U.s. army serial

Be sure to check a location's details or call that office to verify ID card issuing hours. Some offices allow or require you to make an appointment.

Be sure to bring the required identification documents to the ID Card office. If you are a military member, report lost or stolen cards to your base security officer or through your chain of command.

If you find a military ID card, return it to the nearest ID card office. A VIC is a veteran photo ID card that you can use to get veterans discounts, which many restaurants and businesses offer. To be eligible, you must have received an honorable or general discharge under honorable conditions. In , the minimum number of digits in the sequence number was raised to four, so that the aircraft series started at This was done strictly for administrative purposes, even though these aircraft were never intended for USAAF service.

In most cases, they operated under their foreign designations and serials. For example, the Spitfires acquired in the UK under "Reverse Lend-Lease" were operated under their British designations and their British serial numbers. Rebuilt Aircraft Occasionally, USAF aircraft are extensively remanufactured to bring them up to modern standards or to fulfill completely new roles for which they were not originally designed.

In many cases, these aircraft are re-serialed with new numbers relevant to their year of re-manufacture. However, this rule is not always followed--re the rather grotesque modifications inflicted on some C aircraft which did not result in new serial numbers. If the transfer is anticipated to be permanent, it is usually the case that the transferred aircraft are given USAF serial numbers.

Most often, the USAF serials of these transferred Navy aircraft are inserted within the regular sequence of numbers, but sometimes these new USAF serials are constructed by retroactively adding additional numbers at the end of the sequence number block for the fiscal year in which they were originally ordered by the Navy. Unfortunately, the system is not always consistent. Furthermore, an aircraft is sometimes listed in a given FY block when it was actually ordered in a different FY.

This is most often done for reasons of special convenience. For example, the serials of the two "Air Force One" VCs and might indicate that they were ordered ten years apart, whereas the actual difference was only seven years. The Presidential VCs were ordered in FY under the serials and , but these numbers were changed to and by special order to create a series following the two earlier VCCs.

When some civilian aircraft have been acquired by the USAF, either by purchase or by seizure, serial numbers have sometimes been assigned out of sequence, with their numbers deliberately chosen to match their former civilian registration numbers. Other times, serial number allocation is done for reasons of secrecy, to conceal the existence of classified aircraft from prying eyes. For example, the serial numbers of the Fs were initially assigned in strict numerical order, but they were sprinkled among several different fiscal years.

In other cases, the serial numbers e. Another odd example was the A-1 Skyraiders acquired from the Navy for use in Vietnam--they had USAF serial numbers constructed by taking the plane's Navy serial number Bureau Number and prefixing in front of it the fiscal year number in which the plane was ordered by the Navy.

Missiles and Drones During the s and s, it was common practice to include missiles and unmanned aircraft in USAF serial number batches. Consequently, it is not always possible to determine the total number of aircraft ordered by the USAF simply by looking at serial number ranges. In addition, if an Army aircraft of helicopter had a serial number with less than 4 digits, extra zeros were added to pad the number out to 5 digits.

In FY , the Army went over to a new serial series for their helicopters, which started at and had continued consecutively since then. The Display of Serial Numbers on Aircraft By , when the Army first began to acquire tractor-engined aircraft, the official serial number began to be painted in large block figures on both sides of the fuselage or on the rudder.

These numbers were so large that they could be easily seen and recognized from a considerable distance. At the time of American entry into the First World War, the large numbers were retained on the fuselage and sometimes added to the top of the white rudder stripe. By early , the letters "S. However, these prefix letters were not part of the official serial number, and were finally dropped in By late , the fuselage serial numbers began to get smaller in size, until they standardized on four-inch figures on each side of the fuselage.

In , the words "U. Army" were often added to the fuselage number, and in the manufacturer's name and the Army designation were also added to the display, but this was not always done. The three-line fuselage data block was reduced in size to one-inch characters in and placed on the left hand side of the fuselage near the cockpit.

The data block not only displayed the full serial number, but also the exact model type and sometimes the aircraft's home base or the branch of the military with which it served.

The TDB eventually became the only place on the aircraft where the serial number was actually displayed. It was often true that the only other sort of identification shown was a unit and base identification code displayed on both sides of the fuselage or on the fin.

This made it difficult to identify the actual serial number of the aircraft, leading to a lot of confusion. O states that the Technical Data Block can be either on the fuselage side or near the ground refuelling receptacle. For a few years during the late s and early s, the serial number displayed in the Technical Data Block often carried a suffix letter, which was not actually part of the official serial number. For a while the letter M was used for USAF aircraft associated with American embassies in foreign countries, but this use was discontinued in August The lack of a readily-visible serial number on Army aircraft began to be a serious problem, and on October 28, , shortly after the USAAF had been formed, an order was given that numbers of no less that 4 digits would be painted on the tail fin of all Army aircraft where feasible in a size large enough to be seen from at least yards away.

This was officially called the radio call number, but was almost universally known as the tail number. Since military aircraft were at that time not expected to last more than ten years, the first digit of the fiscal year number was omitted in the tail number as was the AC prefix and the hyphen.

New sets of numbers were used, mostly for those drafted during WW II. Other changes would come about over the next few years but by July 1, , service numbers were declared discontinued. Instead, military personnel were identified by their social security number.

Another good source for additional information is this link on Army serial numbers. Look at the First Number or Letter. Some prefixes were used in World War I. There are occasions when blocks of serial numbers have been manufactured out of sequence, sometimes years later. Also, within a model family the same serial number prefix may be used to produce a variety of different models, all in the same block of serial numbers.

And in some cases, firearms may be stored for a length of time before they are shipped.