Call Signs

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How do you assign call signs to use on the radio at your airport? We've always used "Airport 1" for the airport director, and Maintenance 1 and 2 for the two of us the do Ops/Maintenance, regardless of which vehicle we're in. We recently added a "Maintenance 3" to the staff, and there's a couple of new controllers in the tower and they sometimes forget who's in which vehicle on the field. I was thinking of coming up with vehicle callsigns instead of personnel-based ones. The only problem is any kind of painting or marking is probably out of the question, as we have to stay with the County's standard marking scheme.

We have 3 tractors, 2 zero-turn mowers, a vacuum truck, a Gator ATV, the airport director's car, and our ops truck. However, there's rarely more than 3 vehicles on the field at a time. Do yall think vehicle call signs would be more confusing or not?

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

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I work at a medium sized airport and we have numbers assisgned to each vehicle. These numbers are also written on top of the vehicle for ATCT to identify. When the vehicle # can't be written on the roof, like say a tractor, it still has a number. The callsign would be "Airport 5 tractor". Assigning #'s to people seems like it would create unneccessary confusion. Hope this idea helps.

The confusion that surrounds the identification or persons or vehicles has resulted in a number of miscommunications, errors, and runway incursions. The problem is that many airports have assigned a call sign to an individual rather than to a vehicle. A problem arises when the airport director (AP1) gets in a vehicle other than his/her car, it causes cognitive dissonance for the controller (the controller hears AP!, but visually sees a different vehicle). A best practice is to identify the vehicle and anyone in that vehicle uses that vehicle call sign (hence a large sticker on the dash to identify what vehicle you are in). Concurrently, the FAA has placed recent emphasis on AC 150/5210-5D Painting, Marking, and Lighting of Vehicles Used on an Airport. This applies to vehicles purchased with AIP funds. The AC calls out the requirement for painting large numbers on the vehicle so the controller can clearly identify the vehicle. Many LOA's with ATCT now call this out.

In Australia we use the type of vehicle and a n umber to identify the vehicle as the function of the operation is important, not who is doing it. Also using the vehicle type as part of the call sign (eg., car 1, truck 5, sweeper 2) makes it easier for the Tower to identify the caller. we only have to notify the Tower when we add vehicles to the fleet as replacement vehicles keep the call sign previous vehicle.

Cheers

We use Airport 1,2 or 3 for Ops and Maintenance 1,2 or 3 for maintenance personnel. Airport 1 has always been the Airport Director and Maintenance 1 has always been the Maintenance Supervisor.

Your call sign is designated when you get hired and it stays with you no matter what vehicle you may be in. We give the list of call signs to the Tower when it is updated.

Hope that helps.

Depending on the number of vehicles on the field, call signs usually are assigned by the type of operation and the vehicle doing the work.

For Example, airport administration usually has a callsign of "Airport # (1 director, 2, deputy director)". Operations usually has "OPS #", and Maintainence has "Maintainence #". Special case vehicles, such as fuelers and tugs usually follow the same system with "Fuel #", "Tug #", and "Mower #".

Police and ARFF units usually use a similar callsign system, with ARFF taking the callsigns "RESCUE #" and Police taking "COMMAND #".

Hope this helps, but it is also a good idea, at times, to take photos of the vehicles and have them for the tower, so there is a visual record during their training efforts. Also, reflective vehicle numbers do help to keep the controller confusion to a minimum.

Hi ,we just changed ( in the last year) all the numbers for maintenance and public safety. including the snow removal equipment, tracktors all have numbers including the small zero turns. we had probleme's with Maint. 2, safety 2 and me in truck 2 on the field at the same time. soo to eliminate any confution we changed all. no two units have the same number regardless of department

Hope this helps Peter, From TRI

I use to work at a small hub airport where all call signs were attached to the vehicle. White pickup was always AP4, little red mower was always AP11, Snow plow was always AP7, regardless of who drove it. From ATC stand point they could visually ID the vehicle and it was a great deal less confusing for them than a personnel designator system they did not understand, and having the same call sign coming out of different vehicles. As manager it was also easier for me. I see snow blower AP 8 about to run over an airplane......I don't care who is driving it, I would just call the vehicle call sign. Decal numbers on the side are not very expensive and strongly recommended under the AC.

Yes, we do have one. I asked the tower chief, and he doesn't have a problem with either way, but agreed it can get confusing using the current system that ID's the person when we switch vehicles. We looked in the AC's and FAR/AIM book and didn't see anything, so it's whatever works like you said.

Do you have a control tower? Not sure what others do but, I have heard both: give unique call signs to identify the person (Airport One - Director) but I have also hear of using call signs to describe the type of vehicle (Fuel truck - One) I don't think it is a written rule what ever works best for your airport.

or you could use phonetics. Alpha 1, Mike 1 etc

Thanks, yall. We don't have seperate ops and maintenance people, the three of us on the field do it all. I'm leaning more toward the the vehicle option now... maybe Airport 1 for the director's car, Airport 2 for the ops truck, Airport 3 for the sweeper, and Mower 1, 2, etc for the tractors and smaller mowers.

btw, ATC tags refer to ASDEX.

we currently have individual call signs at ATL. Ops are 5's, my call sign is 5 Whiskey (middle name starts with W). Mtx crews go by crew numbers with a letter. It's not uncommon to have three Ops on the field for inspections in the morning, along with Mtx electricians (2 crews sometimes), contractors (2 or more groups in different areas), and of course the Supertug operators. With the new Aerobahn Surface Mgmt System, we are installing GPS "transponders" in most airfield vehicles. Once done, our callsign will correspond to the vehicle, which corresponds to the Aerobahn tag. We will be using Ops <vehicle> etc. During snow events, the snow equipment operators are escorted by Ops who makes all the calls to ATC. We keep them together in a group with Ops leading and Mtx Supv following (and usually an Ops guy in a Saab) For now, when we enter the field, ATC tags our target as AP5W (for Airport 5 Whiskey). We always identify ourselves as Airport <callsign>. TLTV operators identify as SuperTug#, MiniTug# or in AirTran's case just Tug# ATC tags them as TUG#. DL Supertugs are 1-10, ASA Minitugs 11-13, TRS are 30-33 I believe. So, I guess for us, it's a mix. But we always have drivers on the field somewhere. We are pretty proud of our low number of VPD's considering how many operators are out there!

I vote for assigning call signs to the vehicles. At my last airport we did a lot of snow removal and personnel often operated different pieces of equipment through the couse of a shift. If we tried to do that with personnel based call signs it would be chaos. And after all, the controllers are looking out the window at vehicles, not individuals, so that should be less confusing for them.

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