November...

[TrueNorth]

Hello all,

Most aircraft regs. are fairly sensible (C-, F-, D-, G- for Canada, France, Deutschland, Great Britain).

Does anyone know the reason behind US-registered aircraft starting with N?

[airsmiles]

Good question, especially as they used to use NC and NX as well before WW2.

Anyone have any idea ?

[TrueNorth]

I think the X might refer to "Experimental" (eg. Spirit of St. Louis - not a production aircraft).
Perhaps C was the opposite ("Commercial"?).

Still in the dark about N, though...

[Actuals]

North America perhaps ?

[Shanwick Shanwick]

N = North America

[pigboat]

Trivia tidbit: prior to 1930, Canadian aircraft carried the British registration G, followed by the letter C for Canada and three more letters, eg G-CASK. Before Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949, their aircraft were registered VO, eg VO-ABN.

[foghorn]

Based on the ITU telegraphy codes. Holland gets PH-, I assume from Philips the electronics company!

Most Commonwealth countries are Vx- or Zx-, e.g. South Africa ZS-KBK, UK and Canada are the only exceptions that spring to mind.


[This message has been edited by foghorn (edited 19 January 2001).]

[TrueNorth]

NORTH AMERICA?!

As a Canadian, I find that a bit presumptuous.

pigboat - do you think the fact that most Canadian regs start with G (C-G***) is a hangover from the days when we had UK regs?

[Code Blue]

pigboat:

I thought that after 1930 the Canadian regs started CF-

PS: I also thought Canada joined Newfoundland

------------------
-.-- --.- -..-

[pigboat]

True North, originally when they were handing out the country codes Canada was given C, followed by a four letter suffix beginning with F or G. Since there weren't very many aircraft to register back then, the powers that be simply used CF-XXX. The reason it became C-FXXX or C-GXXX was that about 1970 or so, since there are only about ten thousand combinations of CF-XXX and this combination was becoming saturated, they decided to use the original allocation.

Code Blue, right on, buddy! BTW, if they think there's lots of snow in YT this year, I landed on 34 in YT on June 6 1974, and after the usual ATIS blather they threw out this one: Runway ploughed full length, 100 feet wide, snow windrows thirty inches high inside the lights.