Callsigns incorrect?

Traffic X does TAIL NUMBERS badly.  The "Tail Number" (aircraft registry number) is what you see when you use the FSX right-click menu to get up the Traffic list showing all the aircraft.  That list also shows the aircraft type as well.

A "tail number" is different from a "callsign".  A callsign is what controllers use to talk to an aircraft, such as "Delta", "Qantas", "KLM", "Speed Bird", etc.  So, ATC communicates with a plane using the callsign first, followed by the designated "tail number" or the flight number ... as in "Speed Bird 468" (where "Speed Bird" is the callsign, and "468" is the flight number).  Other examples might include "Beach Alpha Juliet Lima" ("Beach AJL"), where the Beach Baron aircraft does not belong to an airline and therefore there's no callsign to use.  But, the tail number (in this case "AJL") is used.

Note that in real-life some (all?) airlines not only use tail numbers, but there is also a sub-category which allows distinctions between each FLEET of aircraft. Often, but not always, the fleet number corresponds to the second, third, and fourth characters of the tail number. In other cases, the fleet number has little or no correlation to the tail number at all.  An example might be "N844AA" with the "AA" part indicating the aircraft belongs to the American Airlines fleet.

See here for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_registration

OK, that's the definition ... you're talking about the TAIL NUMBERS in Traffic X being strange/incorrect.

(Note that EditVoicepack deals with "callsigns", amongst other things, but it does not deal with "tail numbers".)

As I stated at the beginning of my post, Traffic X does TAIL NUMBERS badly.  Traffic X does get most (the majority) of the CALLSIGNS right for the relevant airlines.  But it doesn't do tail numbers very well at all.

I am not really an expert in what designations I should be seeing on tails at overseas airports ... But it does seem that the tail designations in Traffic X are correct ... as in planes in North America use the "Nxxxx" designation, planes in Australia use the "VH-xxx" designation, planes in the United Kingdom use the "G-xxxx" designation etc.  Traffic X does seem to follow these correctly.  But, like I said, I am no expert on what I should be seeing at each airport in each country for each and every airline.

Where Traffic X lets you down is in the randomisation of the NUMBERS and LETTERS.  Traffic X simply does not handle the randomisation of the numbers and letters very well at all.  So you might end up with the same, repeated, "G-96321" designation appearing on nearly ALL the aircraft at a British airport.  The 96321 number being repeated on aircraft after aircraft.  Or the same, repeated, "Beach AJL" designation appearing on all the general aviation Beach Baron aircraft.  Traffic X fails miserably in this area.  It's randomisation is pathetic. Traffic X excels in many areas, but the randomisation of tail numbers is not one of them.

The Traffic X Service Pack 1 apparently improved the randomisation of aircraft tail numbers.  But, to be honest, I saw no improvement at all after applying the Service Pack.

FSX ATC, thankfully, conforms to the correct way of talking to the aircraft.  So, even though the tail numbers applied by Traffic X are not very random, ATC does talk to airliner aircraft as "Speed Bird 468" ... so, for airliners, you don't need to concern yourself with the non-random tail number.  You never really hear it used.  And even if the designations are incorrect, maybe "G-xxxx" incorrectly being used for a North American airline, it isn't such a big deal because you don't hear it from ATC.  So, for airliners, errors are only really noticable on the right-click Traffic list menu in FSX.  Unfortunately, the same "ignorance is bliss" scenario is not true for the general aviation planes.  When FSX ATC talks to those, you will hear "Beach Alpha Juliet Lima" (ATC correctly calls the GA aircraft using the tail number).  But, because the tail numbers for GA aircraft are not very random with Traffic X, you might hear "Beach Alpha Juliet Lima", "Beach Alpha Juliet Lima", "Beach Alpha Juliet Lima" over and over from the FSX ATC even though ATC is talking to DIFFERENT GA planes in your skies.  If the general aviation plane has a flight number (maybe it is flying IFR) then that is good though, because you will hear "Beach 169" (169 being the flight number) and the randomness of the flight numbers does seem to be OK with Traffic X (maybe that is what they were talking about with the Service Pack).

And now following Chuck's post, as if to further complicate things ...

I am sure I speak for Chuck as well when I say, "Glad to have helped".