KELPkid From United States of America, joined Nov 2005, 5929 posts, RR: 4 Reply 1, posted (6 years 8 months 4 weeks 12 hours ago) and read 3223 times:
Yes, it is by country. It is also subject to various treaties which are maintained by the ICAO.
In the United States, the registration prefix is "N". This letter signifies an aircraft registered in the united states. The rules after that are:
1) It must have at least one number
2) It can end in one or two letters
3) The total registration, after the "N", can have up to five characters
So, for example N1KE , N1, N6692S, N62407, N734KU are all valid registrations. N12BRE would NOT be valid.
You can request a "custom" tail number from the FAA for $15-it is often more expensive to paint the tail number on the aircraft than to get a requested regestration [which, by the way, is required by law as soon as the FAA approves the registration]
If, for example, you are an aircraft manufacturer, or a homebuilder, and you don't care what your tail number is, when you apply for aircraft registration, you can request an "in sequence" number, which will be automatically issued by the FAA (these are usually full-length tail numbers, being all numeric or ending with one letter at the end).
That's my area of expertise I'm sure other people will chime in on this subject...
EDIT: D'oh! Spelling mistake...
[Edited 2006-08-24 20:26:39]
Celebrating the birth of KELPkidJR on August 5, 2009 :-)
OV735 From Estonia, joined Jan 2004, 860 posts, RR: 2 Reply 2, posted (6 years 8 months 4 weeks 12 hours ago) and read 3217 times:
Most common registrations are the ones in a form of:
XX-YYY where XX marks the country and YYY the particular aircraft.
Some countries operate a different rego system:
X-YYYY, where X is again (a single-letter) the country code, and YYYY defines the particular aircraft.
Russia, and most of the CIS republics, operate this kind of rego system:
XX-65783, where XX is the country code, the first two digits (65 in this case) indicate the aircraft type and the last trhee digits say the aircraft ID.
The US, for some reason, operates a completely different system:
N123AA, where N means it's an American aircraft, 123 means god knows what, and AA means god knows what else.
Amazonphil From United States of America, joined Oct 2003, 561 posts, RR: 1 Reply 3, posted (6 years 8 months 4 weeks 12 hours ago) and read 3217 times:
Quoting KELPkid (Reply 1): 2) It can end in one or two letters
Brick From United States of America, joined Aug 1999, 1571 posts, RR: 8 Reply 4, posted (6 years 8 months 4 weeks 10 hours ago) and read 3163 times:
N numbers (United States) and JA numbers (Japan) do not use a dash (-). For example, you'll never see N-101AA. HL numbers (I forget which country it is assigned to) have no dash as well.
Pretty much all other registrations use their country code followed by a dash. For example, I-DUPO, B-HOA, and etc...
DALMD88 From United States of America, joined Jul 2000, 2365 posts, RR: 15 Reply 5, posted (6 years 8 months 4 weeks 10 hours ago) and read 3148 times:
Quoting OV735 (Reply 2):
The US, for some reason, operates a completely different system:
N123AA, where N means it's an American aircraft, 123 means god knows what, and AA means god knows what else.
In the eyes of the FAA the numbers and letters don't mean anything. To the operator they may ID the owner and maybe a series of aircraft.
MPDPilot From United States of America, joined Jul 2006, 933 posts, RR: 0 Reply 6, posted (6 years 8 months 4 weeks 10 hours ago) and read 3148 times:
Quoting OV735 (Reply 2): The US, for some reason, operates a completely different system:
N123AA, where N means it's an American aircraft, 123 means god knows what, and AA means god knows what else.
in this case the AA means that it is probably an American Airlines aircraft, some airlines have their ship numbers match the numbers on the registration but this is not necessary. for most airplanes the registration means nothing but for airlines they typically have some meaning.
One mile of highway gets you one mile, one mile of runway gets you anywhere.
KELPkid From United States of America, joined Nov 2005, 5929 posts, RR: 4 Reply 7, posted (6 years 8 months 4 weeks 10 hours ago) and read 3135 times:
Quoting DALMD88 (Reply 5): In the eyes of the FAA the numbers and letters don't mean anything.
When the tower tells you to call them after taxiing in, or the local Flight Standards District Office sends you certified mail saying that Farmer Brown saw your tail number flying dangerously low over his property, and that you have 96 hours to respond, with a report, to your FSDO, you better believe that the N number means something!
EDIT: Also, for most private operators, ATC tracks the flight based on the tail number, so, for example, A Cessna 172 with the tail number N2809Q would be "Cessna two eight zero niner Quebec" when operating "in the system."
[Edited 2006-08-24 22:35:44]
Celebrating the birth of KELPkidJR on August 5, 2009 :-)
From memory, in the very early days single letter prefixes were used, but then they soon run out! A number of countries have changed prefixes over the years.
Many countries have their own sub-systems. For example Germany, (D-) take note of weight for the second letter, so all airliners above a certain size are D-Axxx.
France (F-) have used F-A, F-B, F-G, and currently F-H for mainstream allocation, with F-W for trials, F-O for overseas based etc.
The UK (G-) started as G-Exxx but was replaced very early on by G-Axxx until that series ran out and followed on with G-B and now G-C. These were always allocated in strict sequence (G-ARTX, G-ARTY etc.) Until the 1970's it was very rare to see an out of sequence registration and those issued were generally marks that would have been allocated not too far ahead. But now, customised registrations are pretty standard.
Smaller UK colonies used registrations in the VP-, VQ- and VR- series, but the third letter was used for each colony. VR-B used to be Bermuda, and VR-C the Cayman Islands.
Amazonphil From United States of America, joined Oct 2003, 561 posts, RR: 1 Reply 10, posted (6 years 8 months 4 weeks 9 hours ago) and read 3099 times:
For Brazil in the past the PP, PR letters were usually reserved for airlines or commercial operators while PT numbers were for General Aviation. This may have changed in recent years. Our C-185s along the Amazon River area where we live are PT-DNY and PT-CJG.
NorthStarDC4M From Canada, joined Apr 2000, 2804 posts, RR: 41 Reply 12, posted (6 years 8 months 4 weeks 9 hours ago) and read 3059 times:
AIRLINERS.NET CREW CHAT OPERATOR
and just before someone else does:
Canada uses C-Fxxx (pka CF-xxx) and C-Gxxx for Certified Aircraft, C-Ixxx and C-Jxxx for ultralights, home builds and other hobby aircraft, C-Hxxx for Hovercraft. C-Kxxx is supposedly to be used by Airships, but i dont think it has ever been used. Balloons are supposedly being moved to a new series soon as well, C-Lxxx?
And we also have the interesting "non-conforming" countries:
Cuba= CU-Tnnnn for "civil" aircraft.
Venezuela= YV-nn(n)-A/B/C
China has a real mix: B-xxx for HKG and Macau, B-nnnn for mainland, B-nnnnn for Taiwan which used to use B-nnn... ok my head hurts.
most of the CIS nations use something like (Using Kazakhstan as an example) UN-nnnnn for russian types and UN-xxx for newer western types... Why they dont just use one or the other? Probably to let airlines save money on painting out the old soviet/aeroflot regs (CCCP-nnnnn).
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Cubsrule From United States of America, joined May 2004, 21208 posts, RR: 19 Reply 13, posted (6 years 8 months 4 weeks 9 hours ago) and read 3050 times:
Quoting Brick (Reply 4): HL numbers (I forget which country it is assigned to) have no dash as well.
HL is South Korea
Quoting MPDPilot (Reply 6): in this case the AA means that it is probably an American Airlines aircraft,
You have to be a little careful with this, as a lot of N6XXUS birds are NW 747s, and N501US through N549US are NW 752s.
I also don't think the existence or lack of a dash matters; it's just a style thing. For example, Chilean aircraft are registered CC-XXX, but you won't find any Canadian aircraft registered C-CXXX.
I can't decide whether I miss the tulip or the bowling shoe more
Amazonphil From United States of America, joined Oct 2003, 561 posts, RR: 1 Reply 14, posted (6 years 8 months 4 weeks 8 hours ago) and read 3033 times:
Colombia and Ecuador could get confusing if you weren't paying attention
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I'm sure other people will chime in on this subject...
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