WT Forums

Here's a question for those at Moody. Will they adopt the MY tailcode again or keep FT? I always thought FT was for Fayetteville, not 'Flying Tigers'. The 23rd used EL at England so it isn't an historical thing.

I know the Moody Hercs have adopted FT codes, I just thought it odd they changed bases but kept the code from Pope.

Would be interested in your views or info.

Regards,

Kev

Kevin, I believe they will stay with the FT tail code and I also think the FT stands for Flying Tigers not Fayetteville. Normally an aircrafts tail code comes from the base it’s stationed at and not the city the base is located in, IE EL (England), MY (moody), SW (Shaw), so on and so on. Of course there are exception like Eielson had the AK for Alaska and Battle Creek carried the BC tail code. That’s why the Hercks went to the FT tail code because Moody is now home to the 23rd Fighter Group, Flying Tigers.

Thanks Dice, does make sense to keep FT but that leads me to the question of why they didn't adopt 'PP' or 'PE' for Pope AFB after they transferred from England?

Kevin, because Pope was/is an AMC (not ACC) base and the A-10s at Pope didn’t fall under the host AMC unit there but fell under the 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson, an ACC base. Well the A-10s weren’t based at SJ but flying out of Pope, made sense to use the FT (Flying Tigers) tail code instead of the host’s (AMC) base city as a tail code. Of course there's the historical reasons also....

Dice, correct me if I'm wrong but there was a thread here at one time that discussed the FT tail code on the Pope jets. It seems that it stated that when they where starting up the unit there they discussed the tail code and they decided to go with the FT for two reasons one being that it could stand for Fayetteville and two that it would stand for the Flying Tigers.

Another interesting fact is that while stationed at Pope, the A-10's operated under 4 different Wings. Initially they belonged to the 23rd Wing at Pope while the Base was under ACC control. It was during this time that we got or first look at those butt-ugly C-130’s and F-16's with Sharks Teeth. Then in 97 the unit converted to a Group under the command of the 347th FW (Moody), transferred to the 4th FW Seymour in 2000 and then back to Moody as the 23rd Wing in 2006. Wow, with all these changes, it's no wonder the A-10 community has felt like the Illegitimate Red-headed Step Child of the Air Force.

You are corrcet Hitler I just didn't want to get that deep in the weeds with my answer. It all boils down to the FT were a tenant unit on a MAC/AMC base and that’s why they didn’t use the PE,PO, or other such code for their tails.

The FT on the Pope jets was for Fayetteville and Flying Tigers. Publicly, it was Fayetteville since that's the way most tail codes are designated (SJ, MY, EL, MB, WR, SP, OS, AK, etc).

But we all knew it was really Flying Tigers.

AMC had nothing at all to do with it when the decision was made at TAC headquarters in 1991-92. In fact, AMC didn't even exist! We started out as a tenant and ended as one on Pope.

I predict it will stay FT.

Coach