Why Do Some Aircraft Have Letters Painted Above The Cockpit?

Have you ever noticed the letters, or numbers, painted above the cockpit windows on the front of some aircraft? These are not present on all aircraft but are different between each one. They are nothing too mysterious though, as we’ll explore in today’s video.
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[@Robert-sl7sq]

The letters above the cockpit are typically also painted on the front landing gear doors, specifically on the doors that are open with the gear extended.

[@igotanM16]

Along with the letters "ETOPS" if the aircraft is qualified to cross the Atlantic European-North American routes.

[@stephenholland5930]

Yeah he failed to mention it is more common on the nose gear doors than above the cockpit.

[@benmol_]

Similarly to the Icelandair example, Corsair's 747-400 were registered F-GTUI (as Corsair was part of the TUI group), F-HSEA, F-HSEX, F-HSUN, F-HKIS and F-HLOV

[@adityanshu15]

I don't know if it was deliberate of just a coincidence but majority of Air India's A321 fleet bears the registration number VT-PP*, * represent different letter. During the time of acquisition of these A321s the then aviation minister was Praful Patel(PP) and Air India was state owned.

[@donaldstanfield8862]

How vain

[@shankarpoti1985]

PP, the person who deliberately hastened the decline of Air India, first by presiding over the ill fated merger of Indian Airlines and Air India just to ensure that many slots are freed for his private airlines friends. Then by messing up Air India's operations, again deliberate and sending the airline into a tail spin towards financial disaster.

[@taelius2663]

I honestly never have thought about this, nor noticed this on airliners. Thanks for the heads-up!

[@thomast6851]

You learn something new every day!

[@Fiedman]

A former leisure airliner here in Canada called Wardair had a 747 with the registration C-FFUN, I always loved that one.

[@rockerjim8045]

I flew with Wardair twice 1980 & lastly 82 . Manchester to Vancouver

[@paulnewstead9693]

Man, Wardair brings back some great childhood memories for me.

[@andrewdeans8520]

I miss the bright orange of Braniff and CP Air

[@spongebubatz]

If Wow Air was still around they would probably have an aircraft registered as TF-SUS by now...

[@cheongyei]

These fun tidbits are a great reason to subscribe to Simple Flying.

[@ecclestonsangel]

Thank you for this. I always thought the letters were very curious, seeing it on EasyJet the most often. It's very interesting.

[@eds.4815]

Some airlines put identifiers forward on the lower fuselage, near the nose gear. This isn't necessarily a part of the registration number, but sometimes the airline's internal "ship number".

[@grriceman782]

Was curious…thanks for the info

[@SimpleFlyingNews]

You are welcome! ✈️ - LR

[@kaweewattt]

The prefixes come from ITU radio callsign prefixes for all radio and television stations.

[@v12ts.gaming]

Imagine TF-STEPBRO

[@ADT70]

Extremely useful channel I appreciate your effort

[@crystize3114]

thx for the clarification

[@huwzebediahthomas9193]

For ground crew and tower personnel with binoculars.

[@benstokes69]

D-EAD 😂

[@yeaminchowdhury.3440]

Rip antonov 225

[@nadelvincejalmasco7124]

Aside from that letters above the cockpit, I remember seeing the Cebu Pacific logo until it had the new livery around 2016

[@joaorolim2610]

Its because the final letters of some registrations are the only differents while the others are already default by the country or the airline I think

[@brianklosterman1869]

The registration is usually a document that is in the cockpit. The FARs state that the registration is a required document that must be on the plane at all times, along with the airworthiness papers, operating handbook, and weight and balance papers.

[@flyme195]

G-FBEN. G-JEDI. My two favourite aircraft when I worked as cabin crew for FlyBE. I did my familiarisation flights on these two. The Embraer 195 (BEN) and the Dash-8 Q400 (JEDI)

[@Robert-sl7sq]

If the call sign of the flight is not the flight number, but the registration, the pilot makes initial contact with the full registration. The air traffic controller then may reply back with a shorter part of the registration, which are not necessarily the last 3 letters of the registration. If using the last three letters would create confusion between two planes on the same frequency, the air traffic controller will determine which shortened call sign is to be used.

[@megaplayz8689]

Anything about An-225? I know it got burned, what is your look at the situation?

[@alanjackson3115]

This is not the place for the AN225 Facebook groups have this covered

[@ChrisBarrow-617]

@@alanjackson3115 not everybody's on Farcebook

[@MaxCheng95]

Here in Taiwan it’s actually required by Taiwanese aviation regulations to put reg numbers at the front and back of both sides of fuselage. It’s the only country I know of where you can see the registration by the front doors.

[@BritishBeachcomber]

My favourite is G-LEGS, a Short 360-100 belonging to Manx Airlines and referring to the 3 legs on the Isle of Man flag.

[@ireumiobseum]

Malaysia AirAsia registers their first A320neo as 9M-NEO. Pretty cool!

[@dezede591]

When we (customer service agents) are requested to do an arrival, it's easier to look at the A320 forehead instead of front gear. We learnt that during training, with easyJet, but when I worked with Corsair International, I was obliged to look at the front gear!

[@LasVegasWolves]

As a Wolves supporter. I have always hoped that if I ever fly A350 with BA, it won't be on WBA!

[@stephen_dmg2003]

i'm literally a child. i laughed audibly when i saw the BA a320 with TOE over its windscreen

[@jovanholland36]

3:31 i think theres a editing glitch

[@Fay7666]

They're using Slew Mode.

[@aidanzacharyguzman1676]

So sir, the Philippine version is RP-CXXXX for passenger aircraft. RP stands for Republic of the Philippines and C means Crafts number. For example RP-C8612, that's an A320 operating for Philippine Airlines. When it comes to numbers, any reg. starting with 86 are A320s operating for Philippine Airlines, while 32, and sometimes 41 is for Cebu Pacific. Lastly any numbers starting with 89 belongs to Philippines AirAsia.

[@nadelvincejalmasco7124]

32** started actually with Philippine Airlines, from 3221 until 3231, then 3237 onwards is 5J

[@YSLaurens]

Guernsey registered Cirrus SR22 "2-HIGH" has got to be my favourite.

[@brianklosterman1869]

The letters you are refiring to is not the registration, it is the tail number, which is a mix of letters and numbers.

[@spongebubatz]

That depends on the airline and the country. Often it’s the last two letters of the registration and sometimes it might be an airline internal code

[@user-jt4wm4ym4k]

Virgin Atlantic has some in there livery like G-VBIG which was a B747-400 named Tinker Belle

[@necroslair]

Or G-VROY named Pretty Woman after the Roy Orbison song.

[@GalootWrangler]

Ian Fleming lives on in G-VSPY, Miss Moneypenny.

[@zippersocks]

Saves you a lot of time from walking around the aircraft just to be sure you’re on the right one (as an airport employee).

[@MSRTA_Productions]

Another thing that I want to know 🤔

[@thomasburke7995]

All United states registration based airframes will start with N followed by numbers this goes for ALL AIRCRAFT now .. and yes 90%of the time the ending letters denote what airline OPERATOR owns that airframs..

[@miketorguson]

I see a lot of PDX footage in your videos are you local?

[@matthewwelsh294]

He must be or loves the airport

[@bokhans]

Russian aircrafts are mostly registered in a British Overseas Territory in the North Atlantic Ocean named Bermuda 🇧🇲 ( with 64 000 inhabitants) but only if they are Airbus or Boeing aircrafts. The registration could come to be important these days. Aeroflot is banned from flying to the U.K. so I guess they use something other than country of registration for that ban.

[@kayseyomalley8703]

where the aircraft is registered, is irrelevant to this ban as i understand

[@spongebubatz]

The airline the aircraft is flying for is based in Russia, that’s pretty much all that matters

[@lzh4950]

Heard its because import tariffs are charged on foreign-made aircraft registered in Russia

[@AluminumOxide]

I guess it’s just like with car license plates, which have one on the front and one on the back. Whenever a car gets a new owner, they can change the plate legally.

[@MrAlwaysBlue]

American registrations start with N. Anybody know why there is no hyphen to separate the remaining characters?

[@everettrailfan]

Just the country's preference, I suppose.

[@iVistxy]

I saw a jet with the regerstration of 2-SLOW

[@Jet-Pack]

Most aircraft also have the same letters on the nose gear doors.

[@Tasek7]

i never see something like this🤨

[@andrewallen9993]

It's to prevent pilots flying the Wrong plane to the right place or the right plane to the wrong place as all aircraft of the same type and airline look the same.

[@eamonahern7495]

0:43 is safe for coeliacs to fly on because it's gluten free 😀

[@kendrapratt2098]

I thought maybe registration of the craft at 0:43 was for “gluten-free “

[@752planes]

3:13 747? Do you mean A380?

[@stephenholland5930]

Probably 787 as in the clip.

[@kemi242]

This is pretty similar to the license plates used on cars.

[@boatlover1875]

While at AA, we called that the "ship number." Theirs are only on the gear doors, are 3 letters and have no relation to the tail number.

[@spongebubatz]

I think most US airlines use an airline internal code for that

[@nurrizadjatmiko21]

I know this one

[@bazoo513]

Are those the same characters as those painted in the nose wheel door?

[@stephenholland5930]

Usually the last 2 letters are on the nose gear doors - on non-US registered aircraft.

[@donaldstanfield8862]

I'm here for the comments...🤓

[@jetsetjoeone675]

Why didn’t delta change AirTrans 717 tail number when they inquired them?

[@DJMelloSoul]

I could be wrong but I would assume that because the aircraft were already registered on the US all that had to do was change who the owner was in the registration vs registering them all again with a different registration number.

[@spongebubatz]

Just like Melvin said the aircraft remained in the US, additional that AirTran was taken over by SW, so the airline and its letter combinations weren’t taken

[@everettrailfan]

@@spongebubatz Exactly, you can see this more clearly on Alaska's A320 series aircraft which are all ex-Virgin America. They all have a VA suffix on the end for Virgin America and were not re-registered as there was no need to.

[@darkguardian1314]

A visual demo how the reg letters are reduced would have been nice. Seems the vid was dancing around the subject making it more complicated than needs to be.

[@philippgabler5835]

There is a Lufthansa Cargo B777-F registered D-ALFA. So you can read out the registration as "Delta-Alfa"

[@gabu114]

how do airlines name their aircraft? like airline name and numbers

[@SimpleFlyingNews]

Some airlines will keep the manufacturer's number or name, Most airlines like to name their aircraft after locations or whatever is relevant to that airline. ✈️ - LR

[@gabu114]

@@SimpleFlyingNews ok

[@lzh4950]

@@SimpleFlyingNews e.g. Scoot's 1st 787 is named "Dream Start" while it's parent Singapore Airlines used to named all its 744s "MegaTop"

[@LarryAppleton777]

Victor Hotel forever!

[@indranimaharaj507]

simple flying can u please stop using auto generated captions I prefer normal captions

[@SimpleFlyingNews]

Thanks for the feedback!✈️ - LR

[@earn2u]

HS-VIP

[@earn2u]

TG's A350-941(XWB)not have HS-THA # start with HS-THB วิเชียรบุรี WICHIAN BURI HS-THC ศรีนคร SI NAKHON HS-THD อุทุมพรพิสัย UTHUMPHON PHISAI HS-THE ชัยบาดาล CHAI BADAN HS-THF ยานนาวา YAN NAWA HS-THG ภูผาม่าน PHU PHA MAN HS-THH ธารโต THAN TO HS-THJ โพธิ์ไทร PHO SAI HS-THK ไพศาลี PHAISALI HS-THL ศรีขรภูมิ SIKHORAPHUM HS-THM ชุมพลบุรี CHUMPHON BURI HS-THN คีรีรัฐนิคม KHIRI RAT NIKHOM

[@baylinkdashyt]

Wow, your stock footage library didn't do you well at all on this one, did it? I only saw two clips in which it was actually possible to see the thing which is the premise of this video, and on those it was a real stretch. Oops.

[@pirate1012]

This is a 4 minute video that could have been 30 seconds.

[@patrickfreeman205]

BT. Bring Toilet paper.