e38 From United States of America, joined May 2008, 163 posts, RR: 0 Posted (4 months 1 week 1 day 1 hour ago) and read 2994 times:
This may have been answered in a previous thread, but I was not able to find it.
During the past few months, while listening to Air Traffic Control on my VHF scanner, I have heard quite a few transmissions between ATC and aircraft using "Dot Com" callsigns, followed by a number (example "Dot Com 538").
I could not find references in any database regarding what business or airline this is.
Does anyone know who "Dot Com" is and what kind of aircraft it is?
Fabo From Slovakia, joined Aug 2005, 826 posts, RR: 1 Reply 1, posted (4 months 1 week 1 day 1 hour ago) and read 2983 times:
Dotcom is a callsign owned by "fltplan.com" site, that allows their users to file a flightplan using a random dotcom callsign in place of the usual N-number, and is used by mostly corporate fleets to hinder the possibility of competition to track their corporate aircrafts by the N-numbers on the likes of flightaware, used commonly since the time some bill was passed that disallowed having your N-number blocked from these tracking services.
So now that fictional N123GM has to be shown on FlightAware, and can not be blocked, the company uses say DCM538 (alternating every fllight) so that Ford can not just bookmark http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N123GM and follow Daniel Akerson as he flies around with his Gulfstream.
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IAHFLYR From United States of America, joined Jun 2005, 4136 posts, RR: 28 Reply 2, posted (4 months 1 week 17 hours ago) and read 2681 times:
Other than "Redstripe" the next best call sign in the industry!!!!
Quoting Fabo (Reply 1): is used by mostly corporate fleets to hinder the possibility of competition to track their corporate aircrafts by the N-numbers
I have to somewhat disagree with that statement. There are large numbers of corporate flight departments that use the N number of the aircraft for flight planning. Such as N28....and N30.....and N76.....even though I am leaving the remainder of the N number from this posting I don't think it is as wide spread as you indicate, not yet anyway.
HaveBlue From United States of America, joined Jan 2004, 1981 posts, RR: 1 Reply 4, posted (4 months 1 week 15 hours ago) and read 2585 times:
From what I've heard it is to exploit a loophole for those that wish to keep their travels discreet (which is mostly corporate) but couldn't do so as much after that bill passed disallowing the blocking of N numbers from flight tracking software.
Mir From United States of America, joined Jan 2004, 17876 posts, RR: 59 Reply 6, posted (4 months 1 week 14 hours ago) and read 2522 times:
Quoting HaveBlue (Reply 4): From what I've heard it is to exploit a loophole for those that wish to keep their travels discreet (which is mostly corporate) but couldn't do so as much after that bill passed disallowing the blocking of N numbers from flight tracking software.
Correct, except that it wasn't a bill, it was a policy decision by the DOT.
Quoting blueflyer (Reply 5): I thought it was reported this bill was killed...
True, but it still might be useful to some, and maintaining the callsign in the registry doesn't really cost anything. You'll still hear it, but you'll hear less of it than you would if the policy had gone into effect.
-Mir
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e38 From United States of America, joined May 2008, 163 posts, RR: 0 Reply 9, posted (4 months 1 week ago) and read 2314 times:
Everyone, thank you very much for the responses. This is very interesting, the fact that there is a callsign to enable operators to block the tracking of aircraft movement.
Quoting spudsmac (Reply 8), "Are you near SDL? I hear them going in and out of there all the time."
No, it seems as though I have heard them in the high altitude (enroute) sectors most of the time. That would indicate they are probably corporate-type jets or perhaps high performance turboprops.
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