Airframe serial number

[Jrags]

I have a 1968 M20G and was wondering is the airframe serial number on the aircraft and where would I find it?

[Utah20Gflyer]

Mine is on a data plate on the passenger side just behind the cowling.  

[EricJ]

Look on the pilot's side of the empennage near the stabilizer.

 

[Pinecone]

It is required to be on the airplane.

[dzeleski]

Its also on your FAA registry if you needed it without running out to the airport: https://registry.faa.gov/AircraftInquiry/Search/NNumberResult?nNumberTxt=6901N

[Ron McBride]

Mooney serial numbers can be confusing.  Example;  68 005. Could be a C, E, F or a G..   

[EricJ]

On 7/7/2024 at 11:41 AM, Jrags said:

I have a 1968 M20G and was wondering is the airframe serial number on the aircraft and where would I find it?

In case you're still looking, or if anyone else cares, the little plate below the leading edge of the stabilizer has the serial number.

[1980Mooney]

On 7/8/2024 at 11:39 AM, Ron McBride said:

Mooney serial numbers can be confusing.  Example;  68 005. Could be a C, E, F or a G..   

This may help.  It shows serial number range by model by year.

Mooney Model Chronology (mooneyevents.com)

[PT20J]

In a sense, that data plate is the airplane. If you have data plate, you can start collecting spare parts and assemble them (none being from the original airplane) and slap the data plate on it and as far as the FAA is concerned you have an airplane. But, if you have an original airplane and the data plate is lost, stolen or destroyed, you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get it replaced. Case in point: Only a few hundred DC-3s were built before WW II. Most of the production aircraft were C-47s or other military variants. After the war, Douglas converted a lot of military airplanes to DC-3Cs. The museum I used to volunteer for had one and after some research we determined that the data plate was not correct. It may have been switched from another airplane. It took two years of working with Boeing (that now owns the DC-3 type certificate) and the FAA to finally get a new data plate which I (very carefully) riveted in place.

[Pinecone]

What was wrong with the data plate?  And how did it matter?

I have plans and rights to built an F.8L Falco.  IIRC, the data plate was included with the plans.

[Schllc]

This is what remains of a Japanese zero.  It sat in a Malaysian jungle for 80 or so years, and was rescued to be restored. The data plate is all they will use to restore the aircraft…

They did the same for the p40 which is much further along, and converted to a two seat trainer. 
I never knew all you needed was a data plate (and a lot of money!)

[PT20J]

1 hour ago, Pinecone said:

What was wrong with the data plate?  And how did it matter?

It was the wrong serial number. 

[Pinecone]

On 7/13/2024 at 9:46 AM, PT20J said:

It was the wrong serial number. 

But since the data plate IS the airplane, it can't be wrong.

[jetdriven]

We had a new first officer pre-flight a 1900 one time and they had 25,000 hours on it, and the tail number was always the number of the serial number, i.e., 231YV was serial number UE-231. But in this case that data plate and the tail number disagreed, she looked in the book and it had the serial number of the the same as the tail number, so they actually called the factory, and the wrong date was put on the Aircraft some 10 years before that and nobody had ever caught it.

[PT20J]

2 hours ago, jetdriven said:

We had a new first officer pre-flight a 1900 one time and they had 25,000 hours on it, and the tail number was always the number of the serial number, i.e., 231YV was serial number UE-231. But in this case that data plate and the tail number disagreed, she looked in the book and it had the serial number of the the same as the tail number, so they actually called the factory, and the wrong date was put on the Aircraft some 10 years before that and nobody had ever caught it.

The problem we had with the DC-3 was that apparently the data plates got switched at Douglas during the conversion but the FAA had signed off on it, so getting the FSDO to correct a 75year old FAA paperwork mistake was something they didn’t really want to touch.