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This question—What is the aircraft loss-rate from Nimitz-class aircraft carriers?—is one vote away from being closed at the moment, and is most likely already closed by the time you read this.

Apart from the VTC as opinion based (come now, would an answer offering the requested statistics really be primarily opinion based?), the other three VTC list flag the question as being off-topic, specifically: "This question does not appear to be about aviation, within the scope defined in the help center."

While this question is certainly military related, I see nothing in the help center that indicates that military related questions are off topic. Indeed, we have many military related aviation questions, including many well received questions asked about aircraft carrier operations.

I am curious as to why this question is considered to be off-topic. Am I missing something in the help center? Is my definition of what constitutes an aviation related topic too broad?

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    $\begingroup$ I just cast the final close vote. :) $\endgroup$
    – abelenky
    Dec 27, 2016 at 17:34
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    $\begingroup$ @abelenky Ok. Would you be willing to weigh in on this question then? $\endgroup$
    – J W
    Dec 27, 2016 at 18:26
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    $\begingroup$ I think I voted "opinion based". "would an answer offering the requested statistics really be primarily opinion based?" Information about military training cannot be assumed to be complete. Worst, the answer would be used to compare with Kuznetsov which "lost two aircraft in the space of a couple of weeks" which is not significant. This might still be a good question, but must be centered on techniques or difficulties involved (weather, pilots seniority, type of exercise...), or even known weaknesses. $\endgroup$
    – mins
    Dec 30, 2016 at 15:16

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In my opinion, as the question stands, it seems to ask about military aircraft losses sustained without enemy intervention, and an attempt to correlate whether they came from a carrier or not. Although aircraft are involved, it's hardly about aviation or the operation of aircraft per se. If he's asking about the number of aircraft lost on landing and/or launch, an edit would be in order, but even then it's probably hard-to-impossible to answer (the numbers would be confidential I assume).

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    $\begingroup$ That is an interesting perspective that I hadn't considered. However, given that the two comparative losses cited both occurred during landing/recovery attempts, I do believe the question is meant in the context of launch/recovery operations. That being said, I do see that this could be made clearer, as you suggest. $\endgroup$
    – J W
    Dec 26, 2016 at 19:37
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    $\begingroup$ I agree with Jonathan. How could that possibly not be aviation related? It seems pretty clear what he's asking. I concur that the data might be hard to come by, but that's not a reason to vtc. Maybe somebody out there can find the data. I haven't seen RhinoDriver around for a while, but he might know $\endgroup$
    – TomMcW
    Dec 26, 2016 at 21:44
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    $\begingroup$ @TomMcW I don't agree it's clear what he's asking about. With the extra knowledge that the two losses where landing incidents, maybe, but it's not linked nor described in the question. As it stands it just says losses that are not related to fighting an enemy. He further doubles down in a comment that he's not only interested in pilot error but any cause (and yes, he probably still means landing incidents, but the question doesn't say so, nor imply it). For the record I did not vote to close. $\endgroup$
    – falstro
    Dec 26, 2016 at 22:09
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    $\begingroup$ Dunno. "Losses not related to fighting an enemy" seems specific enough to me. We would answer if it said "airliner losses not due to deliberate acts." $\endgroup$
    – TomMcW
    Dec 26, 2016 at 22:24
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    $\begingroup$ @TomMcW I would count training exercise incidents under that definition for example. And Im guessing "what is the airline loss rate not due to deliberate acts" would be closed as too broad, but I don't know. $\endgroup$
    – falstro
    Dec 26, 2016 at 22:32
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    $\begingroup$ Man, you're picky! ;) $\endgroup$
    – TomMcW
    Dec 26, 2016 at 22:35
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    $\begingroup$ @TomMcW don't get me wrong, Im just trying to rationalize it. I think we're way too quick to close on this site in general :) $\endgroup$
    – falstro
    Dec 26, 2016 at 22:36
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    $\begingroup$ I don't feel that it is off-topic. Unanswerable perhaps, but not off-topic... $\endgroup$
    – Lnafziger
    Dec 29, 2016 at 17:37
  • $\begingroup$ @falstro Quick to close isn't really a problem, as long as we re-open in cases where the closure was wrong-headed or the question was improved so the closure reason no longer applies. It's all very well suggesting that we should wait a few days before closing a question that could be improved but what actually happens then is that people forget about the question and we end up with a bunch of bad questions that should have been closed but weren't. $\endgroup$
    – David Richerby
    Dec 30, 2016 at 17:24
  • $\begingroup$ @DavidRicherby i did not mean to imply that we should wait before closing. I just think we're a bit overzealous. My (anti-) favorite is questions closed as duplicate because a different question asked something else and in answering that touched the answer to the closed question. But hey, it's just my opinion, the community has decided against it. $\endgroup$
    – falstro
    Dec 30, 2016 at 17:46
  • $\begingroup$ @falstro Fair enough. I see the "wait a few days before closing" idea quite often and I mistakenly thought you were talking about that. $\endgroup$
    – David Richerby
    Dec 30, 2016 at 17:48
  • $\begingroup$ @DavidRicherby case in point: aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/34296/… $\endgroup$
    – falstro
    Jan 1, 2017 at 21:34

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