Call Sign questions

[Jim Alex]

So I'm a new pilot, and I'm wondering about Call Signs.  I've looked at the VATSIM Learning Centre , but still have questions.

• Can/should I use multiple call signs? A different one depending on the flight?  Example: flying for an Airline vs flying a private plane.
• Should it reference my aircraft? 
  • and if so should I use the manufacture and type, or the specific registration, or a combination. 
  • Should I use the FSEconomy  Registration number, or
  • the XPlane model registration .
• Should I use a personal callsign?
• Should it relate to the airline I am flying for?  Example a pilot could use their Airline Pilot ID.   

FS Economy

 

XPlane

 

Kind Regards

mac

 

 

Edited February 6, 2021 at 12:32 AM by Jim Alex
removed duplicate image

[Dustin Rider]

1 hour ago, Jim Alex said:

So I'm a new pilot, and I'm wondering about Call Signs.  I've looked at the VATSIM Learning Centre , but still have questions.

• Can/should I use multiple call signs? A different one depending on the flight?  Example: flying for an Airline vs flying a private plane.
• Should it reference my aircraft? 
  • and if so should I use the manufacture and type, or the specific registration, or a combination. 
  • Should I use the FSEconomy  Registration number, or
  • the XPlane model registration .
• Should I use a personal callsign?
• Should it relate to the airline I am flying for?  Example a pilot could use their Airline Pilot ID.   

Your callsign is pretty much up to you. The only requirement is that you comply with the appropriate format for the type of callsign you use. That is, you may use your tail number or an ICAO-appropriate three-letter airline identifier.

If you fly using your tail number, you can use whatever is on the side of your plane, like the one you have pictured, which would make it easy to remember what callsign you used to log into the network; however, you can also make up a tail number if you have one you like to use. Just make sure it corresponds to some country-appropriate format (i.e. US civil aircraft start with an N and contain up to five additional alphanumeric characters; Canadian civil aircraft start with a C and contain up to four additional letters). So "N60226" or "N2RM" would be appropriate, but "N152CES" would not. Likewise, AAL1004 would be appropriate, but AA1004 would not. 

Here's a good Wikipedia page that lists a registration prefix by country, as well as how the rest of the identification should be formatted. 

Whatever you use to log into the network, that is how ATC will see you and that is what they'll call you. 

[Robert Shearman Jr]

And, yes, feel free to use a different callsign for each flight if you choose. 

[Andreas Fuchs]

Get (freeware) SimToolKitPro. You can search for real world flights there, the app will list all flights and flight numbers for given city-pairs. However, STKP lists the "IATA-code" (2 letters) for airlines, but you are supposed to use "ICAO-codes" (3 letters). E.g. "American Airlines" is "AA" (IATA) and "AAL" (ICAO). Wikipedia has a pretty good list of those ICAO codes, in case you don't know them:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airline_codes