Aircraft serial number search

If you are trying to find Aircraft Engine Serial Number Lookup article fails to dwell right here, you can see from several of the articles that may suit your research. We are going to help you to get articles Aircraft Engine Serial Number Lookup you're looking at some of our content which might be suitable as you are looking for the material. Lookup aircraft by the Tail Number to search FAA data for more information about that aircraft, such as model, engine, seats, owner, and more.

Version 1. Use the Menu button and click on Prefs. Uncheck items you no longer want to see and they will not be displayed on your search. Android 2. Database updated monthly from FAA data. Since the Army later Air Force used the last four digits of the tail number as a radio call sign, for short serial numbers those less than , the tail number was expanded out to four digits by adding zeros in front of the sequence number.

For example, would have the tail number written as Consequently, in most situations for a World War II-era aircraft where the tail number is visible, you can deduce the serial number simply by putting a dash after the first digit, prefixing a 4, and you automatically have the serial number. Unfortunately, there were many deviations from these rules--there are examples in which only the last 4 or 5 digits were painted on the tail, which makes identification of the aircraft particularly difficult.

In the s, many airplanes left over from the World War II era were still in service, exceeding their expected service lives of less than 10 years. In order to avoid potential confusion with later aircraft given the same tail number, these older aircraft had the number zero and a dash added in front of the tail number to indicate that they were over 10 years old. It was hoped that this would avoid confusion caused by duplication of tail numbers between two aircraft built over ten years apart.

However, this was not always done, and it was not always possible uniquely to identify an aircraft by a knowledge of its tail number. This practice was eventually discontinued when people started referring to the number 0 as being a letter O, standing for Obsolete.

The requirement for the 0- prefix was officially dropped on April 24, Sometimes the tail number was cut down in length to five digits by deliberately omitting both of the fiscal year digits--for example would be presented on the tail as Sometime, one or more of the first digits of the sequence number would also be omitted.

This practice lead to a lot of confusion. Camouflage began to reappear on USAF aircraft during the Vietnam War, and this led to a change in tail number presentation. The letters "AF" were added directly above the last two digits of the fiscal year, followed by the last three digits of the sequence number. The three-digit sequence number has a height of the AF and fiscal year letters combined and is sometimes called the "large" component of the tail number.

For example, F-4E serial number had the tail number 67 small large. This could of course lead to confusion, since aircraft , , etc would have exactly the same tail numbers as under this scheme. This would not ordinary cause a whole lot of difficulty unless of course some of these larger serial numbers also happened to be F-4Es which they were not.

Unfortunately, the system was not always consistent--for example F-4D serial number had a tail number that looks like this: 60 small large. It appears as if this number was obtained by omitting the first digit of the fiscal, and combining the remaining "6" with the "".

Consequently, one often has to do a lot of educated guessing in order to derive the aircraft serial number from a knowledge of its tail number, and a knowledge of the aircraft type and sometimes even the version is required. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has noted different tail number presentations on recent USAF aircraft. However, Air Mobility Command and USAF Europe aircraft still display the previous format for the tail number, with all digits being the same size and the first digit being the last digit of the Fiscal Year and the remaining 4 digits being the last 4 digits of the sequence number.

There is no AF displayed, just the name of the command a couple of feet above it. AMC regulations state that the tail number must be the last five digits of the serial number. If the serial number does not have five significant characters at the end, the last digit of the fiscal year becomes the first character, and zeroes are used to fill up the space to make five digits. This would make appear as The Technical Order refers to radio call numbers on the fin, the full serial number only appearing within the Aircraft Data Legend block.

In those rare cases in which the Air Force purchased more than 10, aircraft in a single fiscal year was such a year , aircraft with serial numbers greater than 10, would have both digits of the fiscal year omitted--for example the tail number of is , not An exception was the tail number of ECH serial number , which had its tail number displayed as , i.

Again, I would like to hear from anyone who has seen different types of serial number displays on Air Mobility Command aircraft. This was intended to discourage the unsafe practice of pilots of high-performance aircraft making low passes colloquially known as "buzzing" over ground points. Consequently, these numbers came to be known as buzz numbers. The system used two letters and three numbers, painted as large as practically feasible on each side of the fuselage and on the underside of the left wing.

The two letter code identified the type and model of the aircraft, and the three digits consisted of the last three numbers of the serial number. For example, all fighters were identified by the letter P later changed to F , and the second letter identified the fighter type.

On occasion, two planes of the same type and model would have the same last three digits in their serial numbers. When this happened, the two aircraft were distinguished by adding the suffix letter A to the buzz number of the later aircraft, preceded by a dash. Some stateside aircraft during World War II carried enlarged code numbers on their sides, but I don't know if the purpose of these large markings were to act as "buzz numbers".

The system was in wide use throughout the s, but was gradually phased out during the s. The January edition of Technical Order dropped all mention of any buzz number requirement, and these numbers started getting painted over and were largely gone by the middle of Army aircraft serials were seamlessly intermixed with Air Force serials, with no gaps or overlaps.

But in , the Army started using five digit sequence numbers that were greater than any sequence numbers used by the USAF, so that observers would not confuse aircraft between the two services. In addition, Army sequence numbers that were allocated within the Air Force sequence were often padded with extra zeros to make them have a total of 5 digits. Unfortunately, there is some confusion, since this system was not always consistently followed, and there were numerous departures from this norm.

Although the Army started using 5 digit serial numbers starting in , there was a mixed bag of four and five digit numbers in actual use. For tail number presentations or pylon numbers for helicopters , the early years were pretty consistent, using the last digit of the fiscal year and just the four digits of the serial number being shown.

When the five digit serial numbers started being used, there was a mixture of tail number presentations of just the five digits with no year and sometimes a leading zero! Sometimes both the digits of the year number were painted over and then just the the five-digit sequence number was presented.

Sometimes, Army helicopters used the last three digits of the sequence number as a call sign and you will often see those three digits painted on the nose, the side window or highlighted on the pylon itself. There are even a few older aircraft with the two digit year and the entire five digit serial number shown, just to round out all the options. Ref, Nick Van Valkenburgh, Jul 26, In , the Army started using sequence numbers starting at , and the numbers were not restarted with each succeeding fiscal year.

In written correspondence, the leading zeros were often dropped. It is not at all clear when the system of padding sequence numbers with zeros actually started.

It also seems that the Army continues to use both systems for its aircraft serial numbers, one a sequence number greater than any sequence numbers used by the USAF, plus lower sequence number padded with zeros.

At the end of World War 2, the base was selected as a storage site for decommissioned military aircraft. The dry climate of Tucson and the alkali soil made it ideal for aircraft storage and preservation. Excess DoD and Coast Guard aircraft are stored there after they are removed from service.

Sometimes the aircraft are actually returned to active service, either as remotely-controlled drones or are sold to friendly foreign governments, but most often they are scavenged for spare parts to keep other aircraft flying or are scrapped.

The second pair of letters specify the type of aircraft e. So the PCN was useful in telling at a glance who owned the aircraft, what type of aircraft it was, and the order in which it arrived at AMARG Prior to Oct the number in the PCN code had three digits, but AMARC realised that they were soon going to have more than F-4s on inventory, and the decision was made that it was necessary to expand the number format to four digits in order to accommodate new Phantom arrivals.

All later F-4s arrivals were numbered in the four-digit style. I imagine that once AMARC had altered their database field to use 6 characters, they then decided to use that style for ALL new arrivals from Oct '94, and a zero was prefixed when the order number was less than Ref: eLaReF, Jun 17, To add to the confusion, an aircraft could receive multiple PCNs if it came back to the facility multiple times - for example - an aircraft might have come in to AMARG for service life extension it would have been given a PCN for the duration of its refit.

Then it would have been returned to the operational fleet. During its service, if the operators determine that all aircraft of this type need something else to be checked, the aircraft would return to AMARG for that check as part of some minor repair work. On arrival it would have received a new 2nd PCN. On completion of the minor repairs, the aircraft would return to the operators. Eventually when the operators determine that the aircraft is no longer needed and they retire it to storage, a third PCN would have been assigned.

Ref: Robert D. Raine, Jun 27, An aircraft can also be assigned a different PCN if it is administratively tranferred to a different service while it is sitting in the boneyards. Everything is now tracked by serial number, since no two aircraft ever have exactly the same serial number. PCNs were not removed from older aircraft, but new PCNs are no longer assigned to aircraft when they arrive.

Raine, Jun 27, Manufacturer's Serial Numbers When an aircraft is constructed, the company which built it assigns it a manufacturer's serial number. This number is usually displayed on a plate mounted somewhere inside the aircraft. When the aircraft is sold to the Air Force, it is issued a military serial number by the Defense Department.

These two numbers bear no relationship with each other, but they are often confused with each other. When I know the manufacturer's serial number of a particular military aircraft, I list it. If a military aircraft ultimately ends up in civilian hands, it is issued a civil registration number by the owner's national civilian aviation authority.

Typically, the FAA uses the aircraft's manufacturer serial number to track these aircraft. For example, a lot of C Skytrain aircraft ended up in civilian hands after their military service ended, and they are tracked by using their manufacturer's serial numbers.

The MACRs were numbered in the order of their issuance.