Originally Posted by
Phil_R
When aircrew are discussing which aircraft specifically they'll be flying today, how do they refer to them?
I appreciate sometimes there might be a discussion about serviceability and which aircraft are available with which bits working, depending on what we're training on this occasion, that sort of thing.
The Tornado GR fleet used squadron-specific tail letters until the mid-2000s, by when the frequency of aircraft rotations between squadrons and deployed ops was such that a fleet-wide tail numbering scheme was adopted. Engineers and aircrew alike referred to the aircraft by their tail letters or number - that was the whole point, less of a mouthful than the registration, and easily readable when looking for your aircraft on the line or working out who’s where when joining formation! However formal paperwork (authorisation sheets, maintenance records, etc) always used the registration. The Typhoon system seems ideal for minimising the number of different ways to refer to a particular aircraft.