Airline Call Signs
Flight numbers may "always have been with us", but what we are talking about is airline radio call signs. in this respect, the widespread use of Flight numbers started to become prevalent in the 60s & 70s - consequent upon the introduction of stored flight plans.
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Aer Lingus / Shamrock : just a dim memory but didn't "Shamrock" indicate an Aer Linte (ie transatlantic) flight while "Aer Lingus" was used by the others? Hope someone can confirm and, if so, when the change was made.
I can't recall dates but there was a period in the 1980s when "Shamrock" was dropped and all flights used "Aer Lingus". Then (perhaps in the 1990s) "Shamrock" became the standard for all flights.
In the seventies the service from Dublin to Leeds and return mid afternoon was EI336/7. Call sign was Aer Lingus until probably early eighties - after I'd moved away so stopped hearing them regularly - by which time Shamrock had come into use. I don't think they were only airline to move away from using the company name, was one of the drivers possibly call sign confusion and/or need for brevity?
IIRC, the Aer Lingus/Aerlínte Éireann/Irish International transatlantic routes from the mid 1960’s using the 720’s and 707’s up to the early 1970’s were advertised as “Shamrock Jet Services” and used Shamrock on radio calls.
It’s possible the ‘Shamrock’ callsign spread across the EI network as more jets arrived on the European routes in the 1970’s.
JAS
It’s possible the ‘Shamrock’ callsign spread across the EI network as more jets arrived on the European routes in the 1970’s.
JAS
I guess about 1986 when the 'Aer Lingus' callsign was abandoned in favour of 'Shamrock. EGNM was receiving Aer Lingus Commuter 360s at the time with the same flight number as the 737s from about ten years previously.
IIRC, the Aer Lingus/Aerlínte Éireann/Irish International transatlantic routes from the mid 1960’s using the 720’s and 707’s up to the early 1970’s were advertised as “Shamrock Jet Services” and used Shamrock on radio calls.
It’s possible the ‘Shamrock’ callsign spread across the EI network as more jets arrived on the European routes in the 1970’s.
JAS
It’s possible the ‘Shamrock’ callsign spread across the EI network as more jets arrived on the European routes in the 1970’s.
JAS
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Reference the East African Airways c/s. Flew for Tradewinds in 1970s and we did a large number of cargo sub charters for East African. We were allocated "Simba" For these flights. One night we were called "Seychelles" by ATC in London FIR, when I then looked it up SIMBA was officially the callsign of "Seychelles and Kilimanjairo Air Transport" - I believe a wholly owned subsidiary of East African
Reference the East African Airways c/s. Flew for Tradewinds in 1970s and we did a large number of cargo sub charters for East African. We were allocated "Simba" For these flights. One night we were called "Seychelles" by ATC in London FIR, when I then looked it up SIMBA was officially the callsign of "Seychelles and Kilimanjairo Air Transport" - I believe a wholly owned subsidiary of East African
later operated for tradewinds as G-BFEO 10/77-3/80
Boeing 707 freighter (5X-UWM) was bought from American Airlines and delivered on 15th May 1975 for freight services mainly to Europe. Not actually operated directly by EAA but painted in a variation of East African colours and used by Simbair. It ended up being impounded at London Heathrow in 1977 after the airline EAA had gone bankrupt.
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Thanks Rog 747, I had actuaĺly forgotten that very significant part of Tradewinds(IK later IKA) history. Totally correct. Some months after we started operating G-BFEO, I had to spent the night in Pisa with it rather than fly empty to UK while the the courts ratified the transfer from the owner/ liqudator to Tradewinds. We acquired G-SAIL and G-WIND from American Airlines to give us 3 almost matching aircraft with a " flight system" designed by Sir Humphrey Davy.
Apologies for thread creep.
Apologies for thread creep.
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Some random jottings in a very old notebook of mine have "Air Spain 112" into Birmingham on Sat evenings in 1969, out again as the 113, would have been on a Brit back then. Also noted were "Spantax 172", CV990 into Manchester Sun lunchtimes, "Spantax 157" also a CV990 Palma-Manchester Fri evenings, "Mediterranean 926" (S.A.M.) crossing Lydd at FL240 so presumably a DC-6 and inbound Birmingham on a Friday afternoon. US supplementals also heard in 1969, all using registrations, included World, Capitol, Overseas National and American Flyers ("Flyers 826 and 827 = N12826 and N12827, both 727-100's). More interesting - although I didn't realise it at the time - was "Cedarjet 990" on 21/9/69 routing Lichfield-Daventry-Seaford, almost certainly M.E.A. CV990 OD-AFJ on delivery, bought from American 2 days earlier.
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Does anyone know if the FAA fleet used to fly under registration or was/is there an FAA callsign? Thinking particularly of their Convair twins and Sabreliners that used to make appearances in Europe back in the 60's and 70's.
Gnome de PPRuNe
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I thought the FAA Sabres callsign was the reg - I can vaguely recall hearing N75 or whatever...
I spent a fair amount of time flogging up and down between the UK and East Africa in the 1970s. Sorry to challenge the consensus, but I'm fairly sure EAAC's long-haul flights (Super VC10s by then) used "East African" as the callsign. Knowing pilots, "East Aff" would be a tolerable abbreviation for short-haul flights (DC-9s, F27s) on VHF, but it would not come over with sufficient clarity on HF R/T.
One person Jhieminga might be able to contact for a definitive answer would be Gerry Surley (sorry, not sure of the spelling!), who performed engine runs on his former mount at Dunsfold last August.
BTW, if memory serves EAAC's station ops R/T callsign was "Eastair": e.g., "Eastair Nairobi."
One person Jhieminga might be able to contact for a definitive answer would be Gerry Surley (sorry, not sure of the spelling!), who performed engine runs on his former mount at Dunsfold last August.
BTW, if memory serves EAAC's station ops R/T callsign was "Eastair": e.g., "Eastair Nairobi."
The official VHF callsign was East African for the airline with a 3 number code suffixed by 0 for the Dakotas, 3 for the Friendships, 9 for the DC-9's and 6 for the SVC-10's. The second figure in the SVC-10 callsign was the day of the week, starting Monday and all other numbers on every fleet were whatever marketing dreamt up for the final two numbers.
I think almost without exception we all used East African on the initial call then abreviated it to Eastaf subsequently. Occasionally there would be a misunderstanding whilst non East African Airways aircraft were calling Nairobi, as the ATC Centre callsign was Eastair Centre frequently abbreviated to just Eastair.
With regards to HF, it was rarely used on the domestic fleets although the aircraft were all equipped with it as far as I remember. With the SVC-10's we used SSB to call base at Nairobi and also mainly Bombay and Karachi, but in general most of us didn't bother. Again the two first paragraphs of this reply would indicate the norm.
I think almost without exception we all used East African on the initial call then abreviated it to Eastaf subsequently. Occasionally there would be a misunderstanding whilst non East African Airways aircraft were calling Nairobi, as the ATC Centre callsign was Eastair Centre frequently abbreviated to just Eastair.
With regards to HF, it was rarely used on the domestic fleets although the aircraft were all equipped with it as far as I remember. With the SVC-10's we used SSB to call base at Nairobi and also mainly Bombay and Karachi, but in general most of us didn't bother. Again the two first paragraphs of this reply would indicate the norm.
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I need info with the callsign used by Alidair. I recall reading somewhere that it was "Alida", presumably pronounced "a leader", with Alida being the parent company. Anyone confirm this?
Some sources show the airline as being an offshoot of Alida Packaging but this suggests it was independent, at least by 1973.
I read Alidair was the original Kestrel - anyone concur ? Did they buy out Kestrel Airlines>?