Suggestion: Allow Duplicate Callsigns

[Sterling Paulsen]

I have a suggestion that, at least to me, feels fairly simple: allow duplicate callsigns on the network. That isn't to say that duplicate callsigns should be allowed near each other, but rather a system ought to be looked into where if two connections are more than say 2000nmi away from each other then duplicates should be allowed. If the duplicates get within 2000nmi of each other, than the one of the two that's been connected for less time could be kicked. This way, for instance, two folks could operate consecutive days of direct flights such as ANZ1, whose Los Angeles to Auckland leg arrives a few hours after the next day's London to Los Angeles leg departs.

[Robert Shearman Jr]

If the duplicates get within 2000nmi of each other, than the one of the two that's been connected for less time could be kicked.

Just my opinion, but, no thanks. I don't wanna be disconnected randomly because I started at LAX and you started at JFK and we're both headed toward DEN but you happened to connect first. What if I'm on final when you finally breach that 2000nm threshold because you connected earlier but sat there longer? Now I've suddenly got to choose a new callsign, then explain to the controller who I am and what I am doing when I figure out what happened and reconnect?

 

You could come up with more "rules" about it favoring the pilot closer to the destination or what-have-you but at the end of the day there'll always be a scenario where it will be annoying and disruptive to boot someone off because someone else has the same callsign. Current system is much simpler and far preferable in my eyes.

[Luke Williams]

I'm not going to beat around the bush here... No.

It will cause more problems than resolve.

[Michael Benson]

No, it's a ridiculous idea

[Trevor Hannant]

Nope - Rob nails some very good reasoning why not.

[Richard Quigley]

No! That is worse than VATSIM's recent decision to remove the requirement for full real names when logging on.

[Nicholas Cavacini]

Not to mention that current architecture that VATSIM and many other connected systems use require unique callsigns.

[Tobias Dammers]

If you think about it for more than a minute, you'll quickly find all sorts of problems with this.

 

If you allow duplicate callsigns as long as they are geographically separated, you have to make sure they STAY separated - but how are you going to do that? You could prevent people from getting near each other - but the VATSIM network has no way of influencing aircraft movements, it can only record and broadcast them, so that's not an option. Or you could disconnect one of them when they get close to each other - but that is a really really bad thing to do because 1) getting disconnected for no good reason sucks a lot more than not getting "your" callsign, and 2) it's an impossible choice to make, none of the available options are fair, picking one of them at random is as good as anything. Or you could just allow it, but that would 1) be extremely confusing and require manual deconfliction over the radio (can you imagine? oh boy), and 2) it would break all sorts of protocols and external tools.

 

And all that just to get you your dream callsign, which isn't going to happen in the real world either. Even when there are multiple flights under the same flight number in the air at once, they will not carry the same callsign. This is one of the reasons why IATA flight numbers may diverge from ICAO callsigns (though there are more).

[Manfred Svensson]

There are billions of callsign options, litterally. Whats the point of needing that specific callsign?

[Dhruv Kalra]

First step towards this would be to dis[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ociate callsign from your connection. Have the callsign be tied to your flight plan, which would be more accurate to the real world, and also would allow ATC to edit your callsign without disconnects. Would allow us to fix the UA123s and DELTA456s of the world too.

 

(Following applies to FAAland)

The limitation in real life is that there can only be one instance of a callsign active within a FIR/ARTCC. There are cases, although uncommon, where we will get two flights airborne in the NAS with the same callsign and all will be fine until they hit the same Center’s airspace, in which case the computer will reject the handoff on the duplicate one.

[Martin Tornberg]

Is this really an issue? Isn't just to change your callsign?

 

I don't wallop someone who flies the slow A318 as BAW1. Just carry on.

[Tobias Dammers]

First step towards this would be to dis[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ociate callsign from your connection. Have the callsign be tied to your flight plan, which would be more accurate to the real world, and also would allow ATC to edit your callsign without disconnects. Would allow us to fix the UA123s and DELTA456s of the world too.

 

(Following applies to FAAland)

The limitation in real life is that there can only be one instance of a callsign active within a FIR/ARTCC. There are cases, although uncommon, where we will get two flights airborne in the NAS with the same callsign and all will be fine until they hit the same Center’s airspace, in which case the computer will reject the handoff on the duplicate one.

 

That's all fine, but we can't deconflict at the flight planning stage like IRL operations do.

[Andrew McCabe]

Duplicate callsigns can occasionally arise with my VA as we fly real world schedules, and more than one member may want to fly that segment. When it happens you just suffix your call sign. So if BAW123 is in use, fly as BAW123A. It's no real hardship.

 

Andrew

[Gary Oliver]

Not content with messaging other members telling them to disconnect and change their callsign because they are not flying 'the correct flight' you come on here moaning too?

 

Maybe you need to remember you are flying a desk and your callsign really doesn't matter

[Mark Barnes]

I don't have an opinion on the suggestion, only here to say it's not technically possible and wouldn't be worth the effort to make it technically possible.