Odd Aircraft Registrations

[Delta_8930]

Has anyone noticed that commercial aircraft registrations in the US follow specific patterens?

Delta usually has its registrations with the prefix "N" (I think that signifies the plane is registered in the United States) followed by usually a three digit number and a prefix, usually "DL", "DA", "DZ", or "DN". I've also noticed that some of their 757s have weird registrations that incorporate the fleet number of that plane. For example, ship 6704 is registered "N6704Z" and ship 6717 is registered "N67171". Some of their 737-800s follow a different registration format, with N as the prefix and then a four digit number that is the fleet number of that plane, followed by a random letter. For example ship 3741 is registered "N3741S". 

Like Delta, American's planes also follow the "N + 3 digit" format (with suffixes AA, AN, or AC, etc..) with some exceptions. I've noticed a MD-83 registered "N474" with 474 being the specific fleet number of that jet. American's former A300s also followed an "all-number" registration format composed of an "N" followed by a five digit number. American's A319-115 aircraft also seem to follow an interesting fleet number format that varies in term of a general pattern. For example ship 001 is registered "N8001N" and ship 003 is registered "N93003". 

Southwest's planes mostly followed the "N###WN or N###SW" format (where the #s stood for numbers), but this has changed recently. Apparently Southwest shifted their registration format to a format not unlike Delta's 737-800 format. New planes that come into the Southwest fleet are registered with "N", plus a four digit number that is the fleet number, and a random letter. All Southwest 737-800s use this registration format, and certain 737-700s (new ones starting from the ones that came from AirTran) are registered this way.

Prior to the United/Continental merger, all United planes followed the "N###UA" format, where the #s are numbers. Continental, however, decided to use an all number registration format with N followed by a certain 5 digit number ( I think the last three digits make up the fleet number and the first two digits are random numbers). Haven't figured out why this happens. It might be that if Continental registered its planes like everybody else, their registrations would follow the "N###CO" formats, where the "CO" could be misinterpreted as "C0", which would not make it a valid registration.

Your thoughts and opinions are welcome guys!

 

Edited February 9, 2016 by Delta_8930

[K^2]

All of the US tail numbers are N-numbers, yes. And yeah, there are definitely patterns on registrations. You don't even have to look at large airline companies. Most (all?) aircraft at my university's airport were Kilo-Sierras, because they belong to Kent State University.

[WestAir]

At my company we use 300s and 200s for airbuses (N313NV for instance), 900s for our 752s, and 400/800s for our DC-9-80s. 

The registrations were changed upon delivery. Most our planes came from Europe where the registration was different, so they're really more like license plates than registration numbers -- Compared to the VIN # on a car that actually doesn't change.

I'll have to take a look at one of our planes documents, maybe the airworthiness cert, to see if there is a permanent registration number for planes as well.

[Nibb31]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_registration

After the country code, each national authority has their own rules and special allowances. Airlines or manufacturers for example can reserve batches of numbers.

Airbus has F-WWxx and F-WXxx numbers for pre-delivery and test flights (mimicking the French W "garage plates" for pre-registered cars). They have a special allowance to swap these numbers around between different aircraft at the factory. Some of them are cool, like the first A-380 prototype was registered F-WWOW, and the second was F-WXXL. The first A350 was F-WXWB (Extra Wide Body).

Edited February 9, 2016 by Nibb31

[RizzoTheRat]

You do see some nice personalised ones too.  The Red Devils (British Army parachute display team) Islander is GO-RED, Sussex police's Eurocopter is G-SUSX, and one of the first Concorde's was G-BOAC (British Overseas Aircraft Corporation, forerunner of British Airways)

[mrfox]

Its actually N1KE.

The equavilant to a VIN number on aircraft would be its MSN - manufacturers serial number. This stays regardless of rego changes.

 

 

 

 

[A35K]

Then there's this:

[Pixel of Life]

And then there's this (Top Gear fans will know):

[A35K]

The funny thing about the M-CCCP plane is that apparently it is one of the few aircraft registered win the Isle of Man, hence the 'M' prefix. By the way, I think the USSR was actually the only country to include the name of the country in the registration of its aircraft, as all registrations started with CCCP-.

[Delta_8930]

On 2/9/2016 at 2:27 AM, WestAir said:

At my company we use 300s and 200s for airbuses (N313NV for instance), 900s for our 752s, and 400/800s for our DC-9-80s. 

The registrations were changed upon delivery. Most our planes came from Europe where the registration was different, so they're really more like license plates than registration numbers -- Compared to the VIN # on a car that actually doesn't change.

I'll have to take a look at one of our planes documents, maybe the airworthiness cert, to see if there is a permanent registration number for planes as well.

I think each plane has its own unique MSN number or line number (something like that), for example the first 737 MAX has MSN 1A001.