RAN & RAAF Serial Numbers

[elmayerle]

Looking to do some RAN Sea Harriers and some RAAF Harriers, can someone point me to an online source to get the serial numbers reasonably close?  I might throw a RNZAF Harrier in there, too.

[Maverick]

Evan,

www.adf-serials.com should help out, remembering that RAN aircraft are prefixed with an N##-##### serial whilst RAAF types are A##-###.  In both cases the two numbers after the letter specifically denote the aircraf type, whilst those after the dash are the individual serial itself with RAN aircraft routinely having the original US serial as part of their code.

RNZAF ships are NZ#### but I'm unaware of any site that specifically deals with serials for them as such.

Regards,

Mav

[jcf]

NZ serials are available through the site John linked:
http://nz-serials.adf-serials.com/

Jon

[elmayerle]

Okay, looking through the sites mentioned here, does anyone see any problems with RAN Sea Harriers having N21-XXX serials and NZ Harriers or Sea Harriers having NZ63XX serials?  Both would seem to fit without too much inconvenience.  I've got some A-4G decals that'll give me a good start, here.

[unlikeKansas]

Okay, looking through the sites mentioned here, does anyone see any problems with RAN Sea Harriers having N21-XXX serials and NZ Harriers or Sea Harriers having NZ63XX serials?  Both would seem to fit without too much inconvenience.  I've got some A-4G decals that'll give me a good start, here.

Probably a bit more complex than just grabbing the next available N number for RAN airframes.

As it says on the ADF serials site N21 was not allocated due to the issuing of A21 to the RAAF's Hornets. As far as I know the same numbers were not issued to avoid confusion in the ordering systems. So you would not get A21 and N21.

Given that the first Hornet (A21-1) was ordered in November 1981 and the Sea Harriers were being mooted in early 1982 (i.e. before the Falklands conflict) then I would expect that they would have taken the next available number (i.e. 22) 22 was eventually used by the Aerospatiale AS350B Squirrel as N-22 for the RAN and A-22 for the RAAF. As the Squirrels weren't delivered until early 1984 I would think that 22 would have been available for RAN use on Sea Harriers in early 1982.

This would have then pushed The Squirrel to N or A -23 and caused further shuffling down the line for the Pilatus PC-9A, Sikorsky S-70B/SH-60 Seahawk, etc.

Of course given that it's your what if, you can give the Sea Harriers N21 if you want, or even an out of sequence number such as N31 which is used by neither RAAF nor RAN.

As for NZ birds, I haven't done much research, but NZ63XX serials were taken by the BAC Strikemaster. According to the NZ serials site, the 6 in the serial indicates a strike aircraft and the 3 indicates the third in the series. The XX then being sequential individual numbers from 01 to 99. I assume that NZ did not anticipate having more than 99 of any individual type on charge.

McDD A4's had NZ62XX serials, MACCHI MB-339's NZ64XX serials, so I suggest NZ65XX for the Harrier/Sea Harrier. Although the Macchi's weren't delivered to NZ until 1991, so depending on when you envisage NZ getting the Harrier/Sea Harrier NZ65XX may be correct.

As with the RAN scenario, your what if, so your call.