Guys, I’m a bit confused. Admittedly this is a semi-normal state for me, but I have a question anyway.
I ordered a Tamiya F-4E thanks to the recommendations from a bunch of guys here. The decals show the tail number as either AF 70-308 or 70-392. I always thought that these were the actual aircraft serial numbers (frequently with a leading zero as in 70-0392). However, upon doing some digging for pictures of the aircraft I found that 70-392 (and I think 308 as well) were part of a discontinued contract for F-111s. I finally found a picture of an F-4E with the proper markings, but the caption for the photo indicates that it is serial number 67-0392.
Apparently I was wrong in my thinking that the tail number was the aircraft serial number, so does that tail number correspond to anything specific or is it just an arbitrary number assigned when the plane is built or admitted into service?
Scott, I believe the tail number is the serial number. The 1st 2 digits being the year of manufacture or order, and the remaining digits being the sequence number. You USAF guys out there, correct this jarhead if im wrong.
Well, that’s what I thought to, but take a look at this site: http://www.sharpshooter-maj.com/html/twtd02.htm
Scroll down and you’ll see a bunch of F-4 pix and the one on the top right has the caption, " F-4E 67-0392/JV 469 TFS,388 TFW" Click the picture and look at the tail number. It is 70-392.
67-392 is the serial number. That means in fiscal year 1967 the contract was let to build that aircraft. It was the 392 aircraft built under that contract. A zero was not added so in no way could it become 67-0392.
Tail numbers in Europe and the US had the year plus last three of the serial number. In this case the tail number would be 67-392.
In PACAF (Pacific) they went with last number of the year and last four of the serial number. If there was only three numbers a zero was added. 67-392 would become 70-392.
A F-4D I was crew chief on in PACAF had tail number of 68-711. The serial number was actually 66-8711.
In case of duplicate numbers, such as 67-308 and 67-1308 the tail numbers would show 67-308 and 67-1308 in the US and USAFE. In PACAF it would be 70-308 and 71-308.
[#ditto] - Thanks for the input, Berny. I appreciate that. I couldn’t figure out why the plane would have a tail number taht is different from the serial number.
A further question … if, just for example, 70-392 was reassigned from PACAF to the US or a European unit, would it’s tail number stay 70-392 or change to 67-392? I guess my question is once a tail number is assigned whether it will stay that way for the entire life of the plane.
Thanks again for the help from everyone. I appreciate it.
The only thing that can not change is the serial number. If 70-392 was re assigned to another command, the tail number would change to 67-392.
With aircraft now being deployed all over the world, the USAF made commands standerize their tail numbers. Now all commands use the two digit year and last three of the serial number for the tail number. The only exception is each base and squadron can have their own unit aircraft. An example is here at Tyndall AFB, where there is an aircraft with tail number 325 FW painted on the tail. Below in smaller numbers is the actual serial number.
That’s good information to file away in the “Good Things To Remember” section of my brain [:)] As standardized as the military likes to be, I was sure there had to be some logic in there, just wasn’t sure what it was. Thanks again for the help.
I am glad I was able to muddy the waters. The way the military does things can be confusing.
When I built a model of 711, the judges scored me on having a serial number not on record. I was told by a judge that no F-4D was built in 1968, as all F-4D production ended in 1966. I did not have a photo to back up my claim so I just took the hit and took my toys and went home.[censored][censored]
Well, as they say, there is the military way and the right way [:D] But, any way you look at it the military has always been pretty good at the logistics of keeping track of enormous amounts of personnel and equipment. When they do something a particular way there is usually a reason for it.
What a crock. If they are going to deliver hits like that then they need to make sure their facts are straight. But what’s the point in arguing if you have nothing to back your arguments up.
Sounds like something we IPMSers get blamed for. I don’t know of a competition any more where the judges get so anal. I know that won’t get you docked at the Nats this year or any of our shows here in UT.
The only sure fire way to get the proper serial number in its entireity is from the stenciled data plate painted just under the windscreen. On many models, that’s the only stencil you can read off the decal sheet. As said before, it will begine with the last two digits of the year it was made. Tail codes often abreviated this ( or, in the case of the Navy, use an entirely differnent system). That year is not the year the airplane was built, but the year the contract to build it was approved. During WW II, when many thousands of planes were built in a very short time, it was easy to fugure out which decade the a/c was biult, so that started a trend toward putting only the last digit of the year on the tail code so there would be some many numbers on the tail.
This all got confused when we got to the fifties, so the Air Force began the practice of place -0 after tail codes on all a/c that were over ten years old. Don’t know when this practice ended, but it was still being done, I think, in the late 80s. And, do NASA’s famous Balls Eight and the recently retired Balls Three B-52 A and B still carry the -0. Just curious.
Now, I’ve REALLY muddied the waters. But the question of tail numbers was muddied by military beaurocrats long before we modelers started trying to decipher them.
When I was stationed at Hill AFB, and TDY to Clark AB, PI, with the F-4 RAM (Rapid Area Maintenance) support team, I was sent to Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam. My team was sent to “evaluate, repair or dispose” of three damaged F-4’s. One had taken a hit in the left wing blowing a large hole in it causing the main wing spar to crack. The crew flew it back home.
Two other aircraft had been hit diring a rocket attack on the base. One had the nose section blown off from the front cockpit forward. The other had the tail section damaged by fire.
I took the nose section from the aircraft with the damaged wing (their were no spare wings at the time in the Air Force), and repaired one. I used the aft section to repair the other.
So here you have two aircraft where the serial number data plate does not match the numbers on the tail. You have a third aircraft broken into un usable parts with no serial number or tail number.
The one time our wing did this they went with a percentage thing. What ever tail number had the greatest percentage of airframe parts in the rebuilt airframe got it’s number put on the tail. Thing never flew right after rebuilding and the pilots hated it. It always crabbed to the right, it wouldn’t fly straight. We ended up taking the yaw string off because the guys didn’t like seeing it that far off all the time.
The team that rebuilt it did not shim the sections. We did a field modification where we used what looked like rifle scopes and rods to align the sections. After the sections were put into place we would use a feeler gage to determine the thickness of shims we would need. If done properly the aircraft will fly true at all times.
We left each aircraft with the original serial number. We just repainted the correct serial number on the data plate on the one that got the new nose. The one with the aft section change we painted the correct tail number on it.
The third aircraft was written off as “Battle damage beyond repair” and all parts were sent to the base bone yard. A crew did go in about a year later and salvage the center section and send it to Hill AFB where it was used to repair another aircraft that had extensive fire damage to the engine bays.
Well, as if we didn’t beat this poor horse to death many times over, I was always confused about aircraft used in the interceptor role and those in air-to-ground. Up until at least the early-mid 90s, interceptor units used tail numbers as we see the in WW II. But if you went over to an attack unit, the number would be in the form of that code begun during Vietnam in which the two “year numbers” from the contract date would be small, with the leffter AF on top of them, followed by three large numbers showing the last three digits of the S/N. In interceptor units, you simply got most of the serial number with the digits painted in the same size. Since I don’t have an illustration, I know this is just confusing younger modelers who haven’t noticed this in photos. The first Phantom I flew in came from an ANG interceptor unit, tail no 30002. It was an early C model built in 1963. (Any photo of an F-102 or F-106 will also illustrate this.) Later, I was in a D model in an F-4 unit whose mission was ground attack. The serial number begain with the AF with a small 64 painted underneath, followed by 367 in larger type. This did not change until the F-15 and F-16 equipped most of the Air Force. Fortunately, we can get the interceptor type numbers from Bare Metal (or Modelers Choice, I think it’s now called) sheets, since they do a lot of ANG subjects. And there are other sheets with the small/large combination tail numbers. I sure wish the old Detail & Scale line of decal sheets was still in print. They were excellent, offering all kinds of tail code letters and numbers, as well as sheets of formation lights in various scales, among other things.
I look at it as one model builder helping another. I have said it before and I will say it again. This forum is full of members that go out of their way to help other members. I say thanks to all of you.[bow][bow][bow][bow]
And one last comment: On that -0 that appears on some tail codes, which I mentioned earlier – I’ve noticed several references that should know better describe the suffix to the tail number as standing for “Obsolete.” Absolutely not true. It stands for “at least 10 years old.” Funny, though, it never appeared on the B-52 as far as I know, except at NASA.
hey berny13;
you forgot to add that the tail #'s are not really serial #'s they are contract production #'s, because if they where serial #'s the F/A-22 #1 would accually be #9 because of the prototypes Lockheed-Martin made before the production was autherized from the AF also if we look at the F-16’s they made 4 FSD before the line was put into full production, also after about 1972 the tail #'s went into a standardization if the numbers had a 0 or O in front of it it meant the equipment was considered to be obsolesent or obsolete, now the tail code don’t show the status of the equipment, and now most numbers are the year of contract (78-), then the sequence number (605) if there was a number that has 4 numbers0(1605) the tail code will only show 3 ( just 605), I’ve seen this plenty of times when working F-16’s when I was at Hahn AB GE we had 2 325’s one 79-325 and a 86-1325 but the tails showed 325’s only, the thing that differed was the year code, now this will really make a person really screwed up but just rember most of the time the years will dictate how high the numbers are