CT N#'s

[Ari707]

Most airline use 3 digit N numbers (ie: N101AA) does anyone know why CT uses 5 digit numbers (ie:N13124)?

[RDU-JFK]

What is CT?

[MarkLawrence]

I think he meant CO

[cancidas]

COA? they just do. my bonanza tail number is 5 numbers. i flew an airplane registered 777QQ, and one of the controllers at the filed hated the owner. he make everyone flying it pronounce the damn thing as "November-seven-seven-seven-qubec-quebec." ugh, glad it was only 7 hours in that damn thing.

[PhilDernerJr]

You have a bonanza?

Copa, the Central American version of Continental, has LONG registration, like HP-1372CMP.

[NYCMedic]

777QQ sounds very familiar. What type was it and what field did you fly it out of?

[cancidas]

it was a cessna 310 or 320, and it was in texas. i'll have to dig out that logbook to find the field.

[NYCMedic]

Oh forget it...... I thought I knew it from DXR

[cancidas]

i went to riddle in PRC, was technically on temporary duty at P18, and spend a lot of my time off camping in utah and colorado and flying in texas.

[Clipper]

All normal USA registration have 5 alpha numerics after the "N". Some airline use their two character ID as the last two digits, most privet and corporate aircraft use the owner's initials. You need to have a special petition filed in order to be consider using a registration number shorter than 5 alpha numerics, some historic aircraft have short registration numbers.

Most country have similar system but with different number of digits required. USA is one of few registers where you are allowed to pick your own registration numbers and put a block of numbers on hold.

[cancidas]

You need to have a special petition filed in order to be consider using a registration number shorter than 5 alpha numerics, some historic aircraft have short registration numbers.


not so. when you register an airplane there are many registrations available. you can get a reg that has only 1 number and one letter, well at least if it were available. go here: http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNAV_inquiry.asp. you enter the criteria you want to search for. you have to enter the same amounf of characters for the search, ie from 1 to 9, then separately search from 10 to 99. what ever you want after the number is called a "trailing character", meaning if you wanted your initials after the number put those in the first box. if you don't want any, don't put anyting there.

just don't forget, registrations N1 to N99 are reserved for FAA aircraft only.

[Nonstop2AUH]

Interesting stuff, but still, nobody has put forward a reason why CO uses numbers only and not 'vanity' regs like NXXXUA, NXXXDL, etc. There may well be no reason, i.e. that management didn't want to bother with this because it's not important to them, but it just really stands out because they are the only major carrier to do this.