Airline Call Signs
When I was a lad, all those years ago, there was a number of airline call signs that were not as mundane as the airline name, but did have some connection. Pan Am was ‘Clipper’ (who remembers “This is the Clipper One” as if it was the only flight that had ever arrived in Europe? Presumably the pilots had to wind themselves up on their seats before calling anyone in European radar), Air 2000 was ‘Jetset’, which I thought was rather nice, Canadian Pacific Airlines was ‘Empress’, and the Kiwis were ‘Teal’, an acknowledgement to their ancestry as Tasman Empire Airways Limited. Those first three examples no longer are with us, and the Kiwis rather boringly announce themselves as ‘New Zealand’ these days.
The only call signs that I can immediately think of that are just that tad obscure and still in use are ‘Speedbird’, ‘Shamrock’ and ‘Springbok’. So the questions are:
• Can anyone think of any other, current or historic, call signs used by the larger carriers (there are some slightly obscure names in use by small and charter operators), that are not immediately connectable to the airline name?
• Does anyone know when Air New Zealand (formed, I see, on 1 April 1965), stopped using ‘Teal’?
And then for those who have a Transport Command pedigree…
I can remember a summer trogging all round the Mediterranean at the end of the 1970s as a supernumerary in a Whistling Wheelbarrow… and I am sure that the call sign used was ‘Ascot’. Elsewhere, I see that the current RAF call sign is ‘Rafair’. Can anyone help with whether ‘Ascot’ no longer is used (perhaps it was dropped to avoid confusion with One’s Landau when it’s on short finals for the home straight to open Ladies’ Day at Royal Ascot)? And, if it’s still in use, what determines whether ‘Rafair’ or ‘Ascot’ is given to a particular flight?