Aircraft type confusion lives on... one of my colleagues told me this story from the early days of Australia's computerised ATC system
Some years ago, a pilot somewhere in the GAFA (Great Australian F-All - ie the Outback) called air traffic control before he took off from an uncontrolled aerodrome for a flight to Adelaide. There was no flight plan in the system for this trip so the controller needed to create one so the system had something to work with. He didn't recognise the aircraft type that the pilot told him so he asked for the aircraft code to enter into the system. The pilot didn't know but said "it's probably Sierra Hotel Alpha Charlie."
Not knowing any better the controller thinks he may as well give it a go then, and enters 'SHAC' into the aircraft field. The system accepts the code so the controller shrugs, assumes it must be correct and duly activates the flight plan and the aircraft takes off.
The flight plan makes its way through the system and eventually causes a strip to print out in the tower at Adelaide, its destination. This is picked up by the aerodrome controller who gets a little bit excited when he sees the aircraft code because he's a bit of a spotter and didn't think that there were any Shackletons still airworthy, let alone one in Australia. This'll be one to watch! So he tells his colleagues and as the aircraft is cleared onto the ILS they all get their binoculars out to see it land...
The first sign that something is not quite as it seems is when one of the controllers noticed the lack of black smoke that would normally be trailing from the engines of an old aeroplane of that vintage. The second sign is that the aeroplane is much smaller than they were expecting. The third sign is that the aeroplane that appears looks nothing like a hulking great Shacklebomber. Instead of looking like this...
...the aeroplane that actually turns up on approach looks like this:
Cue some very disappointed tower controllers. It was a SHRIKE COMMANDER, also known as an AERO COMMANDER. The pilot had made up the code for the system and no-one had bothered to check that it made no sense.
Adam