stable, when in flight,[13] and thus easier to control.[4] This arrangement had been pioneered by Germany and the United States, whereas the Soviet Union had placed oxidiser tanks above fuel tanks, making it easier for the lower tank to be filled first.[14]"

This section as it's currently edited is nonsensical. Typical rocket fuels are almost always less dense than typical rocket oxidisers (LH2: 71 kg/m³, RP-1: ~810 kg/m³, UDMH: 793 kg/m³ vs LOX: 1141 kg/m³, N2O4: 1442 kg/m³, HTP: 1330-1450kg/m³)

Americans did and do indeed tend to place the denser propellant's tank above in their first stages, but it's the oxidiser, not the fuel, which ends up on top. However, Soviet rockets *also* show this tendency. The venerable R-7 family and even the ill-fated Energia both have the LOX tanks above the fuel tanks in the launch stages. However, the even-more-ill-fated N-1 Moon rocket did buck this trend, along with the Germans, who in the V-1 placed the less-dense Ethanol fuel in the upper tank. In short, just about everything in this passage is backwards or misleading in some respect.

If I was to guess, I'd suggest the reason you might place the denser oxidiser in the lower tank is due to structural integrity under acceleration. A lower oxidiser tank can be attached more directly to the stage bulkhead which holds the engine, rather than being supported by several meters of light tanks structure. This seems particularly important on the very lightly-built N-1, and on the Black Arrow with it's relatively huge and heavy HTP tanks. However, this is just my speculation. Doorhanger93 (talk) 19:38, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Vehicle: location of tanks, densities of propellants[edit]

“The oxidiser tanks were located below the fuel tanks, following the practice of putting the more dense propellant at the top …”

The argument is nonsensical as the denser propellant is the oxidiser: ~1.4 for HTP 85% vs ~0.81 for RP-1. Would the author of it please review what he intended to say. Jmostly (talk) 00:39, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Correction to Black Arrow tank-order description[edit]

In the article it currently reads: "Due to the optimum mixture ratio being about 7, a larger oxidiser tank was required compared to many contemporary launch systems. The oxidiser tanks were located below the fuel tanks, following the practice of putting the more dense propellant at the top in order move the centre of gravity higher and make the rocket more stable, when in flight, and thus easier to control. This arrangement had been pioneered by Germany and the United States, whereas the Soviet Union had placed oxidiser tanks above fuel tanks, making it easier for the lower tank to be filled first."

The HTP oxidiser is however by far the more dense of the two propellants (1.42g/cc vs 0.81g/cc for the RP-1) meaning that Black Arrow clearly DIDN'T follow the practise of putting the more dense propellant on top, as the fuel tanks were placed above the oxidiser tanks with the fuel tanks being around 15% the volume of the oxidiser tanks and containing a propellant barely 75% the density. Rocketandroll22 (talk) 14:50, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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