Querying FAA Registry 2019
Accidentally I found FAA registry database online (publicly available!) and I decided to take a deeper look. A quick query shows the table below, there are 28 "manufactures" having more than 1000 aircraft currently registered.
| Rank | Manufacture | Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | CESSNA | 74270 |
| 2 | PIPER | 45346 |
| 3 | BEECH | 18220 |
| 4 | BOEING | 5917 |
| 5 | CIRRUS DESIGN CORP | 5837 |
| 6 | MOONEY | 5453 |
| 7 | AERONCA | 4036 |
| 8 | BELL | 3267 |
| 9 | BELLANCA | 2747 |
| 10 | BOMBARDIER INC | 2609 |
| 11 | RAYTHEON AIRCRAFT COMPANY | 2280 |
| 12 | TEXTRON AVIATION INC | 1969 |
| 13 | TAYLORCRAFT | 1968 |
| 14 | DJI | 1914 |
| 15 | STINSON | 1789 |
| 16 | GRUMMAN AMERICAN AVN. CORP. | 1687 |
| 17 | AIR TRACTOR INC | 1666 |
| 18 | CHAMPION | 1614 |
| 19 | LUSCOMBE | 1517 |
| 20 | GULFSTREAM AEROSPACE | 1475 |
| 21 | AIRBUS | 1378 |
| 22 | MAULE | 1335 |
| 23 | NORTH AMERICAN | 1331 |
| 24 | ROBINSON HELICOPTER COMPANY | 1282 |
| 25 | ROBINSON HELICOPTER | 1246 |
| 26 | SCHWEIZER | 1220 |
| 27 | DIAMOND AIRCRAFT IND INC | 1195 |
| 28 | SOCATA | 1063 |
Unsurprisingly, Cessna is the king of this list, followed by Piper, these two deserve their own posts to get into the details.
The 3rd place is Beechcraft, interestingly it shares the same parent company as Cessna: Textron, along with No. 8 Bell, the helicopter brand. N12 is Textron Aviation Ince, but by looking into the MODEL column, those are actualy either Cessna or Beechcraft. Also No.11 RAYTHEON AIRCRAFT COMPANY is defunct but used to own Beechcraft and Hawker
No.4 is BOEING, No.10 is BOMBARDIER, No.21 is AIRBUS. Well it makes sense, the US buys more aircraft locally, followed by Canadian and European competitors.
No.5 CIRRUS owns SR-22, the best selling general aviation airplane since 2003. Would it beat Cessna given another decade? Another composite aircraft manufacture Diamond only ranked No.27.
No.6 Monney's M20 is very popular, but the company may not survive. No.16 GRUMMAN AMERICAN was also defunct, but a number of AA-5 are still flying.
No.14 DJI have some profectional drones registered, like Inspire.
No.20 GULFSTREAM is famous for its biz jets; No.24/25 Robinson is for helicopters; No. 28 SOCATA lost its name to Daher.
For the rest: AERONCA, BELLANCA, TAYLORCRAFT, STINSON, AIR TRACTOR, CHAMPION, LUSCOMBE, MAULE, NORTH AMERICAN, SCHWEIZER, I have to admit I do not know that much, will look deeper in future posts. Some of these brands are discontinued.
A quick search shows that Champion purchursed design from Aeronca in 1954, and then Bellanca acquired Champion in 1970, and then American Champion obtained designes from Bellanca from 1988?
By TYPE_ENGINE
| Row | engine_type | num_aircraft |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reciprocating | 205919 |
| 2 | Turbo-fan | 23546 |
| 3 | 4 Cycle | 18733 |
| 4 | Turbo-prop | 12422 |
| 5 | None | 8892 |
| 6 | Turbo-shaft | 8563 |
| 7 | 2 Cycle | 4923 |
| 8 | Electric | 3262 |
| 9 | Turbo-jet | 1781 |
| 10 | Rotary | 61 |
| 11 | Ramjet | 5 |
| 12 | Unknown | 4 |
- "Reciprocating", i.e. piston engines, is the largest bucket, with more than 200k aircraft registered, followed by "Turbo-fan", or jet engines. Turbo-prop is a category in between piston and jets, but the number of aircraft is much lower than the two.
- Turbo-shaft is for helicopters
- None is gliders
- Electric is higher than I expected, it turns out that DJI drones are all in this bucket; the only serious 2-seat+ electric airplane is Pipistrel Alpha Electro, with only 6 registered as of 2019.
- Turbo-jet, Ramjet are dying categories
- Not sure how the 4 Cycle is different from piston, since 4 Cycle has Cessna 172M and 150M
- 2 Cycle should be for very light aircraft like Powered Parachute
By TYPE_ACFT
| Row | type_aricraft | num_aircraft |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fixed wing single engine | 210625 |
| 2 | Fixed wing multi engine | 47229 |
| 3 | Rotorcraft | 17096 |
| 4 | Balloon | 4894 |
| 5 | Glider | 4826 |
| 6 | Powered Parachute | 1985 |
| 7 | Weight-shift-control | 1089 |
| 8 | Gyroplane | 278 |
| 9 | Hybrid Lift | 44 |
| 10 | Blimp/Dirigible | 41 |
| 11 | Other | 4 |
Unsurprisingly Fixed wing single engine is the largest bucket, and single:multi-engine is roughly 4:1.