Incorrect tail number?

Shouldn’t the tail number on the attached photo be 46702 (94-6702), not 06702? If I’m not mistaken, the tail number on USAF airlift and tanker aircraft is the last digit of the year followed by the last 4 numbers. Looks like it just came out of depot because none of the unit markings have been applied yet so maybe depot painted the wrong number? It belongs to 182nd AW/169th AS at Peoria, IL based on recent flights.

A zero as the first number use to indicate a plane 10 years old or more (some references say it means obsolete). Maybe they went back to that.

No, that (the 0 indicating obsolete or anything) is not true (never even heard that in my 30+ years of doing this) or what happened for this incident. TO 1-1-8 says tail number will be last digit of the year or contract year and 4-digit serial number. In this case, it was a error/screw up by the facility that repainted the aircraft. It will be corrected to reflect the correct tail number, 46702.

That’s what I figured. Thanks for the input!

[quote="mekong68"]No, that (the 0 indicating obsolete or anything) is not true (never even heard that in my 30+ years of doing this) or what happened for this incident. TO 1-1-8 says tail number will be last digit of the year or contract year and 4-digit serial number. In this case, it was a error/screw up by the facility that repainted the aircraft. It will be corrected to reflect the correct tail number, 46702.[/quote

Using a "0" before an aircrafts serial number to indicate an aircraft was over 10 years old was standard procedure back in the 1950's and It ended around the time they stopped using "buzz numbers". See picture below of Nebraska ANG F-86D fighter below. The buzz number was a 2 letter code followed by the last 3 digits of the serial number.