I was once on a tower visit to the Class D tower at INT and the local controller was showing us how the radar feed from GSO worked. He mentioned that they have certain codes reserved for special flights that he wasn't able to mention. Any idea who would be special enough to have a reserved code?
Entering transponder codes?
- Thread starter necoflyer
- Start date
aviatoralex
Smartass
People who pay for it.
Politicians or some really rich-high security-jet owning-special person.
Those that have the reserved code.
It's actually easier to not write anything down. I stopped flying with a kneeboard a while ago, pain in the ass. It allways gets in the way, crumples my khakis, makes me look like a wus, gets in the way of the coffee cup holder, can't have that.
Besides looking down means your not flying.
Besides looking down means your not flying.
When you have nothing to do but cruise straight and level, yes. Some of us carry info we need, and gain much more info inflight, that a kneeboard is a must.....that and the canopy.
genot
Well-Known Member
Sigh, tower controllers... Kidding. I can think of a few locally assigned permanent "special" codes. We have a fleet of medevac helos with assigned codes, jump planes, glider towers and even military aircraft being built at fields where the test pilots have personal codes assigned to them.
Screaming_Emu
Well-Known Member
And chuck norris
Guy
Well-Known Member
I got involved in just that very discussion the other day and the only source reference I could find was from the King videos. I seem to also remember reading it many years ago in an aviation magazine. I'd love to hear more about the origin of that often mentioned aviation item.
0000 is the old wives tail. There are interesting ones such as 7777 being for active air defense fighters not working with ATC, or the 4400-series for certain specified aircraft ops above FL600, or 1277 for SAR aircraft, or 1255 for firefighting aircraft not working with ATC, or 1276 for DVFR aircraft crossing an ADIZ and unable to establish comms with ATC.
There are other oddities, such as fighters escorting hijacked aircraft. When scrambled for such missions, the first ATC facility...normally local/tower......must advise the fighters the nature of the launch (which they'd already have some info for possibly) and the local controller will direct the interceptor aircraft to perform an armament safety check, prior to launch. ATC will also generate and file the flightplan for these aircraft.
There are other oddities, such as fighters escorting hijacked aircraft. When scrambled for such missions, the first ATC facility...normally local/tower......must advise the fighters the nature of the launch (which they'd already have some info for possibly) and the local controller will direct the interceptor aircraft to perform an armament safety check, prior to launch. ATC will also generate and file the flightplan for these aircraft.
queeno
Ward of the Guberment
i dont think that was what he was talking about, you know what i mean ?? as for 00XX codes were or are used for air defense missions or at least they were when i was at DMA when the F106s were on hot alert protecting our southern border from the mexican airforce T33s
ATC RET 2003
No More Vectors
The only beacon code that we were specifically told not to mention was 7500. (Damn!... I did it AGAIN!) They continued to tell us not to mention it even though there was a movie out about a helicopter being hijacked to use for breaking someone out of prison. In the movie, they showed the helicopter pilot dialing in the unmentionable digits. I don't recall if the pilot changed the transponder to standby first or not. 
Guy
Well-Known Member
Any idea of the origin? Everything comes from somewhere but finding that point is the trick.
R
Roger, Roger
Guest
Chuck Norris can squawk 8888.
Autothrust Blue
”…trusting ze process…”
Mike H
Well-Known Member
writing it down is for sissies
One time my student was assigned 4501, I cannot exactly remember the last number but our transponder 1st digit was broken and the 4 represented a 7. This was an older analog unit. I did not catch the fact that my student entered the wrong last digit as a 0 or maybe forgot to set it at all. Talk about a chain of events to culminate in squaking 7500! I had no idea why the controller thought I was squaking 7500 but when I changed the suspicious 4 to something else he said the 7 changed to a 3 and this convinced him we were not really being hijacked after some additional explaining. We were in a 152 after all.
Bandit_Driver
Gold Member
Just to throw this out there. If you put the xpndr in stby while changing code you also just shut your TCAS off.
BlueMoon
Well-Known Member
That's what the printer is for.