Just what is Anakin's call-sign in the Battle of Coruscant?

This thread idea came upon me in the ARC-170 topic.

Why does Anakin appear to be Red 5 in the novelization, when his vehicle ( from color and markings ) looks like it would be Gold or Yellow 3? ( Notice the striped markings typically indicating Flight number on his Jedi Interceptor wings. )

Did he change his transponder to go into the battle "undercover", to make his and Obi-Wan's infiltration into the Invisible Hand that much easier? If he always flew Red 5, maybe Grievous would specifically have all his droid fighters target that ship before they could reach him, so he decided to change it for this important mission...

 

Since all the Jedi have randomly colored ships, it could just be that Anakin's callsign was based on the color of the lead fighter-- Obi-Wan.

OOU of course it's a clumsy OT tie-in, which begs the question of who exactly Red 2-4 were. And why was Obi-Wan lead anyway? Anakin's a full knight, and a much more capable and experienced pilot.

 

Goose

 

The color yellow color is to honor the Naboo. I forgot where I read this. I think it was on the OS databank back when it was first released.

 

I thought the color yellow was a nod to Anakin's old podracer?

 

And here I just thought it was Anakin's favorite color. Although the Azure Angel was blue...

 

The blue ship in the clone wars was a tribute to his pod racer. The yellow and chrome was supposed to look like the Naboo fighter he flew, according to the box the toy came in.

 

The ROTS Visual Dictionary also mentions that he may have painted it yellow to draw attention to himself in battle.

 

Lovely. So we get those great "explanations" that we so often love for movie lore, and yet it has nothing on why he's Red 5 in a yellow ship.

 

The A-wings at Endor were Green Squadron in red ships.

 

Hmmmm. Very true, Tam.

I guess that the practice of making the markings match the transponder call-sign is not always practiced.

 

Wasn't Skywalker's Blue 2 and Blue 5 swapped between movie and novelisation?

 

Wedge's Blue 2 call sign and Luke's Blue 5 call sign were merely botched translations from the actual 'Red'

 

In Republic #50, we're introduced to Red Squadron, a Delta-7 squadron tasked with the defence of Kamino. Red Squad also appears in the Bail/Valorum issue as well (forgot the issue #), and later in LoE too. This squad is commanded by Obi-Wan Kenobi, so it's safe to assume this is the same squad used in RotS - although after LoE, Kenobi and Skywalker are all that's left of the squad.

The squad name doesn't have anything to do with the colour of the fighters, since a Blue Squadron also fought at Kamino, yet all Jedi starfighters in that battle were the customary red-and-white.

So yes, Anakin is Red Five in RotS - though not in LoE, since the unnamed Red Five is killed in combat over Tythe. It seems Anakin was flying as Red Two there, and for some reason took Five's place for the Battle of Coruscant.

 

also, the millenium falcon was 'Gold Leader' at Endor, but it didn't get painted in yellow hues.

'Red' is a squadron name, that may or may not have anything to do with a ship's paint job. It would be lame to have to repaint a ship everytime its pilot was reassigned to a new squadron that used a different color.