Running out of rego’s

[Squawk7700]

So apparently there are well less than 100 GA rego combinations left, reducing at a rate of over 10 per week.

What happens next???

[Lasiorhinus]

Start using VI prefix, I assume?

[Two_dogs]

The Civil Aircraft Register currently shows 16003 entries. May or not be up-to-date, after all it is CAsA.
Showing 1 - 30 of 16003 results.

Total number of unique combinations of three letter combinations.
26 x 26 x 26 = 17576.
= 1573 available registrations?
17576 divided by 10 per week = 157 weeks = 3 years.

[Mumbai Merlin]

Not really an issue:

B- xxxx will solve the problem!

[Squawk7700]

The Civil Aircraft Register currently shows 16003 entries. May or not be up-to-date, after all it is CAsA.
Showing 1 - 30 of 16003 results.

Total number of unique combinations of three letter combinations.
26 x 26 x 26 = 17576.
= 1573 available registrations?
17576 divided by 10 per week = 157 weeks = 3 years.

I am going by the list of available marks… the rest must be reserved.

[KRviator]

Australia has the VI- prefix too? Perhaps the CAsA KingAir or whatever they get around in these days could have VI-RUS? Maybe Glen B could grab VI-CTM...

63 available marks you can reserve as of this morning. 17,576 - (16,003 + 63) = 1,510 marks currently "unavailable" for whatever reason, probably already reserved. At least we don't have the scenario they do in the US where some parasite bulk-reserves (https://short-n-numbers.com/) groups of short N numbers and tries to flog them back to owners at exorbitant rates...

[oceancrosser]

Why not reuse registration codes?

[Lead Balloon]

We do reuse them...

[Squawk7700]

Why not reuse registration codes?

As per below, we do re-use them, however there are a large number that are written off and will never fly again that could be released.

That being said, it would only delay the inevitable as we would run out anyway.

[chimbu warrior]

I vaguely recall a proposal some years ago (maybe mid-90's) to change the Australian prefix from VH- to V-.

The Canadians did this 40-odd years ago, and changed from CF- to C-, thus freeing up thousands of new possibilities.

As I see it, starting a VI- prefix would only cause confusion; what if VH-ABC and VI-ABC are on the same frequency at the same time?

[TWOTBAGS]

More than likely VM- , this was previously allocated to Australian government aircraft in the 50's-60's, Caribous, Hercs etc. They may not have actually been painted on but they certainly were allocated.

[Squawk7700]

“V” won’t help if you’re still using ABC as the callsign.

To avoid all confusion it will have to have a number in it.

Making it 4 letters won’t help either as if you miss one, you’ll be confused with a 3 letter callsign.

I’m keen to hear the solution for this!

Most likely VH-3AD if it has to remain as 3 characters.

[KRviator]

That'd give an extra 6,760 available marks just by going to a letter or number / letter / letter combination..

[Mach1Muppet]

“V” won’t help if you’re still using ABC as the callsign.

To avoid all confusion it will have to have a number in it.

Making it 4 letters won’t help either as if you miss one, you’ll be confused with a 3 letter callsign.

I’m keen to hear the solution for this!

Most likely VH-3AD if it has to remain as 3 characters.

I like this idea, but wouldn't callsigns starting with a number prove confusing/ unavailable due to other radio callsigns (e.g. 3AW, 3XY, 2GB?)

[Lead Balloon]

I doubt, very much, that ATC/Centre will wonder whether Cessna 172 Two Golf Bravo 5,500' ASST calling on 124.1mHz is actually a Sydney radio station broadcasting on 873kHz.

[Mach1Muppet]

Get that part, but on the paperwork/legal side of things it will be interesting to see how it would play out

[KRviator]

Though when 2RN is a VFR reporting point for a major Class D, there might be a problem with a couple of specific callsigns...

[Squawk7700]

Lots of software will need to be updated.

[thunderbird five]

Sit tight, I've sent the question to CASA Aircraft Registrar. I'm curious about it too.
Would not surprise me if I get back "we're looking into that now." ("now" might be too late!)
I did search ICAO info a while ago, found nothing useful about future allocations/series.

[Lead Balloon]

Though when 2RN is a VFR reporting point for a major Class D, there might be a problem with a couple of specific callsigns...Then put the number at the end…

[FullOppositeRudder]

With quite a lot of commercial flight operations using the airline flight numbers these days for radio comms, the problems may be more likely administrative rather than operational.

Adding another letter on the end of the existing three letter suffix seems a reasonable solution. The British and the French operate thusly - and have done so for years - so any potential issues there would seem to have been resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. Where ops require aircraft identification by rego rather than flight number (or military designation), more precise radio procedures may be required, and everyone needs to be alert for the possibility of potential errors, but surely we are up to that. The expansion of data base requirements at all levels to fit the extra character needed could be something of a challenge, but we came through Y2K pretty well unscathed. In any event - we already have RAAus aircraft in the operational mix using the 2+4 numerical combinations, so changes in the mainstream aviation system should be quite workable if and when they become essential.

Finally, from what read, I think ICAO may well need to be involved in any change anyway.

[Squawk7700]

The format 1AA is apparently the most likely because Australia is issued a limited number of ICAO transponder codes and 3AB for example fits into the algorithm used to create the HEX codes for the transponder codes assigned to Australia.

[morno]

So the original VH-AAA to ZZZ lasted us nearly 100 years. That’s not bad.

I still find it hard to believe that we have nearly 17,576 aircraft in Australia though, given CASA’s determination to make sure there’s none.

[Lazyload]

Here's the current stats, from iPhone app VHReg:


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/920x2000/img_00109869690a_1_5e8cbd132249fa5a7545a52c7ff37b71cfef4d65. jpeg

[Lazyload]

And if you're wondering why there are 497 aircraft manufacturers and 188 engine manufacturers (and 1836 engine variants!), these include one-off home builds.

[thunderbird five]

Right,
So I had a very pleasant conversation with the Aircraft Registrar person himself this morning, Craig, the top banana, who called me himself, personally. He's been the Registrar for about 5 months now following Jurgen's departure from CASA.
Would anyone be surprised to hear that until he arrived on the scene, somewhere between nothing and not much had been investigated or even realised for this looming problem. Certainly nothing was actively in the works.

CASA are planning to switch to three digit alpha-numberic, eg
2 Alpha Bravo, or
Alpha 2 Bravo, or
Alpha Bravo 2 - whatever you like, or CASA will go fishing and give you whatever comes out.

"Planning" to do all this, DAS has seen the proposals, not yet signed off on the deal, but they don't have a lot of time to spin their wheels on this as we all know.

There will be no zeros (no confusion with Oscar.)
There will be no ones (no confusion with India.)

Some specific sequences will be blocked, such as something to do with Q (Q codes...) Dunno why, there's already a bus load of Q rego's.
Airservices has been involved somewhat, don't anticipate any problems (other than some ATC education)
ICAO is cool with it.
Transponder mode S is it, code allocation whatever that hexispherical whatever number is called I forget (not the 1234) should continue OK.
Yes you will be able to reserve as usual. eg VH-AV8 I suppose. OH! what about RV8! CT4, loads of fun still to be had there.

Thanks also to S.7700 for a tipoff along these lines the other day. Hope this expands on what's happening. Keep fingers and shoelaces crossed that it happens in time.

TB5.
(Just waiting for Allan to arrive at the space station on board TB3.)

[Chairmans Lounge]

Thanks TB5.

This new fella seems to have achieved a lot in 5 months

[gerry111]

Let's hope we're spared the tackiness of personalised marks with letter combinations and 69. (Such as those that have become so popular with personalised automotive plates.)

[thunderbird five]

I didn't get the impression that 2 numbers was part of the deal........

[Sbaker]

Don't forget individuals can also hold rego's for up to 12 months before they even have an aircraft to stick it on.

[KRviator]

47 marks available as of last night. You SAAA folk nearing completion would want to get in quick! :uhoh:

[Lasiorhinus]

I like this idea, but wouldn't callsigns starting with a number prove confusing/ unavailable due to other radio callsigns (e.g. 3AW, 3XY, 2GB?)

No, because despite you in your Cessna saying "Tree Alfa Whiskey", your full callsign is VH3AW. The radio station, despite saying "Three Ayy Dubbelyoo" actually has a callsign VL3AW.

[mikewil]

Knowing CASA and Australian government departments in general, I think CASA will need to create a whole new department with 20 managers and 500 pencil pushers to solve this massive predicament.

[On Track]

When I worked at a well known Sydney radio station in the 1980s the callsign of our car/portable radios was VH2TX, so I'm not sure that the number plus two letters proposal is a goer.

[0ttoL]

From todays CASA Briefing:

Coming soon: changes to aircraft registration marks
Aircraft registration marks in Australia are changing to include a new alphanumeric system.
We use the VH Australian Nationality Mark followed by 3 alpha characters. Soon we will be introducing a 3-character alphanumeric combination such as VH-2AB, VH-A9B, VH-A22.

Introducing a 3-character alphanumeric system will mean the availability of more than 20,000 additional marks.
This will give us enough marks for at least another 30 years.

This supply maintains the current look of the registration mark and allows for sequential reservations and selective individual marks.

[airspace alpha]

So many chances to make money by reserving rego’s. VH-QF1 and on and on. Or in GA VH-RV7, or VH-DH2, VH-C47, CH-C72. Or in the realm of personal plates VH-IM1, or for a certain personality VH-D1C. Of course CASA will have thought of this and set up reservation allocation rules. Surely…..I mean, what can possibly go wrong?

[thunderbird five]

There will be no ones or zeros.

[Traffic_Is_Er_Was]

or for a certain personality VH-D1C.
That certain personality's Jetranger was VH-DIK.

[Arm out the window]

Perhaps I'm confused (happens a fair bit to be honest) but am I the only one thinking that one number and two letters will give you even less callsigns than three letters, there being 26 letters in the alphabet and only 8 available digits (not counting 1 or 0 as mentioned above)?

Ahhh... disregard, I see now that they can come in any order, so there's heaps more permutations - or is that combinations?

[le Pingouin]

The intention is for the new format to be additional marks, not replace what currently exists.

[KRviator]

Perhaps I'm confused (happens a fair bit to be honest) but am I the only one thinking that one number and two letters will give you even less callsigns than three letters, there being 26 letters in the alphabet and only 8 available digits (not counting 1 or 0 as mentioned above)?

Ahhh... disregard, I see now that they can come in any order, so there's heaps more permutations - or is that combinations?If I've done the maths right (always debatable), allowing one numeral in any position and excluding 1 or 0 will give an extra 5,408 combinations (22,984 total, made up of 34x26x26) compared to the current 17,576 possible now.

[chuboy]

My mathematics are thus
Original format allowed for 26x26x26 = 17576
The new format allows for 26*26*8*3 = 16224

The total number of VH combinations is then 33800

[mustafagander]

Do we really have numbers of aircraft on the Oz register approaching 17,576??
I'm aware of the need to avoid immediate4 reissue of rego marks handed in but really???

[cogwheel]

Seems there are quite a few drones that have picked up VH- regos of late. Why can’t they be in a block of their own and leave some traditional rego’s to more conventional aircraft? After all, the gliders had a lot in the G block for many years. Drones could be VH-D2A etc.... I’m sure there would be others?

[KRviator]

My mathematics are thus
Original format allowed for 26x26x26 = 17576
The new format allows for 26*26*8*3 = 16224

The total number of VH combinations is then 33800I can't see where you're getting the *3 multiplier from? I can understand the *8 but think you're mistaken in its' application, as such a formula could be re-written as 26*26*24. Given they aren't mandating everyone change from the current VH-AAA to VH-AAA/N, rather they are adding an extra 8 possible figures in one column, I think it should be calculated as 26*26*34 - as it doesn't matter where the numeral is inserted, the *34 can be used anywhere in the formula.

Always happy to be proven wrong of course - then I'll have learnt something.

Do we really have numbers of aircraft on the Oz register approaching 17,576??Someone with enough time on their hands could probably download the register into Excel and play around with it to work out how many registered aircraft there are compared to registrations. They could also workout the most populous type on the register for any nerds among us...

[Mutley Eugenius]

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1790x1144/id_do_something_like_this_7ab33d5d425c1ace4ac8a133ffff0a0bba fb7c1e.jpg

[Vag277]

Not hard to find current numbers. 16040 registered currently 33 marks available. See CASA website

[Lead Balloon]

Why on Earth are drones given VH registration?

Seems a return to some understanding of basic principles might help. VH and other country prefixes, and their corresponding registries, exist primarily to show evidence of nationality of aircraft flying internationally. Since when do ‘Australian’ drones fly internationally?

[chuboy]

. Given they aren't mandating everyone change from the current VH-AAA to VH-AAA/N, rather they are adding an extra 8 possible figures in one column, I think it should be calculated as 26*26*34 - as it doesn't matter where the numeral is inserted, the *34 can be used anywhere in the formula.

But it does matter where the numeral is inserted. VH-2AA is not the same as VH-AA2. So in addition to the existing VH-AAA to VH-ZZZ, you also have 26*26*8 for VH-AA2 to VH-ZZ9, and the same again twice over when you move the numeral into a different position. So 26*26*8*3. As you have pointed out, this is numerically equivalent to 26*26*24, i.e. the same as if CASA were to create a new run of letter-only registrations from VI-AAA to VI-XZZ.

[chuboy]

Since when do ‘Australian’ drones fly internationally?
If I had to wager, an Aussie drone could fly internationally if its owner brought it overseas and flew it there :)

As for why they need registration in the first place well I suppose that is CASA's decision to make. I can see an argument for it as it helps to identify drones that are ostensibly operated by people who should know the rules about where they should be flown. I don't believe they are given a VH registration though?

[Lead Balloon]

I see. So you think that an Australian citizen who happens to be in the USA and buys a drone to fly while in the USA will be applying for and granted VH registration for that drone by CASA?

As to your second point, there are many aircraft flying around in Australia without VH registration. Have you heard of RAAus, for example? CASA seems to think there’s no ‘regulatory risk’ in those aircraft not being on the VH register.

[AerialPerspective]

So apparently there are well less than 100 GA rego combinations left, reducing at a rate of over 10 per week.

What happens next???

Since when is VH-XXX exclusively a 'GA registration'. Last time I looked, Part 135, 138, 121, etc. operators used the same registrations.

[AerialPerspective]

I vaguely recall a proposal some years ago (maybe mid-90's) to change the Australian prefix from VH- to V-.

The Canadians did this 40-odd years ago, and changed from CF- to C-, thus freeing up thousands of new possibilities.

As I see it, starting a VI- prefix would only cause confusion; what if VH-ABC and VI-ABC are on the same frequency at the same time?

What is so damn sacred about VH, it was just an arbitrary code allocated by the British on our behalf when they were still running half the show, even though we were allegedly an 'independent' Commonwealth. Just adopt A-XXXX and be done with it. Allow combinations of alpha-numerics. If the world was serious, the registration marks should be the ISO code for the country, followed by whatever combination of letters and numbers you want - e.g. Australia would become "AU-XXXX" or "AU-1X1X", etc. etc. and be done with it. The US would become "US------:.

[AerialPerspective]

Lots of software will need to be updated.

Not necessarily on the airline side. Even the old DCS that Qantas and most of the world's airlines used (and the new Amadeus Suite is much more flexible) would take any registration combination you entered. We could have gone into the system and changed all of the QF regos to AU-OJA, AU-OJB, VHOJA, VH-OJA or whatever. The only requirement the system had was that if you selected an aircraft type under a Qantas flight, the registration would have to match how the registration was entered in the table of registrations. This was sometimes confusing as Load Controllers would go from one BA type system to another and some operators would leave the hyphen out in between - e.g. ZK-NCN would be set up as ZKNCN (not saying NZ did this, just as an example).

It was set up like this for a very good reason, like when Qantas wet-leased that 747-123 that still had a US registration and with PH-MCF.

Don't know about non airline software.

[AerialPerspective]

With quite a lot of commercial flight operations using the airline flight numbers these days for radio comms, the problems may be more likely administrative rather than operational.

Adding another letter on the end of the existing three letter suffix seems a reasonable solution. The British and the French operate thusly - and have done so for years - so any potential issues there would seem to have been resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. Where ops require aircraft identification by rego rather than flight number (or military designation), more precise radio procedures may be required, and everyone needs to be alert for the possibility of potential errors, but surely we are up to that. The expansion of data base requirements at all levels to fit the extra character needed could be something of a challenge, but we came through Y2K pretty well unscathed. In any event - we already have RAAus aircraft in the operational mix using the 2+4 numerical combinations, so changes in the mainstream aviation system should be quite workable if and when they become essential.

Finally, from what read, I think ICAO may well need to be involved in any change anyway.

I think the database concerned are invalid. Even going back to the 70s, airline departure control systems could put in any registration format you wanted. The registration in the table of registrations for each carrier/aircraft type (as for example QF handled a lot of carriers in it's DCS) could be input however one wanted to - e.g. VHEBA, VH-EBA, etc. etc. the only requirement being when inputting the registration on a flight set up as a 747-238B, one would have to enter the registration precisely as it appeared in the table for that airline/type. If there was a change, for example, dropping or moving the hyphen, then updating those records would be about 10 minutes work and from an airport perspective, would only require the controller of the flight to change the registration. In fact, the way it'd probably be done is to set up additional registrations in the new format, get each flight controller to update the registration, then remove the old formatted regos. I assume other systems would be similar, ATC for instance as they already have to cope with an almost infinite number of combinations.

[Cloudee]

1500 new alphanumeric rego marks released. https://services.casa.gov.au/CSV/availablemarks.pdf

[Lazyload]

Got as far as 82I and 82O. Might get away with radio calls but what about when painted on side of aircraft?

[flywatcher]

'ate VW sounds fun

[AerialPerspective]

Why on Earth are drones given VH registration?

Seems a return to some understanding of basic principles might help. VH and other country prefixes, and their corresponding registries, exist primarily to show evidence of nationality of aircraft flying internationally. Since when do ‘Australian’ drones fly internationally?

That's right LB and I believe there is allowance in the rules to omit the VH from the registration mark on an aircraft that is to be used entirely within the territory of the Commonwealth. Most include it anyway.

[AerialPerspective]

Got as far as 82I and 82O. Might get away with radio calls but what about when painted on side of aircraft?

I thought 1 and zero are excluded so there will be no confusion??

[KRviator]

Got as far as 82I and 82O. Might get away with radio calls but what about when painted on side of aircraft?I was thinking VH-88B might be a good way of avoiding those speed, landing fee and red light camera fines....:}

But as an RV-9 owner, I feel a bit discriminated against - all these new rego's seem to disproportionately favour RV-8 Driver's...