Originally Posted by
CZAMFlyer
I'd cheekily suggest you're not looking hard enough. But from most passengers' perspectives, underside markings are tricky to spot.
This is true with large modern airliners at major airports where boarding ramps / gangways are in use.
However, there are still many cases where stairs are still used and since boarding is usually on the port side the under-wing registration is normally visible.
Just glancing through my files of ancient aircraft flown I noticed an oddity in contradiction with my previous statements. One of the first planes I flew on, an Aer Lingus DC3, EI-ACE (Dublin to London Northolt) had the registration on the wing underside, but the "EI-" was on the starboard side and the "ACE" on the port side, all in huge 3ft tall lettering!
Originally Posted by
CZAMFlyer
Fair enough, but I think the requirements to be seen visually from below are antiquated; it's not a safety enhancement, and there are plenty of formal (en route nav) and informal (flight tracker app) methods to identify the aircraft in flight without laying eyes on it. I'm not aware of a valid, modern reason for this regulation, but perhaps somebody can enlighten me.
Good point. However, there can be reasons why none of the above will work, whether by electrical-mechanical failure or intentionally. This is part of the reasons I have advocated for transponders to be hard-wired into aircraft electrical system and not to be capable of being manually switched off, by switch or by crew accessible circuit breaker.
I'm not going to draw the ire of anyone by mentioning specific flights but we can all probably visualise situations where when a transponder is deactivated and VHF comms are unresponsive a prompt airborne intercept could be aided visually by under-wing identification.
With so much of my early travels being around the Malay Peninsula on DC3s, Fokker F27s, Comet 4Cs and B707s, always boarding from the ramp stairs, the underside registration was always there. More often than not it was my only source to log the record.
Whether AC should have the registration on the wing underside is very much a matter of opinion, but I for one would feel more comfortable knowing it was there!