Fun coincidence! Sequential airplane N-number

[Rgbeard]

My wife and I flew to KEMT (El Monte, California) on Saturday to attend an event in Pasadena.

As we were parking, I noticed the plane next to us. The N-number was sequentially, the next one lower! Wow!

He was just shutting down as were we. We met and chatted. Ours is a 1978 Turbo Lance, his a 1980 Turbo Saratoga. A few pics were taken, stories told and handshakes exchanged.

I'm sure this doesn't get the vote for coolest story of the year (or the month, for that matter) but it was fun for the moment. Thought I'd share. My wife has a couple more photos - if I figure out where she stuck them, I'll see if any are worth sharing.

 

[asicer]

"Oh you take the high tail and I'll take the low tail..."
--The Bonnie Banks of Lockhaven (well, Vero Beach now I suppose)

 

[EdFred]

My plane rolled off the line in 1958. 51 years later it began to reside at the same airport as another Comanche just 2 serial numbers off, (The tail number got changed in the 70s so those aren't close anymore)

 

[BrianNC]

That is pretty cool.

 

[Clip4]

That is really common. In Cirrus a lot of time the N number is the last 3 digits of the S#.

 

[Dave Theisen]

Pretty cool!

 

[Pilawt]

When I first bought my Grumman Cheetah in 1999 it was N116MC. Coincidentally, a Grumman Tiger N16MC was based at a field just three miles away. I had lunch with the Tiger's owner one day. He suggested we fly in formation to a nearby towered field, shoot some touch-and-goes, and play with the controller's mind.

 

[NealRomeoGolf]

That is cool. It made me go lookup the numbers around me. The number higher than me is canceled but used to belong to an Aeronca Champ in Ohio. The number below me was also originally on an Aeronca Champ and then got put on a PA-28-181 (which is what mine is too). That plane got exported to Sweden and the number is currently not used.

 

[Clayton Carder]

My wife and I flew to KEMT (El Monte, California) on Saturday to attend an event in Pasadena.

As we were parking, I noticed the plane next to us. The N-number was sequentially, the next one lower! Wow!

He was just shutting down as were we. We met and chatted. Ours is a 1978 Turbo Lance, his a 1980 Turbo Saratoga. A few pics were taken, stories told and handshakes exchanged.

I'm sure this doesn't get the vote for coolest story of the year (or the month, for that matter) but it was fun for the moment. Thought I'd share. My wife has a couple more photos - if I figure out where she stuck them, I'll see if any are worth sharing.

Great story! I think you will build great relations and thus friendship with those guys. It happens like that.

 

[wanttaja]

As we were parking, I noticed the plane next to us. The N-number was sequentially, the next one lower! Wow!

He was just shutting down as were we. We met and chatted. Ours is a 1978 Turbo Lance, his a 1980 Turbo Saratoga.

It's pretty common for aircraft manufacturers to reserve a block of N-Numbers, but what's weird in your case is the fact that your two planes are different models built two years apart. After N20816 was built, why do you suppose Piper waited two years to use the next number on the list....?

Ron Wanttaja

 

[kgruber]

When I picked up N2764J at the factory...........N2777J was sitting there, I thought it was a pretty good N#. Two years later I saw N2777J balled up into a small pile at Nimpo Lake.

Just a few years ago some idiot balled up my "J" in Alaska......completely avoidable!!

 

[GMascelli]

As we were parking, I noticed the plane next to us. The N-number was sequentially, the next one lower! Wow!

I saw a Sundowner taxi in at an event and his tail number was close to ours. He was 6708N and my tail number was 6708R. I asked him what his SN# was and it turned out it went down the line just ahead of ours. His plane was 2243 and mine 2244.

 

[Timbeck2]

I wonder if John Fulton from Indiana is a member here. He owns the Cherokee right after mine both in tail number and serial number. The one before (both tail and serial has been deregistered...also in Indiana btw.

 

[Jeff Oslick]

There are a bunch of 182s of the same vintage of ours in SoCal, and it causes a bit of confusion with ATC (and the pilots) at times when there are three airplanes with 735__ on the same frequency, two of which are 735C_.

 

[Pilawt]

When I had my Cheetah painted in 2000 I wanted a new N-number, N121PS (for 121st Psalm). It wasn't available, because it was among the block of 'PS' numbers reserved by Aviat for future Pitts Special production. I went with my second choice, N365PS, for the Cheetah.

Fast forward to 2007, when I bought a new Sport Cub LSA. CubCrafters asked if I wanted a personalized N-number. I checked the FAA registry. Lo and behold, Pitts Special N121PS had been exported to Canada. The number was available now, so I grabbed it.

A year later I attended a social gathering at the CubCrafters factory in Yakima. We were all given name tags with our airplane registration numbers on them. A fellow from Montreal came up to me and said, "Hey, that number used to be on my Pitts!"

 

[SkyDog58]

I know of a guy who crashed two Cessna 182s just a few months apart. They were two serial numbers and N numbers apart.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

It's pretty common for aircraft manufacturers to reserve a block of N-Numbers, but what's weird in your case is the fact that your two planes are different models built two years apart. After N20816 was built, why do you suppose Piper waited two years to use the next number on the list....?

Maybe the owner of the plane after N20816 wanted a custom N number?

That's what happened with our club's DA40, I think. Most of the first thousand DA40s are N<serial>DS, but ours is 40.648, yet has N569DS. 40.569 is N868E, a custom number, so they had that one left over. 40.216 got N616DS because N216DS already belonged to a Robin R.2160 Alpha Sport. 40.616 then got N648DS - Who knows why they didn't use N569DS on that one, but after they "stole" it for that airplane, ours got the remaining N569DS.

Following the process for N20816, its serial number is 32R-8029001. Going through 32R-8029002-9, none of them have similar tail numbers, so this one might have been a "leftover" to begin with. Piper might use the tail numbers across types, though, as two of those following aircraft used Twin Comanche tail numbers (N8096Y and N8108Y). There wasn't any commonality to the numbers used in this serial number range other than those Twinkie numbers.

Going in the N number direction, N20815 is a 1938 J-3, s/n 2115. N20818 was also a J-3, s/n 2118 (registration cancelled in 1943!). Neither s/n 2116 nor 2117 are on the registry at all, so they may have been exported right away.

So, it would appear that both of these were really old leftover N numbers from the Cub era that Piper finally used up!

 

[benyflyguy]

My wife and I flew to KEMT (El Monte, California) on Saturday to attend an event in Pasadena.

As we were parking, I noticed the plane next to us. The N-number was sequentially, the next one lower! Wow!

He was just shutting down as were we. We met and chatted. Ours is a 1978 Turbo Lance, his a 1980 Turbo Saratoga. A few pics were taken, stories told and handshakes exchanged.

I'm sure this doesn't get the vote for coolest story of the year (or the month, for that matter) but it was fun for the moment. Thought I'd share. My wife has a couple more photos - if I figure out where she stuck them, I'll see if any are worth sharing.

I will vote for it for the coolest story of the year...so far..

 

[TipTanks]

Awesome. Canadian here... When I was flying a Warrior with the ident GRIE, there was also a flight school airplane with the Ident GREI. We always seemed to be flying at the same time... the controllers would say our idents a few times just to make sure.

 

[Unit74]

Looks like one of them put the stabilator in the wrong place ....... And they painted it an ugly red too!

 

[ktup-flyer]

When does the cruciform tail Lance/Toga come out

 

[IK04]

I flew a particular C-172 throughout my aviation training, got my Instrument rating and CFII in it and flew hundreds of hours all over the country in it.

The tail number is burned into my memory forever.

Years later, while in the instrument phase of Army flight school, I was in the middle of an ILS, prepping for a checkride, when I heard a Cessna with a tail number one digit off from that airplane. It distracted me so much that I think I busted DH and was slow on the missed approach climbout. I wasn't going to try to explain my distraction to my instructor at the time and just accepted the low grade for that flight...

A few days later, I drove over to the airport where it was landing and found it. It was an identical 1976 Skyhawk II with the red, white and blue Bicentennial paint job!

 

[Unit74]

When does the cruciform tail Lance/Toga come out

They said it was due two weeks after Christ was resurrected..... I still have my deposit in escrow.

 

[Pilawt]

It's pretty common for aircraft manufacturers to reserve a block of N-Numbers, but what's weird in your case is the fact that your two planes are different models built two years apart. After N20816 was built, why do you suppose Piper waited two years to use the next number on the list....?

The mystery has been solved, thanks to Roger Peperell's exhaustive tome Piper Aircraft - The Development and History of Piper Designs, and it's an interesting story.

N20816 was indeed built as a 1978 Turbo Lance II, one serial number (32R-7887178) and one registration number before @Rgbeard 's N20817. But Piper pulled N20816 off the line and put tapered wings and a longer T-tail stabilator on it, to make it the prototype of the proposed 1980 Turbo Lance III. It was also given a new serial number, 32R-8029001. It first flew as the Turbo Lance III on 1/29/1979. It was certified on 8/16/1979, just about the time that Piper decided to return the PA-32R series to the low tail design. So N20816 was given a T-Tail-ectomy and it became the very first Turbo Saratoga SP.

Production of the Lance III and Turbo Lance III had already begun when the decision was made to dump the T-tail. According to Peperell, "a total of 35 finished and unfinished aircraft had to be converted to low-tail configuration/Saratoga SP in the last few months of 1979."

Here's N20816, as the prototype Turbo Lance III, in the foreground:

 

[455 Bravo Uniform]

That makes the story even cooler!

 

[Dave Theisen]

Good find!

 

[skier]

That’s a cool bit of history. Wonder if the owner knows that about his plane?

 

[eman1200]

'tis a cool story bruh

 

[Brad W]

yeah, like twins that were separated at birth, now reunited!

My story is renting form a flight school at KRYY back in 1999...they had sister cessna 172RG's...N273GT and N274GT
and at another school another time I flew cessna 152's...N67592 & N67597

 

[jbDC9]

...and at another school another time I flew cessna 152's...N67592 & N67597

N67597? I flew that pig back in the '80s; 85-86 as a student and then 88-89 as a CFI at a flight school in Plano, TX... small world in airplanes.

 

[Scott@KTYR]

My wife and I flew to KEMT (El Monte, California) on Saturday to attend an event in Pasadena.

As we were parking, I noticed the plane next to us. The N-number was sequentially, the next one lower! Wow!

He was just shutting down as were we. We met and chatted. Ours is a 1978 Turbo Lance, his a 1980 Turbo Saratoga. A few pics were taken, stories told and handshakes exchanged.

I'm sure this doesn't get the vote for coolest story of the year (or the month, for that matter) but it was fun for the moment. Thought I'd share. My wife has a couple more photos - if I figure out where she stuck them, I'll see if any are worth sharing.

Two great looking planes!!
What are are the odds this would happen?

 

[Brad W]

N67597? I flew that pig back in the '80s; 85-86 as a student and then 88-89 as a CFI at a flight school in Plano, TX... small world in airplanes.

cool! Yeah, I've thought about how these aircraft that have been around such a long time have connected so many of us.... It's like the old "how many degrees of Kevin Bacon" thing....

I flew it out of X41, Clearwater Executive in Florida in 1995.

N67592 was in Williamsburg VA, JGG, where i did my training, back 1990-1991

Sadly, I see that both of these aircraft are listed as "destroyed". I can't find what year model they were, but I suppose they trained a lot of different pilots.

 

[flyingron]

I ran into the one two off from me N5329K (formerly Arthur Godfrey's plane) at Oshkosh one year. It was at the time owned by author Robin White (also known as R. Allen White, his non-fiction book Hostile Waters is worth the read). Alas, another friend of mine bought it and ended up dying in a crash with it. Pressure Carb on the gopher engine failed.

 

[Brad W]

I've been trying to get focused on work this morning but keep thinking of this "degrees of Kevin Bacon" thing. It might be interesting if there was a database tool, enter the tail numbers you've flow to find out others who have flown the same one! I guess it would fall apart with numbers being re-assigned to different aircraft, but still....

 

[Kenny Phillips]

I ran into the one two off from me N5329K (formerly Arthur Godfrey's plane) at Oshkosh one year. It was at the time owned by author Robin White (also known as R. Allen White, his non-fiction book Hostile Waters is worth the read). Alas, another friend of mine bought it and ended up dying in a crash with it. Pressure Carb on the gopher engine failed.

The NTSB factual on that was released on Friday; of course, no official probably cause.

 

[flyingron]

The NTSB factual on that was released on Friday; of course, no official probably cause.

Yeah, mostly they wanted to see if the alleged Navion fuel system (for which there was an AD) was involved, I think. After it was pretty clear that this plane had the Navion "factory" replacement fuel valve, the heat to come up with a cause went away. The rubber inside the PS-5C is known to be a problem, though I've never heard of it causing a complete engine failure before.

Ironically, the guy who was flying this one may have had perhaps the only actual navion fuel system failure with his previous Navion (and it wasn't the one SierraHotel used to cram through their self-serving AD with).

 

[jbDC9]

cool! Yeah, I've thought about how these aircraft that have been around such a long time have connected so many of us.... It's like the old "how many degrees of Kevin Bacon" thing....

I flew it out of X41, Clearwater Executive in Florida in 1995.

Sadly, I see that both of these aircraft are listed as "destroyed". I can't find what year model they were, but I suppose they trained a lot of different pilots.

These two 152s were 1978 models; the reason I referenced N67597 as a pig was that by the late ‘80s, it was already kinda tired with crappy brown/white paint and a high time engine. Also, it had some extra radio gear and could do basic instrument training, which made it a bit heavier. So there I was in old ‘597 on a warm summer afternoon with an instrument student on a IFR flight plan from Corsicana headed back to Plano. We leveled off to cruise at 3000 ft... a bit later ATC says “climb and maintain 4000”. We tried, but the ship just wouldn’t climb! Maxed out at 3000, yikes. Cancel IFR please. Not long after that she got a shiny new paint job (still brown/white) and a new engine. Better!

 

[Dave Theisen]

yeah, like twins that were separated at birth, now reunited!

My story is renting form a flight school at KRYY back in 1999...they had sister cessna 172RG's...N273GT and N274GT
and at another school another time I flew cessna 152's...N67592 & N67597

I’ve flown both of those RG’s.

 

[Brad W]

These two 152s were 1978 models; the reason I referenced N67597 as a pig was that by the late ‘80s, it was already kinda tired with crappy brown/white paint and a high time engine. Also, it had some extra radio gear and could do basic instrument training, which made it a bit heavier. So there I was in old ‘597 on a warm summer afternoon with an instrument student on a IFR flight plan from Corsicana headed back to Plano. We leveled off to cruise at 3000 ft... a bit later ATC says “climb and maintain 4000”. We tried, but the ship just wouldn’t climb! Maxed out at 3000, yikes. Cancel IFR please. Not long after that she got a shiny new paint job (still brown/white) and a new engine. Better!

funny!
Sadly I have no memory of it and can't give you an update on how it behaved when I knew it. I just looked...I only have 0.8 hours in it.
I do recall at least one of the 152's I flew along the way was decked out IFR capable...but I don't think I ever did much of any IFR work in them. Anyway, that must have been one of them!

I had a video pop up in my youtube suggestions yesterday evening of a dad and daughter flying a 150 on an evening flight.....looked like a really nice condition 150. For some reason I started wondering if there are any cherry 152's like that, but set up with an autopilot and descent avionics.

 

[N1120A]

Interestingly, I've had a cool registration story with both planes. With the Tiger, someone on Grumman Gang emailed me that he had another FT AG5B, which meant his had flown for FIT initially as well. With the Bo, I've been interacting recently with the guy who has the E33 one number before me.