FAA tail number availability website- how the heck do you use it?

[Flyler]

I'm guessing one of you fine gentlemen has run into this before.  https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/NNumberAvailabilityInquiry?error=Starting Range and Ending Range fields must not be empty.

FAA has a website where you can look up tail number availability.  I can't seem to figure out what to enter into the fields.  It gives me an error every time.  For example, how would I find tail numbers that include "201" like all thoes original numbers that Mooney registered back in the day?

[takair]

I think you can only search the trailing numbers.  Alternately, you can plug in numbers here.  https://aircraft.faa.gov/e.gov/NN/reserve.aspx

[Danb]

Enter the ending, trailing letters and your accepted range. Eg say you want an N number ending in bravo bravo and two digit numbers. Enter BB in the top  and in the next two id enter 01 next and 99 after , they will let you know if anything is available from N01BB to N 99BB. There are a lot of those left, I have a four digit 98RG  it’s fun seeing what’s available 

D

[Danb]

5 minutes ago, takair said:

I think you can only search the trailing numbers.  Alternately, you can plug in numbers here.  https://aircraft.faa.gov/e.gov/NN/reserve.aspx

Nope you can get the range available within your trailing numbers.

[Flyler]

35 minutes ago, Danb said:

Enter the ending, trailing letters and your accepted range. Eg say you want an N number ending in bravo bravo and two digit numbers. Enter BB in the top  and in the next two id enter 01 next and 99 after , they will let you know if anything is available from N01BB to N 99BB. There are a lot of those left, I have a four digit 98RG  it’s fun seeing what’s available 

D

Thank you, your example solved the riddle for me.  I got hung up on the trailing numbers being static in the search.  Now it makes a lot more sense.

 

[N201MKTurbo]

I was talking to my principal inspector a while back. He told me there is a whole organization back in DC dedicated to making the FAA web pages impossible to use. He said as soon as you figure out how to work them, they replace it with a new one that solves the usability issue.

[midlifeflyer]

8 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

I was talking to my principal inspector a while back. He told me there is a whole organization back in DC dedicated to making the FAA web pages impossible to use. He said as soon as you figure out how to work them, they replace it with a new one that solves the usability issue.

That would be funny if it wasn’t so accurate.