Originally Posted by Herc130AV8R

OK here's how it works (in the Air Force airlift world at least).The call sign used for the airplane with ATC has nothing to do with your "callsign" name that your budies give you (i.e. "Maverick" and "Goose"). In the Air Force we have specific call signs for specific missions. My squadron has the same call sign for all locally directed training missions with only the number prefix changing ("Raven XX"). If we get tasked to do a mission (non-training), the call sign is directed by higher headquarters. You don't get to just choose your callsign. Different types of A.F. aircraft could be operating with the same callsign with a different number suffix if they are both on a similar mission. For example, a C-5 carrying limo's for the president and a C-130 carrying some secret service personnel might have the callsigns of "Reach 123" and "Reach 987". The "Reach" prefix is a commonly used callsign for militrary airlift missions around the world. These various callsigns are all pre-approved and assigned to a given mission type regardless of aircraft type or unit. Hope that clears it up a bit.