You sure know its winter in the Northern Hemisphere
when we can start threads about the value of comp ID's!
Roll on summer, Im bloody freezing!

At 12:42 16 December 2003, Ray Lovinggood wrote:
In America, it is possible to get a specific FAA registration
number (if it hasn't been claimed by others), so I
would think the possibility of using part of the registration
number as the I.D. If one or two or three letters
can be reserved by the country's soaring association,
why couldn't the same association keep track of the
registration numbers?

Don't misunderstand: I like my 'vanity' number, W8
as opposed to using part of my registration, N564L.
I was just trying to learn the 'who's, what's, when's,
why's, how's, etc.

I also believe in America, the FAA would not allow
me to get a 'vanity' registration number that ends
in W8. I don't think there can be a letter followed
by a numeral in the registration number.

Ray



At 12:18 16 December 2003, Fantsu wrote:

'Ray Lovinggood' wrote in message
...
So, why were NEW numbers/letters required and not,
say, the last two or three numbers/letters of the
glider's
registration?

The 1-26 association uses numbers reflecting their
serial numbers, I think. Why did they do that and
not their registration numbers?

My glider is registered as N564L and the competition
number is W8. Why did The Powers That Were (and probably
still are) decide using '4L' or '64L' wasn't good
enough
(Painted and stuck on big and large) and decided we
needed 'vanity numbers?'


Maybe because there would have quite a lot of same
IDs. And here in Europe
in many countries there are only numbers, so clashes
would have been
inevitable.

Of course there are still clashes in worlds, but probably
not so many. In
most countries (I think) the soaring association takes
care that no two IDs
coincide.

h