"Irish" callsign, with "Victor"

[Shamrock145]

Was loitering around Dublin today and heard "Irish 251 Victor" on approach and landing, left around 20 mins later as plain old "Irish 251".

I'm guessing that the Victor suffix is used to indicate a "VIP" on board .. can anyone confirm that? (not looking for who the VIP might have been)

Which leads to a couple of questions ...

1) Why bother with the 'Victor' bit ...

2) Does the Air Corps have to pay a landing fee for flights transiting EIDW? (and by extension do they have to pay ATC fees for opertation around the country)?

3) Who decides that a MATS flight will start/end in EIDW rather than EIME? Whats wrong with EIME as a start/end point?

...145

[Fouga]

Perhaps "Victor" was the ATIS Information for contacting EIDW?

[Shamrock145]

Hi Fouga

yeah, that had occured to me and initially I thought I'd misheard the callsign/RT but ATC also identified the flight as "Irish 251 V" and all through the apprach/landing/taxi in to the stand they were "251 V"... and as I'd said, on departure they were just plain old "Irish 251".

The reason I'd suspected the "VIP" aspect was the events in Berlin over the weekend for the EU's 50th. 251 itself was sitting in EIDW with it's engine covers on beside the SR Tech hangars from before mid day on Saturday.

...145

[Pink Panther]

"Victor" in the call sign = VIP.

[Irish251]

Here is a link to a discussion in the Dáil a few weeks ago about the use of Dublin as opposed to Baldonnel for certain MATS flights.

http://tinyurl.com/27c8zl

You may need to click on the "plus" signs on the left to expand text.

[Shamrock145]

Interesting stuff ... they could do with a more up to date picture of Bertie!

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DZoom.a....=Bertie

(A bit informal of the Orieachtas web site to refer to An Taoiseah as "Bertie" )

OK, so can anyone shed any light on why bother with the Victor suffix? So the USAF occasionaly suffix "Foxtrot" to a certain 747 when family members are on board ... again ... means nothing.

so, why bother?

...145

[Fouga]

Prob to get priority Airspace and ARR/DEP priority?

[Hyper Crispy]

Victor is used by certain State personalities. It is limited and restricted to only two offices. It affords little in the way of extra priority, but can smooth out certain issues.

[Guinness]

USAF uses "SAM" callsign for VIP's  as far as I know.

Guinness

[GoneToTheCanner]

Hi there
It is a commonly extended courtesy to route Victor flights)of all States)as near direct as possible, even if it means going off airways. The same also applies to State air ambulance or rescue flights, for obvious reasons. Also, the State does recieve a bill for ATC services but it is dealt with at State level; ie, the Dept of Finance will pay once a year and so on. States don't tend to charge each other for the passage and servicing of State aircraft.....The Dept of Foreign Affairs are the real controllers of the VIP aircraft and decide what their tasks will be.The Don does what it's told.
regards
GttC