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Registered aircraft · FAA record as of October 2, 2026
N21824

Firefly Balloons Inc FIREFLY 8B-15

N21824 is a Firefly Balloons Inc FIREFLY 8B-15, a balloon with no engine, built in 2003. It has 1 seat. It is registered to an individual in Littleton, Massachusetts. The registration is valid: it was issued on February 12, 2004 and expires on October 31, 2029. It holds a standard airworthiness certificate for balloon, dated February 3, 2004.

Aircraft

Maker
Firefly Balloons Inc
Model
FIREFLY 8B-15 · all FIREFLY 8B-15s and related versions
Serial number
F8B-2052
Type
Balloon
Power
None · None NONE
Seats
1
Year built
2003
Transponder code
A1D9F5 (octal 50354765)

Registration

Status
Valid registration
Certificate issued
February 12, 2004
Expires
October 31, 2029
Last FAA action
September 9, 2023
Airworthiness
Standard · Balloon · February 3, 2004
FAA region
New England
FAA record id
00072859

Owner as the FAA publishes it

Name
Thornton Ronald
Type
Individual
Address
10 Uplands Rd
Littleton, MA 01460-1117

Owners can ask the FAA to withhold their name and address from public files. When they do, those fields are blank here as well. How that works.

Documents on file 0

No bills of sale, loans or other documents are indexed against this tail number.

Earlier use of this number 3

1991-04-10Bell 206B-III · exported to Japan · Valid registration
1973-01-02Cessna A188B · exported to Portugal · Valid registration
1955-10-06Piper J3C-50 · Valid registration

Records check free · 1 to understand · 4 clear

The public federal record on N21824, read the way a buyer, lender or insurer reads it: FAA registration, prior tail numbers keyed on the serial number, reuse of the tail number, recent registry filings, and the NTSB accident record under this and every earlier registration.

CLEARRegistration and identity

Valid registration to Thornton Ronald, an individual, certificate issued February 12, 2004, expires October 31, 2029. No fractional interest recorded. [1]

CLEARAirworthiness certificate

Standard certificate for balloon, dated February 3, 2004, consistent with the 2003 manufacture year. [1]

CLEARPrior registrations of this airframe

No earlier tail number is recorded against serial F8B-2052 for this model in the deregistered file. [2]

ATTENTIONTail number reuse

N21824 was previously assigned to 3 other aircraft: Bell 206B-III (serial 3817, cancelled April 10, 1991); Cessna A188B (serial 18801061, cancelled January 2, 1973); Piper J3C-50 (serial 2607, cancelled October 6, 1955). Histories keyed to the tail number alone can mix aircraft up; this check keys on the serial number. [2]

NOTERecent registry documents

No bills of sale, loans or releases have reached the registry in recent weeks. The index covers only recent filings; older liens are in the records file. [3]

CLEARAccident and incident record

No NTSB investigation records located under N21824. CLEAR means the query ran and returned nothing, not that nothing ever happened. [4]

PENDINGTitle chain, liens and 337 forms

These live in the FAA aircraft records file (every document ever filed against the aircraft) and, for larger aircraft, the International Registry. Part of the full report.

PENDINGAirworthiness directives and utilization

AD compliance against the logbooks and flight-activity reconciliation are researched layers of the full report.

CLEAR the source was checked and shows no adverse findingATTENTION a fact a buyer or lender should understand, often routineNOTE context onlyPENDING covered by the full report
  1. FAA Releasable Aircraft Database, master file, file of October 2, 2026. registry.faa.gov/
  2. FAA deregistered aircraft file (part of the same download), file of October 2, 2026. registry.faa.gov/
  3. FAA document index: registry documents received in recent weeks, file of October 2, 2026. registry.faa.gov/
  4. NTSB aviation accident database (CAROL), records through August 27, 2026. data.ntsb.gov/carol-main-public/basic-search

This automated check reads the public federal record. Nothing here is a legal opinion, an appraisal or a statement about the aircraft's condition; a CLEAR line is a statement about the searched record, not the aircraft.

Source: FAA Civil Aviation Registry, Releasable Aircraft Database, October 2, 2026. See this record on the FAA site · This record as data