Question about Callsigns
 

This may be a fairly obvious question to some of you. But I was wondering, who or what assigns out callsigns?

For instance, what is stopping me using a made up callsign on the radio, such as "Rich 1, ready for departure"?!

Or is there some system in place controlling it, similar to personalised registrations?

The simple fact that you may be poor by the time you've taxied to the hold :}

Other than the universally used a/c callsign (omitting the country prefix in places like the US and Australia, where the chance of a foreign reg'd a/c in GA is remote), there are company callsigns. Every country has its procedure regarding the allocation thereof. So, if you wannabe Rich One (at least at startup), contact the CAA, they'll point you in the right direction ;)

PS: AFAIK, in most places, company callsigns are reserved for AOC holders (or equivalent) with significant traffic - one of the places I fly with uses them, and they are a busy FTO.

As 172driver says in the UK usually reserved for AOC/commercial operators. AIC 97/2008 (Yellow 278) contains full details.

Haha, I suggested 'Rich One' as I am only Rich by name, sadly not by nature!!

I'm learning at a small flying school where we use the aircraft callsign. I just wondered who controlled their use.

Thanks for your reply.

1.1 UK policy for the assignment of ICAO Location Indicators, ICAO 3-letter Designators and ICAO Telephony Designators is based upon ICAO Docs 7910 and 8585. The CAA Directorate of Airspace Policy (DAP) has responsibility for the formulation of UK policy concerning requests for, or changes to, ICAO Location Indicators, ICAO 3-letter designators and ICAO Telephony Designators.

1.2 Responsibility for the day-to-day application of this policy rests with NATS Ltd, Civil Aviation Communications Centre (CACC).

5.1 All UK applications for the assignment of new ICAO Location Indicators, 3-Letter Designators and Telephony Designators are to be made to:
Operations Support
NATS Ltd
Civil Aviation Communications Centre
Room 3524, Swanwick ACC
Sopwith Way
Swanwick
Southampton
Hampshire
SO31 7AY
e-mail: [email protected]

An ATS unit can issue an aircraft with a temp callsign, whilst the aircraft is on the ATS frequency, whenever the ATS unit feels it would aid clarity or promote flight safety.

If you have a good relationship with your A/G or AFIS (sleeping with one or all at an ATC field), a list of good reasons, are expert with your tounge and can stand the urine extraction that will follow....

And these callsigns have to be de-conflicted with every other operator in the world, both military and civil. So the application process is lengthy and also your callsign is liable for rejection.

My company's callsign was changed about 6 years ago to avoid confusion to similar sounding ones. The new callsign was changed to one with only one confliction - a US recconaissance unit. I wasn't too happy about sharing the same airspace as them during a war!

I bet quite a few training organisations who do not have an AOC are using callsigns.

Most likely they make them up. Some of those I hear are quite hilarious, and pretty obviously not deconflicted with the rest of the world ;)

It is an ego exercise - makes the school sound like an airline.

There's no requirement to have an AOC in order to be allocated a callsign - you just need a good reason.

As for light relief :
Pilot, "XXXX Tower, Blackadder One"
Witty ATCer, "XXXX Tower, I have a cunning plan" :D

You normally hear the Blackadder callsigns around EGHH. Mustang operates out of Redhill along with Rocket.

We went through a company name change recently but wanted to keep our old C/S. It took ICAO nearly three months to sort that one out.

One advantage of a company C/S is that ATC tend to realise that you are a pro doing your job and that time is money. They expect you to be able to comply with any clearance they give to help you out, and for you to fly with a high level of competence and ability. I have heard students using flying school C/S on cross country exercises calling major ATC units when I believed that the C/S was allocated to the organisation and that the student as a hirer was not supposed to use the C/S, and in fact would be better using the aircraft reg with the suffix student, giving ATC fair warning that the pilot is inexperienced and may need a fair degree of help and guidance.

One major disadvantage of personalised callsigns, if you F***up everyone remembers and knows it was you!

Two of my favourite "Overheard on the R/T" conversations:-

A/c: "We're a flight of 2 A10s at low level routing past XYZ request Radar Information, and we're sorry but we've forgotten our formation callsign."
ATC (with relish): "No problem. Adopt callsigns Stupid One and Stupid Two"

In the 1980s, when East Anglia was base to numerous A10s, a USAF tanker would regular fly on Towline 6. There it would service a seemingly endless stream of A10 pairs and 4-ships using callsigns such as 'Reno', 'Thunder', 'Rocky', 'Warthog' et al. One day a more unusual callsign checked in for AAR:
A10 Lead:- "Asshole check."
A10 Wingman:- "Two."
A10 Lead:- "Neatishead, this is Asshole section, two A10s for Towline 6."
GCI:- "Station calling Neatishead, confirm callsign?"
A10 Lead:- "Asshole section, Sir."
GCI:- "Say reason for callsign?"
A10 Lead:- "We were late for the brief, Sir."

I thought the aircraft callsign was originally the radio station designator ? i.e. the radio callsign assigned to the radio equipment mounted in the aircraft ?

What callsign did Orville Wright use ?

All Radio Hams used to have a callsign that started with G in the UK, and 9V in Singapore, VH in Australia, ZK in New Zealand, etc. and the aircraft now follow suit, but I don't doubt some other bureacracy has taken over, and the CAA will assign 'private' call-signs according to the protocols already mentioned, in the manner of personalised number plates on cars, I guess.

There is also a sort of system for ICAO airfield designators. When Pontius was a pilot someone drew a grid over the world and lettered the squares A B C D E F G etc. most of Northern Europe, including the UK, fall in the E square, the second letter designates the Country, and the last two letters have some sort of affinity with the airfield name - sometimes.

So ... EGLL is the haphazard E, then G for Great Britain and LL for London Heathrow ( why not LH ? dunno ) or EGKK for Gatwick. EHAM isn't Hamburg, but haphazard E, then H for Holland and AM for Amsterdam.EDDF E plus D for Deutschland, and DF for Frankfurt. EGPK = Prestwick.

France and Italy fell into the L square, so LFPO = haphazard L then F for France and PO for Paris Orly, LIRF L + I for Italy, RF for Rome Fumicino.

It's not definitive World wide now, for instance Australia has changed to starting with A, and New Zealand with NZ, which makes sense, but the USA has stuck with the initial letter, most starting with K KJFK for Kennedy, ( used to be KIDL ewild ) but P for the Pacific places, like PANC for Anchorage and PHNL for Honolulu.

Some sort of logic to the system I gues,tho' one does sometimes wonder !

I don't know what haphazard reference gave my present haunt OTBD for Doha.

At least the USA has a semblance of sense and I can usually type the ICAO ref from memory.

The haphazard K followed by the airfield name. KDEN = Denver, KJFK = JFK, KCOS = Colorado Springs.

I have no idea where the others for the smaller US fields came from though (any help out there ?) why Meadowlake is 00V I do not know.

DGG

Interesting to read and supports and adds to what I knew (and clarifies why ORD isn't OHA) but I'm no nearer to why Meadowlake is ØØV

:ok:

or Orlando MCO ? I guess at some stage they just ran out of ' logical ' letters to use and had to use what was available.

Don't get confused between IATA - the letters on your baggage tag - and ICAO either, often totally different, London Heathrow is EGLL in ICAO-speak and LHR in IATA-speak.

The World has a long way to go to achieve standardisation, I mean, when is the USA going to start driving on the left hand side of the road !!

Leave it to EASA and they'll come up with a €urocratic compromise - we'll all be required to drive in the centre of the raod....:uhoh:

On a multi-national exercise in Germany once, when we practised escorting a transport aeroplane along the 'Passageway' (the word 'Corridor' being banned...:rolleyes:) the 'tactical word' to call the head/beam/stern sector approach of the intruding fighter was decided by the leader. Of course, when Uncle Spam's F-15s had the lead, they came up with punchy words such as 'cougar', 'bear' and 'snake'. After a few days of this, it was the Brit F-4s' turn to lead - so our leader chose 'Nobber' and 'Pillock' (can't remember the third). Off we went - and to hear the French Mirages calling "Nobbeurre" or "Peeelock" had us in stitches......

Working with the French in Incirlik, the RAF-suggested formation callsigns of 'Agincourt' and 'Waterloo' were, for some reason, declined by the French......:\

IIRC Orlando = MCO because it used to be McCoy Air Force station - that's what I read on the B52 in the memorial garden at the end of the runway.

Sad, I know!

Orlando is KMCO because it used to be McCoy AFB.

.

So it makes sense after all.

I guess a lot of them do, just needs a bit of Local Knowledge.

Thanks,

ExS.

Callsign prefixes
 

Exsp33rdb1rd said:


>All Radio Hams used to have a callsign that started with G in the UK, and 9V >in Singapore, VH in Australia, ZK in New Zealand, etc. and the aircraft now >follow suit, but I don't doubt some other bureacracy has taken over, and >the CAA will assign 'private' call-signs according to the protocols already >mentioned, in the manner of personalised number plates on cars, I guess.

We still do. I am from Canada. VE or VA are hams in Canada, Military a/c have VC callsigns, but Canadian civil aviation have CF or CG

Broadcast stations used to follow the same policy, but marketing mavens having taken over all aspects of life to the detriment of sanity, they now call themselves by a slogan, i.e. CKFM now calls itself MIX-99, which to my way of thinking is a British callsign. CJRT now calls itself JAZZ-FM, which should be Japanese.

Don't try to make any sense out of it, you will go mad!

If you listen to "Tony Hancock, the Radio Ham" you will hear a lot of callsigns that don't make any sense at all.

Callsigns are used, instead of aircraft registrations, in situations where it will aid operations or billing (you knew money had to be there somewhere).
For airlines and ATC it helps that a callsign and number tells them where the flight is going. For other operations the callsign tells the authorities where to send the airways bill - normal practice is to bill the owner of the registration but these days many operators are lessees or managers and callsigns (or ICAO identifiers) speed the billing process.

When Heathrow was first opened it was known just as London airport. One can assume that the designator has never been changed since.

So why not EGLA ? How did Gatwick get to be EGKK ?

In the UK, having the 3rd and 4th letters the same seems to be a mark of being a major airport - or thinking you are. In the first category, EGLL, EGKK ( which is in the part of England where K is frequently the 3rd letter, e.g. EGKA Shoreham, EGKB Biggin Hill, EGKR Redhill), so to make it KK was, I guess, an easy choice. Also in the first group, EGCC.

You can get a good head of steam going over some others - EGAA, EGBB, EGHH.

Taking cover!

I remember training a Canadian pilot who had come to work for us some years ago.

One night, we were headed for Luton and, on looking at the PLOG, he said to me "How can you guys say that you are logical? How in God's name can you get Luton to come up as EGGW?"

I was then compelled to ask him how he could explain away CYQX for Gander!

or CYYZ for Toronto, or CYUL for Montreal ( Dorval ) - or any of them !

Epsom and Watford NDB's used to have illogical codes as well - can't remember them now, tho' doubtless I'll be told shortly, whereas the Americans tried to make aviation easy - the KISS method, so that the morse identifiers of the approach aid bore some resemblance to the airfield, i.e. for Idlewild ( now Kennedy ) the field was KIDL, the ILS IDL, the outer marker ID and the inner marker DL ( or similar, don't pick me up on detail, 50 years is a long time ago - but the British seemed to have a culture of one having to be a member of The Club to understand what was going on ! When the Stuff hits the Fan simplicity is the way to go.

Canadian Identifiers
 

They are easy to explain. They consist of distinctive combinations of dots and dashes in Morse Code, as used in the original ndb beacons of the last century. It is a lot more certain that you have the ID correct when you alternate dots and dashes, rather than having a pilot count dots in possible atmospherics.

Sometimes, the marine NDBs pre-dated the aviation ones. On such example is Toronto City Centre, which is named after the Island's TZ NDB at Gibraltar Point.

Of course, changing them to something more recognisable would require positive government action!

Someone more knowledgeable will no doubt be along, but basically if an airfield is a Parent ATSU in the UK it has a double-letter ident - e.g. EGKK (GatwicK), EGCC (ManChester), EGBB (Birmingham). Airfields for whom they are the parent ATSU have the first three letters and then a letter loosely connected to the name of the airfield e.g. Welshpool, parent ATSU Manchester EGCC, is EGCW; ShorehAm (Gatwick) is EGKA; Wellesbourne (Birmingham) is EGBW.

For some reason some airfields were parented by the FIR (EGTT) and consequently have EGT+ a letter (Kidlington = EGTK). Military airfields tend to be EGV, EGU, EGO, EGD &c for reasons I don't undersand (eg. Lyneham = EGDL, Brize NNNNorton is EGVN, Benson is EGUB).

There is a logic - it's just a complicated one.

Tim

(PS and it doesn't help that the ICAO prefix for us is EG not K - we have only two letters to play with against the US's three)

"Epsom and Watford NDBs had illogical codes"

I seem to remember when I was very, very young that UK navaids all started with the letter "M". The last survivor was the Bushmills CONSOL "MWN".

All the French beacons started with "F" and all the German beacons with "D".

So why WN ?

Maybe Wille Nelson, didn't he drink Old Bushmills ?

Remember laboriously tapping out the dashes and dots with ones' pencil, getting to about a count of 50, when the door would burst open, and a raucous female voice shout " anyone for a coffee ? " Oh ! for f****s sake, piss off One, Two, Three, Four etc. !!!

Happy Days.