Originally Posted by jrblack
I know some of you like to track the aircraft you fly in, just for the fun of it. Plane-spotters are even more gung-ho (and these days, more arrested).
I decided to write down the tail numbers of my flights this week; it wasn't too hard during the daytime, but at night, I can't see the tails well enough. I imagine bad weather makes it worse.
Is there somewhere on board where the tail number is listed? I was chatting with an FA this evening who said it was listed up front and she would go find it. She brought me a napkin with "4940" written on it.
The other numbers I collected were of the form N###UA, where ### is a three-digit number. So I thought she must be confused. Sure enough, I deplaned in the dark; even tho I couldn't read the tail number, it definitely wasn't 4940.
Ok, UA/aircraft gurus... what do I do? I'm not going to carry binocs with me, so don't go there.
We call them "N" numbers because the first number is an N..... from that information you can determine the aircraft type etc....
I also start a stop watch when we start a take off roll and use it to time the flight --- there's method in my madness because from the crew announcements I can tell precisely how much time is left in the flight and use that to determine how I'm going to use the time.....
Bob H