Difficult Callsigns

[Tee]

Certain callsigns have failed to compute in my brain until I've heard them half a dozen times - do the professionals on the other side of the mic have the same problem? To name a few:-

Alanmann
Solo
Penguin
Adobee
Science

[DavidLucas2002]

No Fraid not.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

"Midland Three November Lima" seems to cause a lot of tongue-twisting - not with me, of course!

[andrijander]

I'm allways messing up with the JetSet whatever Charlie (AMMXXXC) which I allways call Air Malta (AMC). You know, funny things the brain has...or is it the lack of brain?

[alphaalpha]

My callsign is GYBAA. it is sometime read back incorrectly, always as GBYAA. Presumably because there are very few UK aircraft with a GYxxx call sign, but many with GBxxx. The error rate is probably about 5 percent or so, and occurs both on 'freecalls' and 'contacts,' i.e. it doesn't seem to matter if the controller has pre-knowledge of the callsign or not (indeed the confusion may have arisen earlier on telephone handover, or on inputting the flightplan).

Also occasionally get called as something like GBYBB, but these things are never a problem in practice. It's slighltly comforting to know that controllers, as well as pilots, sometimes find their brain is not quite connected to their mouth when the pressure's on! :-)

[MLF]

Another version of the problem

When Sabena died as a company, the planes were in the air using the callsign "DAT" - on the radio "DAT".
Later on that was changed to "DAT" but on the radio "STAIL"
Since all the strips and radarlabels still has DAT guess what I call them.........

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

When I worked abroad the country underwent a coup and change of government. As a result the ATC Unit where I worked underwent a change of callsign... but some of us still inadvertently used the previous callsign. One morning a military gentleman wrote in the ATC Log: "With immediate effect any controller using the old callsign will be shot". Nobody made the mistake thereafter!!

[niknak]

G B E W Y :eek:

I once transposed the first letter of the W to replace the first letter of the Y.
Naturally, I chose the busiest time of day to commit this act.

I have yet to live it down.

Pilly Sillock.

[Ahh-40612]

A few are a bit awkward at the moment.

Ryanair 230 Zulu can be a s$d if you're in a hurry.

I often feel that the issuing of ICAO 3-letter codes to non airline operators is not helping.

They often have 4 characters after the company code - one example that comes to mind is GBJ ( Global Jet ) and 4 numbers.

And it's usually only a Beech 200 !!

[mainecoon]

spent a number of years with airtours old callsign tourjet calling them courgette nobody noticed it seemed

but around the same time it took some time to realise the callsign coastrider was not ghost rider (to much top gun maybe):cool:

[flower]

Not the callsign on this that is the problem but the three letter designator on the flight progress strip.

When Airtours changed from AIH to MYT,
when I am passed an estimate I still look for kestrel under AIH

[5milesbaby]

G-OMGG, Golf Golf Golf shortened is really difficult to grasp, as is the RyanAir southbound around lunchtime that we always complain about, cant remember the numbers though. Navy Juliet Mike's followed by 2 numbers and then 2 letters gets confusing when shortening, and the best is BAW49WY, gets us all :D

[terrain safe]

BMA (midland) 8M5 got all confused yestersay lunchtime at Redfa. When transferred to Maas said "see you later with an even worse callsign". Trouble is the TDB lookes like 8mS with is confusing for us as well.

[atco-matic]

Well, personally speaking, ''namibia'' never seems to come out right on the r/t, and i can never say royal nipple with out smirking!!

Then theres UKA7YL that has come out as lanky lima before, and BMA70Z although I havent seen that one around for a while...

oh and lets not forget ''dagobert'', the second most stupid callsign in the world after ''Baby''!!!!!!!!!!

[WX Man]

Any Swedish bizjet... SE*** never rolls off this toungue nicely!

Oh, and any callsign with 'Airline(s)' in it, like RGA. How fr*gging pointless is that! Of course it's a bleeding airline, couldn't they have come up with something more original???!!!

And this one, from the sim...

Me: Trans-echek-you-tiv *** blah blah blah...
TEJ***: blah blah blah, TEJ ***
Instructor: No, no, no... it's Trans-ehek-utee-bvos
Me: Oh, ok.. Trans-eeeeehek-eee-teee... no, hang on... Trans.. oh b****!!!

After about 5 mins, I got the hang of it!

[BEXIL160]

Slightly off topic, but worthy of a mention is a certain GB Airlines (Hello Dan!) callsign in daily use:

Gee Bee Zero Fife Tango ....

Not get it?

Well on the tube it looks like this:

GBLOST

Always raises a smile to see "GB LOST" creeping up the hill from GUBAR

Rgds BEX

[expedite_climb]

5milesbaby

Used to fly G-BGGG - thats a mouthful if easy to remember. Often got G-BGGGG

BEXIL160

Nah - its uphill to GUBAR - downhill afterwards :D :D

[MLF]

A couple of years back in the northern part of Denmark. Unidentified target low level and very fast fooling around. To get a label on the guy to remember to give traffic info we entered "HVEMDER" - which is danish for "Who´s there". We thought it very funny, until the military were on the phone in total panic - they have direct transfer of info from our system, and they thought it was an unknown fighter with the actual name "HVEMDER"
Just close to starting war against themselves......:)

[canberra]

half the problem is that a lot of aircrew and controllers dont speak proper on the rt. and im not having a go at non engligh speakers by the way! about 15 years ago the raf stopped giving trainee pilots formal rt lessons, and boy has the standard of raf rt dropped.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

canberra - you can hardly comment, being incapable of speaking proper on a keyboard!!

[lanciaspezzata]

Many years ago I frequently worked an aircraft with the callsign KKK. Brilliant pilot who, unfortunately for at least one other jockey, had a pronounced stutter which came up only on first contact.

".........., this is KKK". Took around 40 seconds. In the meantime the other hoop tried his rather necessary "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday...................." - to no avail. It took some considerable time to find out where the poor sod had crashed. The crashee survived.

Far as I remember he was checked out frequently but never stuttered once - but he always managed to do it on first contact on no-check days.