See what a TailCheck report looks like.

What we searched

• Aircraft Registry

  Currently registered and recently deregistered U.S. civil aircraft. It is a snapshot of the register as it stands, not a history of it. Read from our copy of the FAA bulk registration file, refreshed weekly by a scheduled job. A registration is dated with the newest FAA action in the file it was read from while that file is the one loaded, and otherwise with the date it was read — never with a build date. When a tail is missing from the snapshot we fall back to a cached live lookup, then to a live lookup.

• Accident & Incident Database

  Our copy of the NTSB event data begins 2008-01-01 and runs to its most recent refresh, matched to the airframe by serial number. Anything before 2008 is not in the records we search — on a 1978 airframe that is most of its life — and a report says so beside every clean result. Read from our copy of the NTSB bulk event data, refreshed on a schedule; the CAROL query service is a fallback when the bulk copy has no row for the tail.

• Airworthiness Directives

  Part 39 rules published in the Federal Register from 1994 onward, matched to this make and model. Directives issued before 1994 are not in what we search. Whether any directive was complied with on this airframe is not in what we search either, and cannot be: 14 CFR 91.417 keeps compliance status in the aircraft's paper maintenance records. Federal Register API results, cached per make/model/engine. Directives are re-fetched when the cache entry expires, not on every report.

• Ownership History

  The current registrant from the FAA's registration file, plus any deregistration record the FAA holds for this serial number under an earlier N-number. A change of registered owner under the same N-number leaves no deregistration record, so the files cannot list the owners before the current one. Where the FAA's records for an airframe begin later than the year it was built, the report says so and names the date the records start — it does not call a one-owner chain a one-owner aircraft. Read from our copy of the FAA registration and deregistration files, refreshed on a schedule.

What we did not, and where to get it

• Form 337 major repairs and alterations

  We do not report major repair or alteration paperwork, and we do not print a count of it. No machine-readable federal source exists. The FAA bulk document distribution carries seven document types — bills of sale, security agreements, releases, and four registration forms — and Form 337 is not among them. Every route to a 337 ends at a human pulling paper.

  The FAA Aircraft Registration Branch will send the complete record for a tail on CD for about $10. Aero-Space Reports will send the complete record including the repair and alteration paperwork for about $45, usually within a couple of days.

• Whether an airworthiness directive was complied with

  We tell you which directives name this make and model. We never tell you, or imply, that one of them was or was not done on this aircraft. 14 CFR 91.417 places compliance status in the aircraft's paper maintenance records, which stay with the aircraft and transfer at closing. There is no database of it anywhere, for anyone.

  The logbooks, read by your A&P/IA at the pre-buy inspection. Take our applicability list with you — it is the checklist that reading is done against.

• Service difficulty reports about this airframe

  We do not carry a service difficulty section, and we will not print 'none on file' for one. The duty to file falls on certificate holders and repair stations, never on a private owner (14 CFR 91.1415, 121.703, 135.415, 145.221). Only 616 of 185,754 single-engine piston registrations have any SDR at all — 0.33%. 'None on file' therefore describes who operated the aircraft, not its condition, and printed beside an accident record it reads as a clean bill of health.

  The FAA's own SDR system is public and free. Search it by make and model to read what has been reported against the type — which is a genuinely useful thing to know, and the only thing the data supports.

• Flight activity and whether an aircraft has been sitting

  We do not report flights, hours flown, home base, or dormancy. ADS-B reception is a volunteer receiver network with uneven and class-biased coverage, aircraft never certificated with an engine-driven electrical system are exempt from carrying ADS-B Out under 14 CFR 91.225(e), and 40% of valid fixed-wing singles appear zero times across 2.7 years of data. We cannot tell a parked aircraft from one flying out of an airport nobody listens to, so we say nothing.

  Ask the seller for the tach and Hobbs readings and the date of the last annual, then check them against the logbooks. That is the record that actually settles it.

• Liens, encumbrances and title

  We make no statement that title is clear and no statement that an aircraft is free of liens. The FAA document index is a recordation index, never a title search (14 CFR 49.17). Federal tax liens, possessory mechanic's liens and sub-threshold engine liens are structurally invisible in it. When we checked 350 tails our own code had called clear, 305 were a loan filed the same day as a release — the ordinary pattern of a sale plus a new mortgage. We would have been printing 'clear' over a live loan.

  A real title search from an FAA-records title agency in Oklahoma City runs about $85 and takes a day or two. Order one before closing, every time.

• What the aircraft is worth

  We publish no value, no value range, and no comparison to asking prices. This one is permanent. A number printed beside federal records is read as a finding derived from them. Ours would not be, and no dataset we can reach would make it one.

  A certified appraiser, when a certified value is required. For a working figure, the published aircraft price digests and current asking prices for the type.