Old British airline callsigns
 

One for the more senior members. Does anyone know what callsigns were used in the seventies by the likes of BKS, Northeast, Air Anglia and the original BIA ? Did they just use the airline names, phonetic two-letter designators or just the aircraft registration ? I'm interested because I'm not old enough to remember and I didn't have access to the airbands at the time.

Thankyou.:ok:

I believe that BIA callsign was"Brit Island"

....and Northeast was "Albion"

The Northeast Tridents which operated into Heathrow used "Norjet" I believe, but I stand to be corrected. Way back in those days many a/c used registration numbers rather than flight numbers..

BKS - I can't recall BKS (Barnby Keegan Stevens) flight numbers, only reggies.
Northeast - NE - 'Norjet' / 'NorProp' (?)/ 'Albion' Tridents/Viscounts
Air Anglia - AQ -'Air Anglia'
BIA - 'BritIsland'
I think I need to go up into the loft.........I'm sure that there is a de-code up there fom the early seventies. Funny how one forgets having used them on the Ambers every day (Sector 7/13.....!) Reggies went out when stored FPLs came in. Saved having to refile after an aircraft change.

Boynefly:

Don`t think "Albion" was exclusively Northeast.....I remember it briefly being used when I was in Scotland for what I had previously called "Beeline", i.e Viscounts and Budgies.

BKS was, er, 'BKS' wasn't it?
Beeline was BEA of course.

....or ' Beekayess' as it appeared in the documents...

A correction to info above if I may - Air Anglia's radio callsign was "Anglia".

I can remember the BKS Ambassador service from Belfast calling up as "BKS November Fox"
NS

Not nearly as far back, in the early 90's was Excalibur Airways. Their callsign initially was "Camelot" but they had to change it as apparently the word in french is offensive. I know its not old but members of my generation will remember this one...probably:)

Not old, but how did Excel end up with "Exbow" or whatever it is?

One that's not so old but not heard anymore = "Birmex" for Birmingham European/Maersk UK.

Do Bmi Regional still use "Granite"?

All two letter codes back then
IIRC BKS (BK) was Barnaby, Keegan & Stevens
OU = Autair also used the last 2 letters of the reg.
BY = Britannia
BE = Beeline BEA just used the registration, as did BA = BOAC
RS = Ascot
RR = Rafair (remember details passed as "a military twin Jet" "Roger, Dominie")
BM = BMA (Midland)
PA = Pan Am

and many more, now forgotten. I think we had to learn the whole book back in the 1960s when I started at LATCC:zzz:

PA = Pan Am = "Clipper"

No it wasn't. It was like Talkdownman said.

Re Northeast...I'm pretty sure than when the Viscounts were doing the Leeds-Liverpool-Belfast Aldergrove service in the 1970's the callsign 'Norjet' was used. When the yellow/grey/white colour scheme was introduced the aircraft were nicknamed 'banana boats' but this might have been a scouse thing! Personally I always liked that colour scheme, which was also applied to Cambrian but substituting a magenta like colour for the yellow.

Spiney.

"Albion" for Northeast. That's quite imaginitive. Wonder where the yellow folks came up with that one ? It's more original than "Northeast" if nothing else. I find it difficult to imagine the Viscount flights using the "Speedbird" c/s when the Northeast aircraft were repainted in the BA colours. Much as I love the old aeroplane it just doesn't strike me as a speeding bird !
BKS is a little before my time so I'll take anyone's word on that. British Island clearly used the same c/s when the company reappeared in the early eighties. As for Air Anglia, what could be simpler ?
Dan Air I do remember. Just Dan Air plus an alpha-numeric suffix that bore absolutely no relation to the flight number (scheduled flights only). DAB6ER was LBA-GLA, flight number DA064, I think. Something to do with a never- ending experiment into minimising callsign confusion.
Oh dear, now I sound like a perfect anorak. Back to the pills for me...:{
Seriously, thankyou for all the replies so far.;)

Golf Bravo Zulu. KG was used by Orion Airways. I don't know if they made it to three-letter designators before Britannia got hold of them. Monarch's two-letter designator was OM. MM/AMM was Air 2000 with the Jetset c/s. Jetset is now used by First Choice.

Wycombe,
BMI regional use ''Midland'' now.I think ''Granite'' was Business Air until it became,merged,evolved into BMI regional.They used to be Air Ecosse in the 70's.Callsign Ecosse.
Mooncrest.
Then there was Aberdeen Airways with ''Bon Accord''.
Good old Dan Air. (Dan dare,Dan scare).The alpha numerics were a later addition.Brymon and Alidair as well but they just used straightforward callsigns.
Ah that was when the job was fun.:ok:

Throw a dyce.
You're spot on with 'Granite' & 'Ecosse'. The Datapost Banderante and Shed flights off the 80's into Luton certainly made the night duties pass quickly!
On the topic of airlines changing callsigns then ending up with the original......Airtours/My Travel. Started off as 'Kestrel'. Became 'Tourjet'. Now back to Kestrel again. The original change, so we were told, was because of a callsign clash with a small operator in the then brand new CCS. The renaming to Mytravel brought it back again.

Spiney

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.... the mention of Autair brings back a few mammaries. We used c/s 'Autair' even with Court Line.

ICAO code OU...ATC callsigns were the aircraft registration with the trip number in field 18 of the FPL. Tristars doing visual circuits with touch and go's on a 2160m runway....lovely!

Spiney

which some of us watched from our classroom window because we are not that old!:)

I bet you were writing the reggies down though weren't you? Come on! Admit it!

Spiney

that little habit went back to the Autair Ambassadors and Britannia Brits!

All this is related elsewhere... but Norjet has been mentioned.. soo...

Around Christmas time in Heathrow Tower... Norjet Trident landed having busted the Aberdeen to London record with a direct routing and a really tight split-a**e visual on to 28R. "Congratulations from us all", said I, "How about bringing the girls up to see us?" A little later the whole crew came up and a great time was had by all. (I was going to mention that they brought up several cases of beer to quench our thirsts...... but I'd better not!).

It was either the Captain or F/O I chatted to about the length of final some pilots required in a Trident. He told me he had trained with John Cunningham at Hatfield and when he asked how tight a final could be flown, "Cateyes" took off, kept the wingtip within the airfield boundary and then landed.... Who needs 10 mile finals? Not Norjet!!

Old mate of mine used to fly Avro 748s for BKS.. Captain Malcolm Rolph. Haven't heard of him for 30+ years.

The prefix Norjet was certainly used by the whole Northeast fleet, including VC8s. Naturally the latter were frequently referred to as nojets!

Malcolm Rolph left the then BA (VC8s) and went via Orion (A300s), Capital (146s) to Bae at, Woodford test flying. A very professional operator and generally good egg.
H49

Albion= BZ= British Airways Regional Division ( former NS / CS / BE Scottish & Channel Island Airways Divs) - Did not last too long, all BA & Speedbird by the end of the 70s!

Albion does sound vaguely familiar now it's been mentioned a few times. Maybe I heard it on an old airband radio in the late seventies. I thought BA just used "Speedbird" and "Shuttle" but, for a time, obviously not.

Any other contributions about the past gratefully read.

MC

Ah! DanAir, the most wonderful airline particularly if you were a staff traveller. They could not do enough for you. Wonderful airline, ever helpful staff. I remember taking my 92 year old grannie to Paris on DanAir, we were on our way to the Somme area of Picardy to visit her brothers grave who was killed in the Great War in 1917. I called DanAir ops the evening before to ask them to inform the cabin staff of her age as it was the first time that she had flown and the intention of our flight. The flight deck and cabin crew could not have been kinder and treated her like royalty. I wonder if that personnal touch exists nowadays. Good Old DanAir! Happy Days!!!!

Mooncrest, if you're interested, (probably not)!! As there's been mention of test pilot callsigns, (AVRO for Woodford). Just remembered a couple but my memory isn't perfect for the locations so I stand by to be corrected but.........
NEWPIN. Followed by a number. i.e. NEWPIN 29 was, I think Hawarden during the 125 building years.
TARNISH. Warton?
BLACKBOX. followed by an alpha numeric. i.e. BLACKBOX DELTA. Bedford Thurleigh?
The thing that worries me is that I can't remember Hatfield's even though I worked them many times!!!! The various manufacturing sites were then linked by a DH Dove company service, (Brough, Woodford, Warton, Prestwick, and very occasionally Dunsfold). These aircraft operated on the aircraft registration and not on a company callsign. The only reg I remember was G-AREA. There was also a Farnborough callsign that was used for the Navajo MOD(PE) inter-site shuttle if anyone can remember. Oh! By the way, I'm talking late 70's, early 80's here.

Talking Dan Air...I was just coming on for a morning duty as the 727 flew through the 26 Localiser at Luton! Myself and the Supervisor retrieved the tail bumper from the debris!!! We just got it into the back of the Land Rover!
Spiney

Spiney Norman

We used NUGGET a lot at Bedford when I was there. BLACKBOX, I seem to remember was for RRE Pershore aircraft.

Thanks Loki.
I thought Blackbox might be Bedford as the only operation I could remember was a Canberra with some sort of radar trial that used to fly over the Dunstable area operating from Thurleigh. Had I thought it through I should have realised it might have been working for RRE Defford! However I should think some of the Pershore operation moved to Thurleigh when Pershore closed. Did the callsign come with it for their pilots, or did it just disappear I wonder?

Spiney

Spiney

So when was this? There was talk of Pershore moving to Thurleigh when I was there (early 70s).

Bit of thread drift here though...`tis supposed to be about airline callsigns.

I remember a literally fly by night operation at Heathrow called sagittair, who had three Beech 18s; used to do EGLL ESGG in the middle of the night.

And what of Airbridge, which became Hunting, and then Contract, confused? I still am.

From distant memory.....

RAE Farnborough was allocated "NUGGET", and the callsigns were individual to pilots sooo....

01 was "the boss"
02 deputy boss

04 Wing Comander Flying?

05-19 various Test Pilots

20-22 transport flight pilots (they flew the "ferry" service in the Devons and later, the PA31s.... one or two also drove the Farnborough Dak KG661/ZA947)

30 -ish Helicopter test pilots ???

60 - 62 Meteorological Flight pilots. (Usually associated with the "METMAN" C130 "Snoopy" although at least one of these chaps flew the Chieftans as well).

Boscombe Down used "GAUNTLET" plus numbers for their test pilots and West Freugh (whatever happened to THAT place?) had something else for their balck and yellow Buccs.

All the above is from a VERY deep recess of my mind..... so might well need some correction

Mr. Clarke will be along shortly to tell me I've got it all wrong. over to you Terry.

Rgsd BEX

I remember the Bedford Nuggets mostly started with 9....one that sticks in my mind was Nugget 93; who during my time was a Scottish gentleman I associate most closely with the Sea Vixen for some reason.

Yes, Chevvron will be along shortly to cooroborate, from but '82-'86
01 was OC, Gp Capt, last seen CFI Old Sarum
02 was Wg Cdr Flying
09 was a one-off...Fred Stringer
10 - 14 Transport. (I can remember most of their names.....)
20 - 23 were the 'airliner' boys
Yes, the 30's were usually rotary esp 37 but 38 and 39 were the IAM rehab Docs in the fast jets. Good old 38, took me for some dual in XL565.
40 was another one-off
50's were the fast jet jocks
You're dead right about Metman
All the names are flooding back.......
Boscombe also had 'Tester'. I used to enjoy intercomming to the tower just before transfer from Stud 2 to Stud 1 "Tester Calls"........

Can confirm NEWPIN for Hawarden, and TARNISH for Warton.

The Hatfield TPs' c/s was "TIBET".

IIRC, another of the company 'hacks' was G-ASEC or "Golf Alpha Sausage Egg n'Chips", as one of the pilots was sometimes heard to say!

I think they spelt it Tibbit. I still see Tibbit 11.