Identify The Owner of An Airplane
Amazingly, it is extremely easy to identify the owner of an airplane. In fact, it is easier to identify the owner of an airplane than it is to identify the owner of a car, house or a business. Most all airplanes (everyone in the USA) has an identification number. These are commonly called the tail number or N Number. This airplane identification number is found on multiple areas on an airplane. Most noticeably, the airplane identification number is found on the tail of the airplane. Another area where the airplane identification number is found is on the door frame. If fact, next time you fly a commercial airline, such as Southwest Airlines, as you enter the aircraft, take a look at the frame of the door when you enter. Southwest Airlines has a huge fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft. You will see a little metal tag or imprint in the metal frame that provide the exact series of Boeing 737 you are a passenger in as well as the N Number of the Boeing aircraft. Pretty interesting, huh? 
Knowing the N Number of an airplane allows you to learn everything there is about that particular airplane. You can quickly find the exact make and model of the airplane. You can find out the serial number of the airplane, the type of engines on the airplane, how well the airplane has been serviced or maintenanced, and you can discover who the current owner is and where he lives. Additionally, you can discover who the previous owners were in the past and most importantly, you can discover if the aircraft was ever crashed or involved in a minor accident. If the airplane was involved in a crash, you can view a detailed report about the incident.
What is even more amazing… you can get all this information for free! Unlike CarFax.com, you can attain an extreme amount of detailed information about any and all airplanes within the USA and most countries.
The Federal Aviation Administration provides all this information free of charge. Visit www.FAA.org and see for yourself. Or better yet, lets take a look at an example below:
In 1988, when I was 11 years old, my father owned an aircraft sales business and operated out of a small airport named, Outlaw Field. I was given flight lessons by one of his hired pilots during downtime. Even though my hours couldn’t be officially logged because of my age, I managed to log in over 15 hours of flight time. My dad purchased a pilot log book for me and even signed, dated it and wished me luck with flying. I remember the airplane that I trained in like it was yesterday. It was a 1975 Cessna 150. From that point on and until the day I die, I will never forget the tail number on that airplane: N6177K. So anyway, one day if the airplane is still airworthy and if the current owner wants to sell it, I want to buy it. My dad died four years ago and it would mean a lot to me to own it. Still to this day I have the Pilot Logbook my dad gave to me. It is in mint condition and it would be great if I could one day continue my flight training in the same airplane that my dad owned almost 20 years ago.
Having shared that little cheesy and sappy story… check out the FAA’s N-Number Inquiry section. You can follow THIS LINK to view the file on the 1975 Cessna 150 that I used to fly when I was 11 years old.
Here are some pictures for reference:
This is a 1976 Cessna 150. This isn’t the plane I flew back in 1988… this one looks much nicer!
Here is a picture of my pilot logbook that was given to me from my dad in Oct. 1988.
Tags: N # Search
Filed under: The Blurbs
3 Responses to “Identify The Owner of An Airplane”
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K-IntheHouse Says:
July 18th, 2007 at 11:34 amGarry! Good luck with this cool new blog!
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admin Says:
July 18th, 2007 at 11:37 amThank a lot man… I am glad that you stopped by. Take a moment to subscribe to the feed so you can keep up with the things I write here. Not sure how much you are into airplanes, but I will be writing some pretty interesting and crazy things related to them.
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Dan Says:
August 6th, 2007 at 1:58 pmI put together a little site that makes it easy to access N-number information along with browse manufacturers, models and dealers from the FAA data: http://aircraft.thebestwebstuff.com
