Jay,

In the US, the tail number is assigned an 8-digit octal number to be used as
the flight ID algorithmically by the FAA.


Hmm. Do you have a source for that? Since every airline flight using a flight
number rather than a tail number for the flight ID field in the mode S data
packet would break that algorithm, it doesn't make much sense to use it in the
first place.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)