Velocity

[sunnySA]

Velocity to be the new RTF for Virgin Australia which includes all domestic ops, plus international ops (Bluey, Pacific Blue and VEE-OZ). End of an era.

[Goat Whisperer]

lame.

An agreement with Virgin Atlantic to stay away from their numbers couldn't be reached? It works with VS200/201.

[neville_nobody]

I didn't think they could use the same call sign as they are all seperate AOCs and therefore seperate entities legally. And if you could join them up why not use Virgin?

[Nautilus Blue]

The way I read the instruction, Velocity replaces Virgin but Bluey, Vee Oz etc stayed as they were. I suspect in practice it will be "vir.. I mean velocity", same as we now have "vir.. I mean bluey" :O

The again we were told months ago that Chobham were changing to jetconnect FNC's but that hasn't yet.

[Jack Ranga]

Well it would be good if someone in Virgin could clear up what we are going to call them because whomever wrote the Airservices instruction is an idiot. I haven't read a worse written instruction in 20 years. :ugh:

[Nautilus Blue]

Jack Ranga - agreed, and thats up against some fierce competition.

[RENURPP]

The again we were told months ago that Chobham were changing to jetconnect FNC's but that hasn't yet.

]Who told you that? One of the cabin crew :oh:

[Nautilus Blue]

Who told you that? One of the cabin crew

No one so reliable. It was in our bumper fun book of changes that almost but not quite always entirely pointless or irrelevant (as a National Instruction or Temporary Local Instruction or Standardisation Directive or AIC or General Information Circular or something), so someone from the blunt end of ATC.

[Snakecharma]

Out of interest where did this info come from?

Is it an ATC instruction?

[Seabreeze]

Velocity has 4 syllables; just the ideal if you want to enhance confusion in foreign skies,....

Could come out as verocity, or veelo ceety, or..... velly chitty or.... velly sorry ...or...

depending on your local dialect. I am sure others have good imaginations.

Go the whole hog, why not use 5 or 6 syllables instead.

Someone give the quarter-wit who thought of this a short course in human factors and communications..

[5miles]

...Velocity replaces Virgin but Bluey, Vee Oz etc stayed as they were.

Velocity replaces the telephony prefix for all of these FNC.

[Capn Bloggs]

The again we were told months ago that Chobham were changing to jetconnect FNC's
Nut on yu nilly, bro! :=

[GAFA]

Nothing from the company to pilots about the change.

[Hempy]

Nothing from the company to pilots about the change.

I've seen the documentation and it's a clear instruction. It's designed to standardise all the separate Virgin ops under one callsign. Officially VOZ never had a recognised callsign, "VIRGIN" was simply taken up by crew/atc instead of "VOZZ" I guess (and DEEJAY before it). If I'm correct the ICAO designators stay the same (PBN etc) it's simply for phraseology. I'll find out when it comes in to effect tomorrow unless someone beats me to it.

[Snakecharma]

When do you controllers think it is effective?

[Hempy]

From NIC 15/2012

Virgin group currently use callsigns VAU (Vee‐Oz), PBN (BlueBird), VBH (Bluey), and VOZ (no allocated telephony).
As no telephony is currently associated with VOZ, ATC and pilots have been using ‘Virgin’ as the telephony in Australian domestic airspace.
From 29 October 2012, Virgin group intend to flight plan callsigns:
 VAU (Vee‐Oz)
 PBN (BlueBird)
 VBH (Bluey)
 VOZ (unofficially Virgin)
as one FNC ‐ VOZ (.Velocity.).
ICAO Doc 8585 will be amended in due course.

[Jack Ranga]

I rest my case...........

What telephony is to be used?

[neville_nobody]

Velocity has 4 syllables; just the ideal if you want to enhance confusion in foreign skies

Yes a poor choice given the millions of words available to them.

[mcgrath50]

What telephony is to be used?

I read that as Virgin planes will only use VOZ which should be spoken as Velocity. VAU PBN etc. are gone.

[Ivasrus]

Ridiculous. As bad as the Chinese four syllable airlines. What is wrong with using VAU/VEE-OZ? At least it's already registered.

Or, now that DJ has lost its VIRGINity, how about we follow Virgin America's REDWOOD with something colourful like, um, BLUEBALLS?

;)

[ASY68]

When the new resv. System comes online, you will see DJ disappear too...

[Nautilus Blue]

The again we were told months ago that Chobham were changing to jetconnect FNC's
Nut on yu nilly, bro!

Sorry, brain fade, I meant Q-Jet FNC's :O

[Hempy]

"VlossstySiksssteenssikssstySiksss turn left heading one sikss zero, desssend ssikss thoussand"

Poor old Kenny, got a pimple on your tongue after that lot old son :-(

[Capn Bloggs]

Sorry, brain fade, I meant Q-Jet FNC's
Cuejet fish n chips coming soon to a frequency around you...

[DirectAnywhere]

Most places in SE Asia. "Velocity" will become "Ferocity". In Thailand it will be "Werocity".

Stupid choice. Clearly made by someone with no operational experience.

[Ken Borough]

Clearly made by someone with no operational experience.

Not all. More likely by some corporate nit-wit who's not ventured beyond an outer northern suburb of Brisbane. The concept is fine but its application in Asia is laughable.

[Nautilus Blue]

Cuejet fish n chips coming soon to a frequency around you...

Sky's already full of fokkers and ee-jits so why not :E.

[lederhosen]

Still not as bad as changing from excellence 123 to yellow smile three foxtrot oscar! Fortunately it did not last long.

[Hugh Jarse]

A whole 2 pages on a call sign change, yet none of us at the rockface have heard anything :}:}

When is it supposed to happen?

[lederhosen]

Don't worry you will find out soon enough when the controllers start calling you something else. Mushroom management is normally the game....keep you in the dark and feed you faeces.

[GAFA]

So true Jarse, no FCON, OIC etc about it, yet on another forum they say it starts on the 29th of this month. I guess we will get the change then when we check the latest FCON on the 29th.

[Hugh Jarse]

Funny as, GAFA :}

This is a rumour network, after all :8

[Hempy]

A whole 2 pages on a call sign change, yet none of us at the rockface have heard anything http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/badteeth.gifhttp://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/badteeth.gif

When is it supposed to happen?

From 29 October 2012, Virgin group intend to flight plan callsigns:
 VAU (Vee‐Oz)
 PBN (BlueBird)
 VBH (Bluey)
 VOZ (unofficially Virgin)
as one FNC ‐ VOZ (.Velocity.).

You sure it's not hidden away in one of those spam management emails/operational directives that you skip through and don't read properly?

[training wheels]

If only it has some connection with what's painted on the aircraft ... In Bali, when cleared for push back after 'Bluey passing behind', some local pilots are at a lost wondering which one is 'Bluey'. Another one is Hong Kong Airline's callsign 'BAUHINIA' .. like, what's the connection? :confused:

[BuzzBox]

Another one is Hong Kong Airline's callsign 'BAUHINIA' .. like, what's the connection?

For what it's worth, the Bauhinia is the floral emblem of Hong Kong. You mean to say you didn't know that?

[Hugh Jarse]

BuzzBox, it could be that this is an Australian forum and that the floral emblem of HK means little to us over here?

Still nothing from our company about the callsign change :E

Hempy, my inbox is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives (apologies to Mel Brooks). I do read my emails, but haven't seen anything yet.......

[coaldemon]

Being a weekend I think you are hopeful if you think it will hit your cascading inbox today.

[GAFA]

Email sent today to flight crew advising of change from next week.

[JetX]

"Velocity" is terrible.

And they think "Vee-Oz" was too hard for foreign ATC to pronounce so they reverted back to "Victor Alpha Uniform 123"..... Now they will just revert back to "Victor Oscar Zulu 123".

Who ever decided on that should find a new job along with the person who designed the new wings with "flat back threaded bolts" as fasteners that need a pre drilled hole's to rip through the jacket, and the captain planet clip art logo on the hats.

:D

[Capn Bloggs]

Sounded cool today. I'm waiting for the "Velocity XXX, request maximum velocity above and below 10,000ft". :)

[Cougar2063]

Heard a couple of stumbles of "Virgocity" today.

[Snakecharma]

Ahh the easy acceptance of change by pilots!

Who would have thought it!

Having a think about the possible options, there isn't an awful lot of potential choices that were relevant to the brand.

The other choice was something with no connection to the brand, along the same lines as virgin America - redwood.

Somehow I don't think that pprune as a callsign got a run!

Though "Centre pprune 456 climbing to FL360" does have a ring to it!

[Transition Layer]

"Atrocity" - gold!

How about something simple like "Pure"? It's a synonym of Virgin isn't it?

[Duff Man]

Blue balls