Bloody hell. Can't do anything these days without appearing on social media. By the way, love that photo of the Wirraway factory. Fantastic.
True. And on that day in 1982 I sat in the B-52 tail gunner position I also sat in a KC-135 boom operator's position. What you'll notice about this aircraft is that it has been re-engined with turbofans. They actually look ludicrously outsized for the aircraft. Presumably they've all been done, as they certainly wouldn't meet current noise regulations otherwise. Image Unavailable, Please Login
It's N1AL. Usually with the U.S. regos if you see one like that the initials are the owners (either company or individual). In this case the aircraft is owned by Air Lease Corporation.
Didn't know that, we have VH-xxx, thought it was similar for all countries, do they pay extra for that or they just ask for those characters ?
Lewis has G-LCDH on his Challenger 600 (Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton I think?), and BMW has an (x)13MW IIRC. Pip Boorman used to have VH-PIP here. I remember hearing a podcast a while ago and was (but shouldn't have been) a little surprised to hear an NTSB guy say they regularly head out for accident investigations aboard N1 or N2
Aircraft regos are like car regos. If it's available, you can ask for it. All US aircraft are N reg, but after that you can more or less ask for whatever you like. Whenever you see a short one, it's personalised. There's a Citation III which used to be based in Adelaide (may still be) owned by Ingham Chicken, rego VH-ING. There's also a Navajo around the place which is VH-OFF. We've always wished it was registered in France, in which case it would be F-OFF...
Omaka NZ today - crazy kiwi's. Two R/C V2's and one MK XIV to tip them over! Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Not in Oz. Don't know about US. CASA used to publish every available rego and you could just pick whichever one you wanted. Presumably they still do that. However, we are restricted in that it must be three letters. No more, no less. If there was one you really wanted there was nothing stopping you contacting the owner and offering to buy it from them.
Just did some google reading on the numbering scheme and realise it was ICAN that dished out the nomenclature but no reasons for giving USA "N" or Aussie "VH" . Registration being with the Poms originally we were allocated G-AU until 1928 (NZ were G-NZ) and then swapped over to VH, the US have always been "N" so need to keep digging unless you know why
