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It's interesting to note that 2019 saw a bit of a "bounceback" in Experimental Amateur-Built (EAB) numbers.
The usual year-to-year comparison used the total number of EAB-registered aircraft. However, this is deceptive, as mere subtraction produces only the net change. In other words, the number of new aircraft minus the ones removed from the registry in that year.
Prior to 2010, it didn't make much difference. Aircraft were removed from the registry only on the owner's request, and a lot of old homebuilts lingered on the rolls far past the time they were active. But in 2010, the FAA started its policy of requiring aircraft owners to renew their registrations every three years. Failure to do so would result in the FAA de-registering the aircraft.
As the table shows, a huge number of homebuilts were removed from the rolls by the end of the first cycle in 2013....about a quarter of the entire US homebuilt fleet. It's been cyclical since then, with another peak in deregistrations last year (ten percent of the fleet IN A SINGLE YEAR).
As the re-registration cycle is three years, I anticipated that 2019 would also see a major hit (e.g., 6 years from the end of the first cycle). As the data show, this didn't happen:
Year |
EAB |
Net Change |
EAB Deregistered |
New EAB Registered |
2010 |
32682 |
768 |
309 |
1077 |
2011 |
33038 |
356 |
666 |
1022 |
2012 |
32041 |
-997 |
1951 |
954 |
2013 |
27946 |
-4095 |
5013 |
918 |
2014 |
27909 |
-37 |
1084 |
1047 |
2015 |
28078 |
169 |
781 |
950 |
2016 |
28830 |
752 |
225 |
977 |
2017 |
28451 |
-379 |
1296 |
917 |
2018 |
26572 |
-1879 |
2767 |
888 |
2019 |
26842 |
270 |
916 |
1186 |
Not only did the number of de-registrations drop, we also saw a good jump in the number of new homebuilt completions: 1186. This is actually the best it's been for the past ten years.
Ron Wanttaja
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