Running out of rego’s
 

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

What happens next???

Start using VI prefix, I assume?

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.

Not really an issue:

B- xxxx will solve the problem!

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

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 groups of short N numbers and tries to flog them back to owners at exorbitant rates...

Why not reuse registration codes?

We do reuse them...

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.

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?

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.

“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.

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

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?)

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.

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

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

Lots of software will need to be updated.

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.

Then put the number at the end…