Bort number colours

[IanHx]

Hi,

Is there any significance to the colour of a Bort number on Soviet aircraft ?

eg geographic area of operation.  Or is it purely down to which squadron a particular airframe belonged to ?

 

 

[Wez]

Good question, I've always wondered this myself.

 

Did it also vary according to role?

[squezzer]

I don't think it is related to the role. I am working on su-15 at the moment and it can bear bort numbers of different colors.

[Hook]

See here: 

 

Quote

The answer is simple. Its their system to hide the strengh of the air force. Since early 50th (1951 or 52) the soviets use only two digit tactical numbers. Each aircraft of one Regiment has one number. The first plane of the first squadron get No. 01, the second get 02 ... the 13th get 14 and the last get No 17. The first plane of the second squadron get No. 21 the last No 26. The third Squadron begins with No 31 and ended with No 46. (16 planes each squadron). You see there are never No 00 and No 13 in soviet system.
Normaly a Regiment has 3 or 4 Squadrons, sometimes have training regiments more Squadrons, so that very rarely can you see a 3 digit tactical number.
The colour of the number is nomaly red. If there are more than 1 regiment placed on an airbase, the first regiment has red numbers, the second get blue numbers, the third get yellow numbers etc. The reason is, that if all would had red numbers, then would be 2 or more planes with the same tactical number.

 

HTH,

 

Andre 

[Wez]

That's a good answer Andre and totally reasonable, makes sense to me.

[IanHx]

 

22 minutes ago, Hook said:

See here: 

 

 

HTH,

 

Andre 

Thanks Andre, that's exactly what I was after.

Edited February 4, 2017 by IanHx

[Aardvark]

12 hours ago, Hook said:

See here: 

You see there are never  No 13 in soviet system

HTH,

Andre 

O realy!?

 

Seven pages of this topic:

http://scalemodels.ru/modules/forum/viewtopic_t_26797.html

disprove this statement!

B.R.

Serge

[IanHx]

From "Tu-128 Fiddler" by Dawes/Burdin/Popov :  

"...consisted of two digits, the first of which was taken from the series number and the second from the number of the aircraft in the series. For example, if the factory construction number (c/ n) was 1307, then the Bort number would be 37"

There were exceptions made where the Bort number would be 13 (considered unlucky) -  some regiments would use 13, others would do something else   eg cn2103 was given bort 21 instead of 13.

 

This makes more sense as a numbering system, as otherwise how do you get Bort numbers like 94 ?  [ would have to be 6 squadrons according to Andre's rules.... sounds a lot to me...]