Every new year, I download the FAA registration database and extract the number of homebuilt aircraft.
First: Total aircraft on the FAA registry:
Year All Aircraft Net Increase Total Deregistered New Aircraft EAB Net EAB Increase EAB Deregistered New EAB Aircraft2009 374373 -1751 7018 5267 | 31914 672 464 11362010 373896 -477 5422 4945 | 32682 768 309 10772011 367857 -6039 11224 5185 | 33038 356 666 10222012 352198 -15659 20985 5326 | 32041 -997 1951 9542013 317993 -34205 40188 5983 | 27946 -4095 5013 9182014 312586 -5407 12588 7181 | 27909 -37 1084 10472015 314404 1818 8240 10058 | 28078 169 781 9502016 320683 6279 4254 10533 | 28830 752 225 9772017 312344 -8339 14961 6622 | 28451 -379 1296 917
The total number of registered homebuilts dropped by 379 last year, and this was due to an increased number of aircraft deregistered by the FAA. You'll see the same effect in the "All Aircraft" columns. Not sure what happened last year, but it may be due to owners deciding not to maintain the listings of inactive/no-long-existing aircraft. As you can see, the "All Aircraft" section shows the same impact...a big jump in deregistrations.
There were about 1020 new homebuilt N-Numbers last year, but roughly 100 were re-numbered existing aircraft. By my analysis, 917 brand-new homebuilts were added to the fleet last year. This is slightly less than average.
Ron Wanttaja