File photo of an Aero CommanderThe National Wildfire Coordination Group is pushing for a standard method of designating call signs of “Air Attack aircraft”. It is believed they are referring to aircraft used to coordinate aerial firefighting aircraft over wildland fires, rather than using a generic term for any aircraft that attacks fires.
Here is an excerpt from a memo the group sent, dated September 21, 2020:
NWCG requests assistance with the adoption of the call sign standard for Exclusive Use (EU) Air Attack platforms. The initial year implementation of the standard would be considered a beta test, with permanent updates planned for sequential years. Updates would include all appropriate documents and applications at the National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC), Geographic Area Coordination Centers (GACC), and local dispatch centers. Implementation of the proposal will include updating Automated Flight Following (AFF) to display call signs. Additional points include:
- Total Mobility (see National Interagency Mobilization Guide, Chapter 10) is supported through this proposal. The call sign standard provides information pertinent to resource movement and prioritization, and it distinguishes between EU and Call When Needed (CWN) platforms.
- AFF will be updated with the new resource identifier call signs. For EU aircraft, the call sign stays with the platform while under contract.
- CWN platforms will continue to use the last three characters of their registration number (N#).
- Operationally, Air Attack platforms will continue to use incident call signs when assuming incident air attack (for example, AA-402 becomes Ranch Air Attack).
Below is description of the call sign standard for all interagency EU Air Attack call signs:
- First Number: The Forest Service regional identification number where the platform is hosted (e.g., 1, 2, etc.).
- Numbers Two and Three: Forest Service will use the two-digit number of the Forest that hosts the platform:
- USFS: 0-29 Cooperating agencies will use the two-digit number assigned to the agency:
- BLM: 30-39
- BIA: 40-49
- States, NPS, FWS: 50-99
4 Comments
The absurd part is the abundance of helicopter naming conventions and duplicate “ three digit “ identifiers …. Region 5 has it correct… regional number identifiers , we used to have it correctly for the type 1’s . Hopefully this to will change.
….and expand the concept of three digit identifiers to ALL contracted aircraft. The notion of having some aircraft with agency call signs and others using tail numbers doesn’t make sense, and will ad to the confusion of what’s what, who’s what.
{Bill, the picture is not a 500 (piston) it’s an Aero Commander 690 (Turboprop version) which is the most common air attack platform today at least amongst the federal agencies and the EU fleet}
California has been doing this for years, much of the remaining federal air attack fleet began using the new call signs just this year. Agree with the other comments, taking away the 700 numbers from the Type 1 helicopters was a really bad move. It may be difficult to make all of the smaller (T2/T3) fleet, at least on the CWN side, have call signs, but the Exclusive Use contracted aircraft certainly could. Going to 700 numbers again on ALL type 1’s would eliminate a lot of confusingly similar “charlie” “hotel” “kilo” and “tango” tail numbers. Make all bucketed Type 1’s 701-749 and tanked aircraft 751-799, then you really know what you have and what kind of dipsite they need.
While it makes a lot of sense to have assigned callsigns fir EU tankers helicopters and helitankers, it would make more sense for the aerial supervision call signs to mirror the lead planes and bravo units. Give qualified atgs a call sign starting with FS region # and then add a 2 digit number for the atgs. Example: air attack 506. Then a T suffix could be appended when a trainee was under supervision.
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