PilotEdge Forums

So very new to Pilot Edge and flight sims in general. Been spending a fair bit of time going through and watching and reading anything I can get my hands on to learn how to interact with ATC and how to fly safely within the rules. However, one thing that I can't seem to find an answer too.

How do you get designated a call sign? I was under the impression that each sim software somehow gave you a unique ID's for your planes and with my few interactions with ATC in the Beechcraft Kingair C90B in X-Plane 10 has been designated as N43XS as that was the tail number on the aircraft. Now I just went back and watched the Intro video's again and noticed that the pilot had N43XS as his tail, however he had a different call sign for ATC.

So I am hoping a few things can be cleared up.
1- Is there a format for Call Signs?
2- Is there a listing of which Aircrafts a classified as what? e.g. Skyhawk = Cesna and N or November = Cesna. (If that is even right)
3- How do Custom Skins or Aircrafts affect call signs or interactiosn with ATC?

Thanks in advance for the help. Back to watching the Workshops.

Here's my story. I like to read accident reports. To me they read like a real life detective novel. It's amazing what can be learned from what appears to be "bits of bent/twisted parts". One day I caught an interview posted on Youtube about Paul Welch of The Lynyrd Skynyrd band. Paul survived the 1977 Convair CV-300 crash in Mississippi. Paul Welch was seriously injured during the crash and does not remember everything during the crash. During the interview he talked about flames shooting out of the exhaust for much of the flight prior to the crash (implying a problem before the crash). I could tell that Paul didn't fully understand how large piston airplane engines actually work, so I pulled to official accident report to get the true story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTrf9greVqg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Convair_CV-300_crash
http://aviation-safety.net/database/rec ... -1&lang=en
http://www.airdisaster.com/reports/ntsb/AAR78-06.pdf
http://www.angelfire.com/music5/archive ... dNTSB.html

As I was reading about the accident plane a Convair CV-300 with a tail registration of N55VM, it suddenly hit me. What a great call sign! It's short. It's unique! It's got real world history. And considering how many virtual passenger's have died in my care, we share something in common.

N55VM

I'm sure someone else can find the pages regarding the rules of an "official" call sign. Things like for US registered airplanes, the first letter is an "N". And exactly how many letters and numbers is OK. And which combinations are not OK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_registration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_r ... d_patterns

Bottom line is that you can "make up" any legal tail number that your heart desires. You could also fly with an airliner's call sign if you like. The choice is completely up to you.

Welcome to PE!

PS. If looking for other ideas for real world tail numbers (famous or infamous) how about:

• The BAU jet on Criminal Minds (N5GV, N350GA, N100GA, N550GA)
• Elvis Presley's jet "Lisa Marie" or "Hound Dog".
• Ricky Nelson's DC-3 N711Y
• Payne Stewart Learjet 35 N47BA
• Oklahoma State University basketball team - Beech King Air 200 N81PF

Or check out this site: http://www.planecrashinfo.com/famous.htm

Finally. If looking for a unique call sign/tail number, search PEaware for other people that have used the same call sign. If the search comes back empty you will know no one else has used that call sign.

http://peaware.pilotedge.net/

Greetings and welcome to PilotEdge! Your callsign is up to your own specification. When you connect, simply put your own callsign in as it does not matter if the actual model of your plane has a different registration number. I, for example, tend to use the registration number of the plane that I fly, N83974. Or, when flying a commercial jet, I fly the using the callsign of the real world flight segment, like SWA4389.

The "N" in front of the registration number has nothing to do with the aircraft type; it represents the country in which the aircraft was registered. "N" means that the aircraft is registrated in the United States. Here are the country listings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_registration.

Hi mortified666, welcome to the great PE community!

There was no real rationale behind the call signs that I picked....

Model / Tail number / Callsign (short version)
-----------------------------------------------
Cessna 172 / N176CM / "Skyhawk 176CM" (6CM)
Baron 58 / N258E / "Baron 258E" (58E)
Learjet 45 / N66L / "Lear[jet] 66L" (66L)

Be comfortable with the short version, since that's the one you'll be using the majority of the time, i.e. once established with any given controller.

I mostly fly the Baron, so when I occasionally pop up in the Cessna or the Learjet, I typically find myself saying "Baron--- correction, Cessna..." etc.

One thing I will say (in addition to everything else that I have already said! )... whatever you pick, once you're happy with it, try to stick to it. If you're at all interested in seeing your stats on PEAware (the closest thing to your pilot log book), then you'll probably not want a bunch of different tail numbers/call signs for the same aircraft - or the pie charts won't be as clear.

At the end of the day, it's just a name (paging Shakespeare). So pick one and then get out there and have some fun.

See you in the air.

Cyrus wrote:At the end of the day, it's just a name (paging Shakespeare)

Quoting Romeo and Juliet, well done!

wmburns wrote:And exactly how many letters and numbers is ok. And which combinations are not OK.

I was really sad to learn that you can't use I (India) in callsigns because I really wanted N314PI (3.14 = pi)

In terms of US callsigns here is the definitive FAA guidance on it:

An N-Number can be in any of these formats
One to five numbers (N12345)
One to four numbers followed by one letter (N1234Z)
One to three numbers followed by two letters (N123AZ)

N-Numbers do not have
A zero (0) as the first number
The letters "I" or "O"

N1 to N99 are reserved for the use of the FAA.