Flight 666
Paxing All Over The World
Leslie Howard was in a similar kind of flight number. From Wikipedia:
The full story of the flight, it's history and downing is interesting. Under the section Death : Wikipedia: Leslie Howard
In May 1943, Howard travelled to Portugal to promote the British cause. He stayed in Monte Estoril, at the Hotel Atlântico, between 1 May and 4 May, then again between 8 May and 10 May and again between 25 May and 31 May 1943. The following day, 1 June 1943, he was aboard KLM Royal Dutch Airlines/BOAC Flight 777, "G-AGBB" a Douglas DC-3 flying to Bristol from Lisbon, when it was shot down by Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88C6 maritime fighter aircraft over the Atlantic (off Cedeira, A Coruńa). He was among the 17 fatalities, including four KLM flight crew.
Last edited by PAXboy; 18th Feb 2021 at 21:49. Reason: add Wiki link.
Was assigned a transponder code of 6666 in CDG a few years ago
It made the other pilot very uncomfortable, so much so he called clearance and asked for a different one
They didn’t understand why but granted the request
It made the other pilot very uncomfortable, so much so he called clearance and asked for a different one
They didn’t understand why but granted the request
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I have flown on FR666 DUB-BHX on several occasions, I think I even flew it on Friday 13th once. Thought it funny at first that they use such a number from such a Holy Country, someone somewhere was having a bit of fun with that one.
I'm sure that I read some years back that the "666" being the Devil was a mistranslation by scholars of yesteryear and the actual number was '616', I suppose that that ooens up more possibilities for the superstitious flyers. The whole Friday the 13th thing was to do with the Knights Templar being rounded up and killed, yet has permeated some cultures so deeply that it has become a thing.
Who decided to limit transponders to the digits 0-7 giving 4096 possible codes ? Prior to COVID, this was giving problems at busy times. A bit like two digit years and Y2K.
Isn't one of the purposes of Mode S to mitigate the shortage of available Mode A codes ?
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A seat allocation of "G" is quite distressing on Vietnamese internal flights or S/E Asian flights especially on single aisle three plus three set ups. That is until it finally dawns that the letter "F" does not exist in their alphabet. No need to worry about being fed out of the escape hatch after all😊
Paxing All Over The World
In the Far East, the number '8' is considered very lucky. When I was doing a telecomms contract in HKG, I was told to arrange the new telephone numbers so that the main company number would end '8888'. So I guess they like those flight numbers.
The Asian fondness for the number 8 is why there is an A 380 but not 360 or 370 -yet.
On the telecoms front when the International Telecoms Union dished out country codes for the world Asia was allocated 8X or 8XX so they all got an 8 included in their country code. There is no 88 country code but some smaller countries get two eights like Taiwan 886 , whether that means Taiwan is luckier than PRG who knows.
A lot of politics involved with this exercise back in the 1960s with USA claiming 1 -(with some justification ) but that meant USSR also had to have a single digit code-7 (no justification). In Europe, France and Britain got the double number codes or 33 and 44 which for some reason was deemed better than 31 or 41.
As they say whats in a name -or number
On the telecoms front when the International Telecoms Union dished out country codes for the world Asia was allocated 8X or 8XX so they all got an 8 included in their country code. There is no 88 country code but some smaller countries get two eights like Taiwan 886 , whether that means Taiwan is luckier than PRG who knows.
A lot of politics involved with this exercise back in the 1960s with USA claiming 1 -(with some justification ) but that meant USSR also had to have a single digit code-7 (no justification). In Europe, France and Britain got the double number codes or 33 and 44 which for some reason was deemed better than 31 or 41.
As they say whats in a name -or number
[QUOTE]Asian fondness for the number 8 is why there is an A 380[/QUOTE]
I seem to recall that it was originally conceived as the A3XX to signify its size, but that XX had morbid connotations in Asia, so the luckier 380 moniker came about.
I seem to recall that it was originally conceived as the A3XX to signify its size, but that XX had morbid connotations in Asia, so the luckier 380 moniker came about.
