Some interesting views. I suspect most of the "don't renumber" brigade have probably never led some of the complex formation teaches at BFT. I accept that for a front-line 2/4 ship with very little close manouvring and rarely actually operating as a single unit, renumbering is inappropriate; however, having witnessed first-hand the confusion when not renumbering a dedicated close formation 3-ship exercise I don't accept that rigidly not renumbering is correct either.
I can't believe in this day-and-age that when 'Sabik 3' fails to return from a dedicated 3-ship close-formation sortie they simply look at the briefing slides before marching off to 'Sabik 3's' NOK to tell them the bad news. I do know it has happened before, but Kinforming has been tightened up considerably.
I can recount many a 3-ship where even experienced QFIs, having not renumberred, begin to adopt the callsign for their actual position in the formation and not their original callsign. Last guy in a tailchase will often by default call 'Sabik 3 out', but if he's not renumberred should perhaps still be Sabik 1.- Mayhem!!! "Sabik 3 out lost visual". Lead thinks - now was he at the back? Oh no, we are in the order 1,3 & 2
