Icelandair used to use the full airline name eg Icelandair 230/1 as the callsign into Glasgow , until one of their 727 pilots started abbreviating it to "Iceair "and the airline adopted it themselves !

One callsign that surprises me is BOEING, particularly in 2016 there was a 787 heading to Farnborough with BOE787 as the callsign. There were several hundred in service by that time and calling 'BOEING 787 contact Scottish on 129.1' seemed to have potential for much confusion.

Airbus have AIRBUS INDUSTRIE which is marginally better, but why not something catchier and less confusable? EUROPLANE or something.

Can anyone give me the callsign used by East African Airways (1946 - 1977) ??

oooh was it simba?

Brussels Airline use it.

There is a company using PC12's with Mosquito as their call sign - very apt.

You could ask here: Home | East African Airways I'd like to know myself, and it may be in Peter Davis' book, but I cannot check that right now.

Sadly very little traffic on that website......pity !!! Do not recall it being mentioned in PD's book.

Rog747....... Simba certainly sounds possible.

FWIW, Wikipedia suggests "EastAf".

Edit: As does this, which appears to be independent of all the Wiki clones.

David....... Thank you...!!! PM

Jetfly of Zurich; often operate in/out of Fairoaks.

Perhaps it's just me but BEALINE never seemed a good callsign, particularly for non-native English-speakers ( being the majority of Europe ). Be-ah-line? Be-aline? Beeline? Too many potential pronunciations.

Brussels Airlines's straight BEELINE is much better.

Bit of a long shot but the German airline Sudflug (taken over by Condorflug in 1968), IATA prefix SZ, I remember someone many years ago giving me "Bluebird" as their callsign, although I've never managed to confirm this. The logo on the tail, which at first sight I thought was meant to represent a clock, is probably meant to be a blue bird, so the callsign may be correct. Anyone confirm?

https://i.imgur.com/DmRcvRW.jpg

I think “Bluebird” is correct for Sudflug. It is a long time ago, but I think I remember D-ABAC flying over Guernsey in the mid 60s using that callsign.

Definately EastAf. I used to hear them when Nairobi was our main destination.

Euroberlin, the 51% Air France 49% Lufthansa airline, used the callsign EuroBear, a brown bear being on the coat of arms of Berlin. On hearing this, there was an unidentified drawl - but clearly from one of the Good Ole Boys who used to hustle those PanAm 727s up and down the air corridors at unfeasible speeds - "Huh ... funny way of sayin' Looft-Hansaw!"

chevvron, with your considerable experience in ATC you must know, surely, that the reply to the female controller asking if she can turn you on at four miles is: "Madam, I have never had the pleasure, but you may most certainly try." In your most obsequious tone of voice. Which would probably get you into trouble, in this day and age. Come to think of it. Sadly.

A callsign is only ever spoken that's why it's called a callsign. In normal operations you would never see it written.

Let's get this straight. BEA's callsign was indeed BEELINE. The address of their HQ at Ruislip was Beeline House - it changed from Keyline House, because BEA's orginal logo was a flying key. No, I don't know why.

I beg to differ.

http://www.bealine.de/media/e1a5cdfb...5dffffffef.jpg

Thanks for confirming. Numerous online searches didn't provide an answer. Bluebird was also the name of an Icelandic cargo airline early in the 2000's and now a Greek airline, both operating 737-300's.

OK Dave, so was it their cable address that was Beeline Ruislip? Something was, to my memory.

Afraid not, the cable address was also Bealine.

https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarch...0-%200559.html

Oh dear, that's the second time in the space of a couple of days that my memory has played tricks on me. However, the fact that I'm (a) aware of that fact and (b) after ten seconds or so of drumming the fingers on the desk, I can recall what the first instance of memory fade was about, I'm hopeful that it's not time for the men in white coats to turn up, just yet!

Back in the late 60's, when I acquired my first airband radio, most UK airlines were still using the aircraft registration for their ATC callsign. Exceptions I remember were BOAC (Speedbird), Caledonian, Laker, British Eagle, Monarch, who used flight numbers from day one (April 1968), possibly Cambrian also. BEA switched to flight numbers around April 1969 IIRC - I remember a Heathrow visit on 13/4/69 and being somewhat dismayed when I found out. Most European operators, on the other hand, used flight numbers. Sabena were one exception who were still using registrations until at least 1977. Surprisingly, most of the US supplemental carriers seemed to be using registrations - I remember hearing Overseas National DC-8's, World 707's, Capitol DC-8's and American Flyers 727's all calling with registrations on 124.6 Mhz around 1969, which was the frequency controlling what then was Amber 1 Lichfield-Daventry-Woodley and Amber 2 Detling-Brookmans Park-Daventry.

What I am looking for is any info on when UK airlines switched to flight numbers. I think most were around the mid 70's when computerised flight plans came into use. Exceptions were still about, mainly positioning sectors and training flights. Also which foreign operators still used registrations - can anyone confirm Air France used registrations and when they switched to flight numbers. I seem to remember the Tarom IL-18's operating IT flights to the UK in the early 70's were using registrations - did they also use them for their scheduled flights to the UK? Info on Adria, Condorflug and Bavaria would also be helpful.

I got my air band radio in 1964. AFR were using flight numbers then - also the mass majority of European airlines eg DLH,AZA,SWR,KLM ; & PAA & TWA. The US non schedule carriers used regs at that time. Not surprising as most of their flights were one offs & not scheduled. This meant that they filed individual FPLs for each flight - so there was no reason why they could not use the a/c reg. It wasn’t so much computerized FPLs then, more the use of Repetetive FPLs using paper cards to store the info. These cards had holes stamped into them to denote which day of the week the flights operated. All you had to do was insert a prong into the “ Monday hole” & all of the Monday flights were selected. Ingenious, really !

Before G-AYID Raffles One was a Beech 95 Travel Air G-ASZC, registered to a Mr Eric Raffles until the end of 1969.

Thanks for the info. RPL's as I remember them from the 70's/80's were stored on a computer system somewhere, presumably LATCC, which then regurgitated them into the system some 4 hours before STD. Interesting to hear about the card system.
I asked about Air France in particular after a learned colleague of mine was convinced they were using registrations in the late 60's which I didn't remember, so thanks again for confirming otherwise.
Rather mundane, but I remember 3 airlines who somewhat boringly used their 2 letter flight number prefix for their ATC callsign, hence Invicta/IM were "India Mike", IAS Cargo/FF were "Foxtrot Foxtrot", and Trans Mediterranean/TL were "Tango Lima". No doubt there were numerous others which my brain cells might wake up and recall eventually.

Apparently Inex Adria and Aviogenex respectively used Juliet Papa and Juliet Juliet. However, I only remember hearing Adria and Aviogenex on the RT.

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."

Another call sign I've just remembered. Austrian Airlines prefix OS call sign "Austrian". Austrian Air Charter prefix OB used Austrian Airlines airlines aircraft with the call sign "Austrian Charter". Much earache if you referred to them as just "Austrian" on the company RT.

Quote from me:
"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. "

Since posting that, I've met a younger colleague who - although he never flew for EAAC - learned to fly at Nairobi-Wilson aerodrome in the 1970s. When I asked him what was EAAC's callsign, he unhesitatingly said "East Af".

That backs up the Comet memoir on Sothicpress, so either my recollection above is completely wrong, or the callsign used was different on HF.

I started listening to airband around 1975 - Leeds Approach/Tower on 123.75 and Leeds Radar 121.05. British Airways were 'Northeast', Air Anglia 'Anglia' and Aer Lingus 'Air Lingus' ('Shamrock') came later.

The exception was Dan Air who were still using registrations by prefixed by 'Dan Air'. ASPL, ARAY, ARRW and BEBA were the regulars

Dan-Air began to use alphanumeric callsigns a little later on, Airbanda. Only a handful of airlines did so forty-odd years ago - now they're all at it. As I recall, Dan-Air Bravo Six Echo Romeo was the c/s for the evening Leeds to Glasgow service. When Metropolitan assumed the Leeds routes, they used flight numbers prefixed with Metro.

That's an option indeed, I'll get in touch with Jerry Sirley and will ask him (and will report back!).

Dan-Air alpha-numerics came in around early-1982.

Air France began using flight numbers on 19 January 1971 (approx)

My recollection was that it was Edgar Raffles. Call sign Raffles Zulu Charlie. AFAIK he flew to ‘work’ at Manchester every day leaving ‘LAP’ about 8.00 and returning around 18.30.

Of course it's written! ICAO Document 8585 is the canonical source which lists them in written format in a phonetic manner designed to be pronounced exactly as shown ( refer to Dave's response about AIRFRANS above ).

How do you think controllers learn to pronounce a new callsign...?

Absolutely not so. AFR radio c/s that I know were being used in the '60s included AF050 L1049F KJFK to LFPO & Boeing 707 003/004 LAX, 031 CYUL, 015, 017 & 077 KJFK. I have radio logs from the '60s with these call signs. We used to lie on our backs trying to read the Regs off from under the wings of the Connies (because their r/t call sign was the flight number), & we used to write off to AF Ops to get the regs of the 707s (because the a/c used a Flight No. as the radio c/s).
I absolutely KNOW that this was the case. I would not have been confusing this with the early '70s as I had stopped a/c spotting in '68.
Although, I do have a memory of AF Viscounts on the Paris to Brest route using their registrations. Maybe there was a selective use of registrations on some routes & flight numbers on others. Certainly, those jet flights over the Channel Islands in the '60s used flight numbers.

As far as operations at MAN was concerned, the airline started usuing its flight number (AF960/1) on this date.