I’ve searched and read a lot of posts about the ‘Flight of _’ suffix in a callsign.
The information I found is contradicting.
I know there are a number of aircraft in a group.
I also know there’s one lead aircraft communicating with ATC. The others keep quiet.
The group is considered as one aircraft. They will take off and land together when the lead is cleared.
If this is not right, please correct me.
Some say all aircraft in the group need to have the same callsign. That sounds logical. How else is ATC supposed to know who is in the group and how isn’t.
Others say that isn’t necessary, which to me makes no sense.
In terms of the same callsign I found two different versions for using the suffix:
Lead: [CALLSIGN]
2nd: [CALLSIGN Flight of 2]
3rd: [CALLSIGN Flight of 3]
4th: [CALLSIGN Flight of 4]
etc.
It is confusing, since “Flight of 4” means a group of four aircraft.
“Flight of 2” means two aircraft.
Wouldn’t it make much more sense when the lead has the amount of aircraft as a suffix?
So “Flight of 4” with three others with just the same callsign?
Otherwise it should be “Flight 2 of 4”, “Flight 3 of 4” and “Flight 4 of 4”.
It is when another aircraft has “Flight of 3” in the callsign.
Are there 3 or 4 aircraft in the group?
One states it’s a group of 4.
Another states it’s a group of 3.
That IS confusing.
I hate to be contradictive but every aircraft in the formation should have the same flight of # so if your a group of 4 then you all have flight of 4 in the call sign. If only one person has it that wouldnt make sense to a controller. Each aircraft needs the flight of in their call sign. Check out Tyler’s tower tutorial on flight of flights.
It’s hard see in the video but it’s there both N172HVY and WLA have flight of 2 in their call sign when only N172HVY is communicating.