What is an XX30?

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Martymccasland

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M.McCasland
Was doing some instrument currency this morning and heard (along with my safety pilot) ATC say, "XX30 (Callsign) climb and maintain 123...", "XX30 (Callsign) turn right 123", etc..

Neither I or my friend have ever heard of an "XX30". 'Googled 5-6 different ways and only found trans-oceanic reporting lingo as the closest thing to a plane called an XX30. Since we were flying in Little Rock, AR, I doubt it was any sort of trans-oceanic discussion.

Even went to my kneepad and double checked since I wrote it down upon hearing it. Yep, "XX30" is definitely what they were saying.

Any clue?
 
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I don't think ATC would call them by type like that. If ATC were going to do that they would say "Swearingen" followed by the N number. Usually when speaking to an Experimental (like a Swearingen) they just say "Experimental 1234". When talking to a Cessna 172 ATC doesn't say "C172 climb and maintain 3000".
 
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Art VanDelay said:
I don't think ATC would call them by type like that. If ATC were going to do that they would say "Swearingen" followed by the N number. Usually when speaking to an Experimental (like a Swearingen) they just say "Experimental 1234". When talking to a Cessna 172 ATC doesn't say "C172 climb and maintain 3000".
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I can only tell you what I heard -- and wrote down on my kneepad...

There was no "experimental" or "Swearingen" in the call sign -- it was just "XX30". If there had been, it wouldn't have stuck out as so strange to me and my safety pilot, having me writing it down due to being so out of the ordinary, etc...
 
Art VanDelay said:
I don't think ATC would call them by type like that. If ATC were going to do that they would say "Swearingen" followed by the N number. Usually when speaking to an Experimental (like a Swearingen) they just say "Experimental 1234". When talking to a Cessna 172 ATC doesn't say "C172 climb and maintain 3000".
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I hear, "Skyhawk" and "Skylane" all the time. They used to call me Travelair, now Twin Cessna.:dunno: my bet is he was talking to a Swearingen SX-300
 
Henning said:
I hear, "Skyhawk" and "Skylane" all the time. They used to call me Travelair, now Twin Cessna.:dunno: my bet is he was talking to a Swearingen SX-300
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I'm 99% you're right - there's a huge EAA community around here. As someone pointed out, ATC was probably saying "SX30 N1234..." and I was hearing "XX30 N1234...".

When I couldn't find "XX30" in Google search, I started thinking if I was hearing some of those "special" call-signs -- like "ghost" near the border, etc.
 
If they were saying "thirty" and not "three zero" it was probably an airline flight.

You sure you weren't hearing FedEx 30 or something like that? Where were you flying, and what ATC facility were you talking to?
 
Could it be Exec, as in Executive Jet fractional?
 
airguy said:
Could it be Exec, as in Executive Jet fractional?
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Unlikely -- I don't think I've ever seen a 2-digit tail number (e.g., N30QS) on a NetJets flight (Executive Jet became NetJets many years ago but still uses the "ExecJet" call sign). All their planes have NxxxQS registration numbers (refers to "QuarterShares," which was a racing quarterhorse syndication venture which gave one of the folks involved the idea of fractional jet ownership), and use "Exec Jet xxx" (the three digits in the N-number) as their call sign. If there are any 2-digit QS aircraft around, I haven't seen them yet.
 
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Ron Levy said:
Unlikely -- I don't think I've ever seen a 2-digit tail number (e.g., N30QS) on a NetJets flight (Executive Jet became NetJets many years ago but still uses the "ExecJet" call sign). All their planes have NxxxQS registration numbers (refers to "QuarterShares," which was a racing quarterhorse syndication venture which gave one of the folks involved the idea of fractional jet ownership), and use "Exec Jet xxx" (the three digits in the N-number) as their call sign. If there are any 2-digit QS aircraft around, I haven't seen them yet.
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Yep, I looked for both FDX30 and EJA30 on flightaware. No joy.

There's gotta be another "_______ Express" that has the *Ex call sign.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
If they were saying "thirty" and not "three zero" it was probably an airline flight.

You sure you weren't hearing FedEx 30 or something like that? Where were you flying, and what ATC facility were you talking to?
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Definitely wasn't an airline or Fedex flight as I never heard an airline or Fedex ATC call followed by an N-number. It's always "Fedex 2334 climb and maintain.." not "Fedex 2334 N1234 climb and maintain...."

These calls were:
"ex ex 30 N1234 climb and maintain...."

As Henning said, it was likely a Swearingen SX-300 and I was hearing "ex ex" when they were saying "es ex" -- i.e. SX30 N1234 vs XX30. I'm 99% sure he was right; there's a very large EAA community around here (Little Rock, AR).
 
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Martymccasland said:
Definitely wasn't an airline or Fedex flight as I never heard an airline or Fedex ATC call followed by an N-number. It's always "Fedex 2334 climb and maintain.." not "Fedex 2334 N1234 climb and maintain...."

These calls were:
"ex ex 30 N1234 climb and maintain...."

As Henning said, it was likely a Swearingen SX-300 and I was hearing "ex ex" when they were saying "es ex" -- i.e. SX30 N1234 vs XX30. I'm 99% sure he was right; there's a very large EAA community around here (Little Rock, AR).
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Ah OK, I missed the part where there was an N number after it. Maybe you should have remembered the tail number instead, that'd solve the mystery pretty quickly. ;)
 
You might be able to get it from LiveATC if you remember when and where it was. After all these posts, I think you should :D
 
Johann said:
You might be able to get it from LiveATC if you remember when and where it was. After all these posts, I think you should :D
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Little Rock doesn't have a LiveATC feed anymore. The guy shut it down a few years ago.

Mccasland: Were you with Adams APP/DEP or Adams TWR?
 
ARFlyer said:
Little Rock doesn't have a LiveATC feed anymore. The guy shut it down a few years ago.

Mccasland: Were you with Adams APP/DEP or Adams TWR?
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Mispost / See next msg.
 
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The conversation was on KLIT Approach, 135.40, around 1400-1700Z.

I downloaded a few of the KLIT Tower MP3 files, thinking he might have been coming/going from Adams, but the entire tower files are all blank for hours at a time (when I know the airport was busy). Thinking I was just catching blank portions, I loaded them in Adobe Audition and looked at the waveform -- there's nothing recorded on the files... That LiveATC site must have something wrong with it, something unplugged, muted, etc...
 
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Martymccasland said:
KLIT Approach, 135.40, around 1200-1700Z

I downloaded a few of the KLIT Tower MP3 files from ATC archives and they are all blank. Thinking I was just catching blank portions, I loaded them in Adobe Audition and looked at the waveform -- there's nothing recorded on the files... That LiveATC site must have something wrong with it, something unplugged, muted, etc...
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The KLIT feed is permanently down. If you try to search for the site; it pulls up a not found response. The archive files are still there because the site did exist. However, the website has a bug that it creates new "archive" files for no longer active sites.
 
ARFlyer said:
The KLIT feed is permanently down. If you try to search for the site; it pulls up a not found response. The archive files are still there because the site did exist. However, the website has a bug that it creates new "archive" files for no longer active sites.
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Does Dave know about that? I bet he'd like the hard disk space back.

Just poking here, UPS flies into KLIT. Any chance the controllers have decided to call them "5X" their ICAO identifier instead of "UPS" for some reason?

I doubt it but tossing it out there.
 
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