AIRCRAFT INTERNATIONAL CALL SIGNS
("REGISTRATION MARKS")

Last updated October 25, 2005
© 2005, MARITIMES SCANNING SITE, all rights reserved

Aircraft are identified on the radio in a number of different ways.   Airliners invariably identify by flight number, i.e. the airline name or handle followed by a numerical component.   Examples are Air Canada 104, or Speedbird 76.  (Speedbird is a handle that the company, in this case British Airways,  has chosen to use instead of the actual airline name.)  This type of call sign is not specific to the particular aircraft or the radio installe on it.    Military aircraft often but not always identify by tactical call signs.  In the western world these are usually something like the airliner call signs, with a word for the particular squadron or unit, followed by a number.   The word component may be a random sort of word, or it may relate to the mission or history of the unit. The numerical part may or may not relate to the serial number painted on the aircraft.   An example from the Maritimes is Tusker 04.

Aircraft in general, and certainly all civil aircraft, have call signs assigned specifically to that aircraft.   For almost all countries these call signs or call letters relate closely to the International Telecommunications Union (UN) radio call sign allocation table.   Most of the time the call sign is referred to as the registration marks of the aircraft and they are assigned even if the aircraft does not in fact have a radio.

The official rules of the ITU dictate that aircraft radio stations, and therefore by convention, aircraft themselves, should be identified by a 5-letter call sign or registration mark.   Most countries do follow this convention.  Out of approximately 200 jurisdictions, about 170 do follow this method.   For example Canada assigns a 5-letter registration to all civil aircraft and these begin with CF or CG.   An example is CGMJT, which is normally written as C-GMJT.     British aircraft invariably are marked with G-xxxx, such as G-TRGD.    This follows the international radio allocation table for call signs.    The way Canada marks its aircraft might imply that anything that begins with C is Canadian but this is not true.    The normal convention for countries that do not "own" a complete series of one letter is to indicate the markings this way: CG-MJT or CC-YTR, because in these cases CG is Canadian and CC is Chilean.  Some years ago Canada switched from the CF-xxx  model to the C-Fxxx way which is really not kosher.

Having said that, Canada toes the line much better than the 30+ countries that do not use the 5-letter convention at all!  

Two of the biggest anomalies, and I hesitate to say they are doing anything illegal, are the USA and Russia.    The USA formerly used aircraft markings of the 5-letter type but they appear to be unused since the 1930's.   All one can say now is that the US markings begin with N followed by at least two numbers, and then by various combinations of numbers and letters, which seem to add up to a total of four to seven characters in all.    Very often in modern times the final two characters are a pair of letters that relate to the owners corporate name.     An example for Western Pacific Airlines would be N232WP.

Russia uses I believe one pattern only: RA followed by numbers.   In fact there are quite a few countries that use this pattern.   Here are most if not all of them:

China       B  (BH for Hong Kong, BM for Macau)  Taiwan also uses this overall series.
Bolivia      CP
Armenia  EK
Moldova  ER
Belarus   EW
Kyrgistan EX
Tadjikistan EY
Turkmenistan EZ
S. Korea  HL
Panama  HP
Saudi Arabia HZ (but does have some 5-letter)
Japan JA
Mongolia JU
Peru OB
** N Korea P
Uzbekistan UK
Kazakhstan UN
Georgia 4L
Azerbaijan 4K
Ukraine UR
** Vietnam VN
Marshall Islands V7
Cambodia XU

There are some other varieties as well:

Dominican Republic  HI # # # Letter Letter
Colombia  HK # # # Letter
** Philippines RPC # # #
** Zimbabwe Z plus four letters
Venezuela YV # # Letter
** Cuba  CU then T or H, then numbers.

Any country marked with ** is not even adhering to the international list of radio prefixes.

Other than those listed above, all countries use the five letter format appearing as XX-XXX or X-XXXX