Recommended call sign for war birds

[Alex Mollen]

I occasionally like to fly some of the excellent war birds from A2A simulations. Now for instance, I have their B17 and P51 Mustang. The B17 I like to fly has 231684 painted on its side and the P51 has 472064.

Now I've noticed that controllers sometimes act a little miffed if I just file my flight plan as '231'684' or '472064', as in, what's this weird aircraft doing in my airspace.

My question is if there is a better / more appropriate call sign for war birds, like Warbird 684 or Air Force 64 or something like that. Any recommendations? What do real war birds like the Confederate Air Force people file?

[Matthew Kramer]

Old "heritage" aircraft that still fly are given new civilian registrations, e.g. N12345 for the US. I would look up the new civil registration for the aircraft you are flying, or come up with a call sign that may be similar to one used by the aircraft during its service in the military.

[Kody Bowman]

I will kinda piggy back on what Matthew said but will speak to current day designations for military aircraft just in case you would want to fly it as such.

Military aircraft call signs are similar to those of civilian aircraft but differ in that they are <service branch+tail number> ex. R54321 or Army 54321; however, many military aircraft typically use a tactical call sign ex. TETON81 or FIREBIRD 64. In my experience, both as a controller and as a part of a ground unit with air support, this lends itself to simplifying communication.

Something along the lines of MUSTANG51 would work or, like Matthew suggested, research some of the era-specific tactical call signs used.

[Ryan Geckler]

Callsigns are 7 digits long. Use something like MSTNG31 or FIRBD81.

[Johnathan Clayborn]

As an expert on the A-26 Invader I can confirm what the others have said. Operational A-26s have civilian N-numbers assigned to them. They dont use the military prefix because they arent active military anymore. The N number doesnt always match the serial number. For example, Miss Murphy has 435601 painted on the tail (her serial is 44-35601), but her N-number is N202R. But sometimes they do match. Whistler's Mother has USAF serial 41-39401 and at one point she used the registry N39401. Finding what the Historical call signs may have been could be quite difficult.