FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - United Airlines Fleet Updates [2023 Edition]
Old May 31, 2023 | 10:06 am
  #440  
jsloan
FlyerTalk Evangelist
30 Countries Visited
2M
All eyes on you!
20 Years on Site
 
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 25,544
Originally Posted by jpezaris
For the curious (like me), is N29999 a real designator? It sounds like something that would be used as an out-of-band indicator or temporary place holder, like TKTK in publishing.
There’s no reason it couldn’t be real. The only requirements for N numbers are listed here: https://www.faa.gov/licenses_certifi...orming_nnumber And N29999 would qualify.

Originally Posted by alanjed
The last three digits are just the next in sequence. The '29' as the first two digits also appear in N29989 and N29991. Other first two digits include '22,' '23,' 24,' '26,' and '27.'

What is the meaning of the first two digits in these (and other) tail numbers? I've never seen any rhyme nor reason to them. Theye almost seem like check digits.
I was under the impression that UA simply scoured the registry looking for values that were available and would match the internal tail designator. So if it’s tail 999, they’d look for Nxx999 and see what’s available. That may be an oversimplification on my part, but I agree that there doesn’t seem to be rhyme nor reason to them.
jsloan is offline