FAA registry analysis

The oldest actively registered aircraft in every US state

A state-by-state view of the earliest manufacture years recorded among valid, non-expired FAA registrations—built for national coverage and local follow-up.

Source: FAA master file held by Sprinkle Loading data date… Coverage: 50 states

Wording matters: “Actively registered” does not prove an aircraft is currently flying, airworthy or physically intact. Treat these as leads for reporting and verify individual aircraft before publication.

— Earliest recorded manufacture year

— States whose oldest recorded aircraft predates 1930

— States with two or more aircraft tied for oldest

— Aircraft represented across all state ties

Local story finder

Search the results

Search by state, N-number, manufacturer, model, registered owner, city or county. Select a column heading to sort.

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Methodology

How the list was made

Restricted to the 50 US states and FAA records carrying valid status code V.
Excluded blank, zero and implausible manufacture years, plus clearly expired registrations.
Selected the earliest remaining manufacture year in each state.
Included every aircraft tied at that year; no arbitrary single winner was chosen.
Joined the FAA aircraft reference file for manufacturer and model.
Shows the public FAA registered-owner name but not the owner’s street address.
Removed four records with obviously impossible year/model combinations; the exclusions are downloadable above.

Editorial use

What still needs checking

The FAA file is an administrative register and can contain input errors, replicas and rebuilt aircraft. Before naming an individual aircraft in published coverage, confirm its identity, actual construction history, current condition and the owner’s preferred description.

The “registered owner” is the name recorded by the FAA. It may be a company, trustee or nominee and should not be described as the beneficial owner without further reporting.

Suggested source line: “Analysis of the current FAA aircraft registry by Sprinkle.”

Safe headline language: “The oldest actively registered aircraft in every state.” Avoid “still flying” unless recent activity has been independently verified.