Aircraft Re-registration

[cdflite]

I just received my Notice of Expiration of Aircraft Registration. All seems straight-forward and I understand the online procedure.
But I noticed an issue that I was wondering if anyone else had noticed. My current expiration date is December 31st, 2013. The re-registration must be accomplished by October 31st, 2013.
If I Re-register as of receipt of this letter now, the next expiration date is three years from the end of THIS month, not from December, or even October. In effect, that means I'm losing 5 or 6 months of the registration period. In three years I will receive another renewal form 6 months in advance of the expiration and I assume the same thing would happen. In other words, the re-registration could effectively be every two and a half years instead of three.
The obvious thing to do would be to wait until the last moment in October, but that still means two months lost.

So am I seeing this right?

Thanks,

[mustangbuilder]

My understanding is that the registration would expire again December 31, 2016 and you would be eligible to re-register beginning August 2016. I would not recommend waiting as I did, I finally recieved my registration in March which if your counting was nearly 3 months after my other registration expired. Couldn't fly or get any one in Oklahoma to speed it up.

[cdflite]

That's what I thought too, but during the online process of re-registration, the copy of the form that you are to approve before paying the five dollars says the new expiration date is July 31st, 2016. There was nothing I had to change. I'm wondering if that is a default for the process and the correct date is on the hard copy?
You are saying it took an additional three months to get your registration after you submitted online by the due date? That's almost 6 months of them sitting on it! Did you have a change of any sort?

[Skyguy]

The Registrations expire all over the calendars.

Mine expires on June 30, 2016.

[Mayhemxpc]

Interesting. I also just got mine. Dated July 2, saying that the re-registration is due August 1. It must arrive by October 31 and the registration expires Dec 31. It also includes two other bits of relevant information. "Filing early will not affect the new expiration date which is scheduled to be December 31." The second bit is that "If renewal is not completed by December 31, 2013, then the aircraft will be without authority to operate."

The first says no penalty for early renewal. The second bothers me. If, as cdflite noted above, I do everything right and the FAA is the one who does not complete on time, then I am without use of my plane? Or am I missing something?

[JimRice85]

I've done mine online and typically received the new registration in less than two weeks. Just rerenewed my Swift, for the second time, this evening.

[cdflite]

So the big question, Jim, is this... What is your new expiration date? Is it three years from the time your previous registration expired? Or is it three years from the time you renewed?
Folks, I'm going by what the ONLINE form says, not by what I actually have in hand. When I got to that form, it shows clearly that the expiration is three years from the month you complete the ONLINE process. As I stated above, it could just be a glitch in the online form.
I know it may appear I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill, but potentially, we could be getting shorted by nearly 6 months.
My original post was to see if anyone noticed this with their completed and received registration.

Thanks,
Corey

[wacoc8]

I just renewed my registration. The original expired 12/31/13. The FAA sent the renewal at the beginning of July so I immediately renewed so I wouldn't forget. The FAA registration page shows my new registration expires 7/31/16. So yes, our wonderful FAA has figured out a way to make 6 months disappear. At least it is only $5.....for now.

Dave

[JimRice85]

So the big question, Jim, is this... What is your new expiration date? Is it three years from the time your previous registration expired? Or is it three years from the time you renewed?


I received my new registration last week, just a few days after completing the online reregistration process. The old one expired October 31, 2013. The new one expires October 31, 2016 so I didn't get shorted three months. :)

[Joe Delene]

Looks like one should wait to within 6 weeks or less of the expiration date, just to make sure you don't get shortchanged.

[Mike M]

So has anybody tallied how many airframes died during re-registration? What was the fleet total, what it is now?

[rwanttaja]

So has anybody tallied how many airframes died during re-registration? What was the fleet total, what it is now?
I have a tradition of downloading the FAA Registration Database about the first of every year.

From 1 January 2009 to 1 January 2013, overall FAA registrations decreased by 23,929 aircraft.

Experimental Amateur-Built aircraft? They actually increased in the same period, from 31,242 to 32,041.

You can see the effect of the re-registrations in the yearly totals, though:

2009: 31,242
2010: 31,914
2011: 32,682
2012: 33,038
2013: 32,041

(The dates are as of 1 January)

The FAA dropped a thousand EX-AB airplanes between 2012 and 2013.

In recent years, the FAA database has started including a list of deregistered aircraft. It lists almost 165,000 aircraft, but that's from ~1927 on.

According to the deregistration list, 44,181 aircraft (including 3,366 homebuilts) have been deregistered since 1 January 2009.

Note that the numbers are a bit deceptive...not all "homebuilt" aircraft have an airworthiness code, and without that you can't tell if it's Experimental Amateur-Built. Some of those remaining ~41,000 airplanes were undoubtedly homebuilts.

Ron Wanttaja

[FloridaJohn]

So has anybody tallied how many airframes died during re-registration? What was the fleet total, what it is now?
The last group of initial re-registrations is happening right now (ending October 31), so the final totals probably won't be known until next year.

[Mike M]

The last group of initial re-registrations is happening right now (ending October 31), so the final totals probably won't be known until next year.

Duh! on me. I was in the last group,and thought when I did mine they must all have been done because I'm normally late. thanks.

[cdflite]

Just an update...
When I returned from Osh, I went ahead and re-registered via the online process. When I get my registration in the mail, I will update everyone with what the new expiration date is. The online form indicated Aug. 31, 2016. It also indicated I will get my new one in the mail in 5-7 days. We will see.
Thanks for the input,
Corey

[FlyingRon]

The expiration date will be as stated regardless of how early or late you tried to renew it. Frankly, I view it as a collosal waste of time and money on both the fed's and the citizen's part with ZERO benefit. Even the alledgedly bloated database isn't that big.

[I_FLY_LOW]

Maybe the gooberment wants to know what they're up against, so far as civilian aviation...
They're doing all they can to collect all of the data they don't need to know about us, why not this?:confused:

[Mike M]

the expiration date will be as stated regardless of how early or late you tried to renew it. Frankly, i view it as a collosal waste of time and money on both the fed's and the citizen's part with zero benefit. Even the alledgedly bloated database isn't that big.

concur

[Bill Greenwood]

Come on now, "a collosal waste of time and money on both the fed's and the citizen's part with zero benefit"
Nah, does that sound like the govt that we all know and so dearly love?
So if there is no real benefit, then why have this program? And by the way it is an ongoing and repeating thing, we have to do the dance over and over every few years.

Behind almost everything that Congress does there is a profit motive. Do you think wars just happen and go on for decades? Could it have to do with profit for Lockheed or Oshkosh trucks or whoever? Do you think some companies have made millions off the whole TSA industry?
I don't have the facts, but my guess is that there is a contracter behind the registration deal that is doing very well. These things don't exist in a vacume.

[Frank Giger]

My theory is that it makes it easier for taxation.

When an aircraft isn't in service (scrapped, non-renewed, etc.) it falls off the active registry. Then notify the appropriate tax gatherers at various government levels of a nice, tidy list of only the active N-numbers.

The upside for builders is that it frees up N-numbers for registration requests, IIRC.

Btw, what's the penalty for flying an aircraft with an expired N-number (as if one would ever actually get caught without a wreck)?

[FlyingRon]

It was already easier for taxation. Send everybody with the permanent registration a bill and let them cancel their defunct registration to get out of it. It certainly works fine on the state/local level for vehicles.

[Sam Buchanan]

Looks like one should wait to within 6 weeks or less of the expiration date, just to make sure you don't get shortchanged.

Don't wait too long. Here are the answers to your questions:

http://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/aircraft_certification/aircraft_registry/reregistration_faq/

[MEdwards]

Expiration dates are determined differently for the first "reregistration" versus subsequent ones. The document at the link above does not do a good job of explaining that.

I do not agree that the whole registration thing is a waste of time and money. It is not unreasonable to maintain a fairly accurate database of aircraft actually flying. The previous approach, asking casually every 3 years if your plane was still flying, was ridiculously imprecise. The initial registration process was fairly well designed and went smoothly for most people. Read the letter you get in the mail and do what it says, and the periodic reregistration should go just as smoothly.

[cdflite]

Ok Folks,

As OP of this thread, I have the big skinny of skinnies.
I received my new registration today. Only took 9 days minus the weekend, so they did get it to me in the stated 5-7 days. AND, I renewed within the three month period, not early, not late. I went to the link Sam included in this post above and it does seem to spell it all out pretty clearly. However.....(drum roll please)...
New expiration date is...
AUGUST 31ST, 2016

Yep, shorted four months.
I can scan it and let you see, or you can go to my airplane on the FAA Registry and see it. N35VR

Sorry, but I AM beginning to believe in conspiracy theories when it comes to our "Transparent" gubmint. (Yes, I know, it was only $5....this time.)

[MEdwards]

Hi cdflite. A question. Was this the first time you "reregistered" your plane and paid the $5 or the second? Need more data to try to figure out what happened. Thanks.

[cdflite]

Hi cdflite. A question. Was this the first time you "reregistered" your plane and paid the $5 or the second? Need more data to try to figure out what happened. Thanks.

MEdwards,

This was the first time. How many have done it twice already since the law passed in 2010. Can't be many.
According to the website Sam gave us above, I don't know if that matters. I'm afraid to think what would have happened if I'd have waited till the end of October, or even December.

Corey

[FloridaJohn]

This was the first time. How many have done it twice already since the law passed in 2010. Can't be many.
That puts you in the very last group to re-register. I was in the first group to re-register in 2010, and my second re-registration is now coming due. So probably somewhere around 1/12 of the airplanes will be re-registering for the second time this year (assuming normal distribution of registrations, of which I have no idea if that is actually true).

When I did my initial re-registration, it changed the expiration date of my registration to something closer to the time I re-registered. It will be interesting to see what happens to it this time around. Although, based on the earlier link, it seems like it will probably remain the same.

[JimRice85]

This was my second time reregistering.

[FloridaJohn]

I just received my second re-registration from the FAA. The expiration day and month did not change, even though I re-registered several months before the current expiration date.

It appears that on initial re-registration, a new expiration date is acquired, somewhat close to the time you do the actual re-registration. On subsequent re-registrations, the date remains the same (day and month).