Country-specific Usage
When painted on the fuselage, the prefix and suffix are separated by a dash (for example, YR-BMA), but when entered in a flight plan, the dash is omitted (for example, YRBMA). It is normal for countries that use a number suffix rather than letters. For example, in the United States (N), Korea (HL), and Japan (JA), the prefix and suffix are painted without a dash. Aircraft flying privately usually use their registration as their radio callsign, but many aircraft flying in commercial operations (especially charter, cargo, and airlines) use the ICAO airline designator or a company callsign. In some instances, it may be sufficient to simply display the suffix letters, with the country prefix omitted. For example, gliders registered in Australia would omit the VH prefix and simply display the suffix. Obviously, this is only suitable where the aircraft does not fly in the airspace of another country.
Even if the suffix consists solely of alphabetical characters in a certain country, gliders and ultralights may sometimes use digits instead. For example, in Germany, D-ABCD can be a powered airplane while D-1234 is a glider. In Australia, early glider registration suffixes began with the letters "G-AU", and it is not uncommon to find such gliders only displaying the last two letters of the suffix, as they lacked the range to travel internationally. For example, VH-GIQ would simply be displayed as IQ.
Different countries have different registration schemes: Canadian registrations start with C, British with G, German with D, and so forth. A comprehensive list is tabulated below.
Read more about this topic: Aircraft Registration
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