What a month. Our April meeting took place on the heels of a record-breaking snowfall, but we still had a great turnout.

I was recently reading some of the old Aviation Safety Newsletters from Transport Canada and happened across an article on radio call sign confusions. The point of the story was that the assignment of flight numbers by airlines was leading to aircraft responding to clearances for other aircraft. For example, Speedair 324 might respond to a clearance given to Speedair 824.

I couldn’t help but remember an incident one afternoon as I was arriving at Red Deer. With several of us coming in at the same time, I hadn’t completely kept up with all the radio calls. So, when I heard the tower request a position report for Romeo Echo Mike, I immediately assumed he had accidentally used this call sign instead of the correct Romeo Echo November. I called back with something to the effect of “Red Deer Radio, this is Romeo Echo NOVEMBER approximately 3 miles south of the beacon at 4500’.” Imagine my surprise when I heard Romeo Echo Mike call in immediately after with his position! It turns out that Jack Landage’s L-17A Navion, based in Bieseker, is C-GREM. A quick apology and all was good.

Although this was a simple mistake with no real consequences, some radio mistakes can have a far greater impact. One afternoon, while in the circuit at Springbank, one such incident occurred. I was flying a rental Citabria when one of the C-172s from the same club taxied out. As they completed their run-up and taxied to the hold line, they keyed the mic to request take-off clearance. Unfortunately, the mic stuck open. For about five minutes (one complete circuit for me), all we could hear was the conversation between student and instructor. The instructor was becoming increasingly impatient with the tower’s lack of clearance when there was more than enough room to take off.

Fortunately, the tower’s transmitter was far more powerful than the 172’s, so the rookie controller was actually doing a great job of clearing the aircraft still in the circuit and keeping cool through it all. She asked us to remain in the circuit and gave us clearances with no response required. Finally, the instructor started to sense something was wrong as he hadn’t heard any radio calls for a while and finally started questioning the student about whether the radio was still on. The student replied, “The radio is on, but there’s a ‘T’ on the indicator… does that mean trouble?” The last comment was the instructor saying, “OH NO…”, then click. The instructor was cleared and chewed out by the tower supervisor as he headed out to the practice area.

With this in mind, I started thinking about our own radio procedures. Recently, I was asked by a club member about the practice of using the Dragonfly call sign for group flights. This practice has been ongoing since before I joined the club, so I decided to check it out.

I couldn’t find much in the CARs that specifically refer to the use of call signs. I’m sure it must be there, but I simply couldn’t find a reference. This past weekend, I gave a presentation at the Rust Remover about the flight to Oshkosh. One odd thing is that if you fly a Canadian registered aircraft to the US and plan on using your radios, then you are required to have a radio station license. While verifying this rule, I stumbled across Industry Canada’s regulation RBR-1.

There it clearly states that:

4. Identification
   The operator of a mobile station in the aeronautical service shall identify the station using:
   (a) in the case of an aircraft station,
   (i) the official registration marks of the aircraft.
   (ii) a word designating the air operator, followed by the flight identification number; or
   (iii) other methods of identification that have been agreed to under a special agreement between Canada and other governments, and on condition that they are internationally known

Since the wording “shall” is used and not “should”, this essentially means you must use the registration marks and there is no allowance for the arbitrary use of “Dragonfly” (remember, “air operator” refers to a commercial operator; we are technically “aircraft operators”). In light of the recent attention being given to call sign confusion, the use of the dragonfly moniker may not be the wisest choice. Besides, we’re usually halfway to our destination before we straighten out who exactly is Dragonfly 4! ☺ I may not always remember what Dragonfly number I am, but I always remember my registration…