Piper J3C-50
N23161 is a Piper J3C-50, a fixed-wing airplane with one motor with a piston engine, built in 1939. It has 2 seats. It is registered to Shawver Aviation LLC, an LLC in Knoxville, Iowa. The registration is valid: it was issued on September 9, 2026 and expires on September 30, 2033. It holds a standard airworthiness certificate for normal, dated April 24, 1961.
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Flight history: where it flew in the last seven days · follow it on the live map
Aircraft
- Maker
- Piper
- Model
- J3C-50 · all J3C-50s and related versions
- Built of
- steel tube and fabricThe fuselage is a welded steel-tube frame covered in fabric, with metal or wooden wing spars under fabric-covered wings; the fabric is replaced every few decades. This is how the Piper J-3 Cub family is built; the FAA does not record construction for each aircraft, and the type certificate data sheet is the authority for this one.
- Serial number
- 2943
- Type
- Fixed-wing, single engineFAA type of aircraft code 4 (the FAA's broad category for the airframe). Every aircraft with this code · All codes
- Power
- Piston (reciprocating)FAA type of engine code 1 (what powers it, as the FAA classes engines). Every aircraft with this code · All codes, 1 motor · Cont Motor C85 SERIES · 85 hp
- Seats
- 2
- Year built
- 1939
- Cruising speed
- 67 mph
- Transponder code
- A20F7B (octal 50407573)
Registration
- Status
- Valid registrationFAA registration status code V (whether the registration certificate is in force). Every aircraft with this code · All codes
- Certificate issued
- September 9, 2026
- Expires
- September 30, 2033
- Last FAA action
- September 9, 2026
- Airworthiness
- StandardFAA airworthiness class code 1 (the kind of airworthiness certificate it flies under and what it is approved for). Every aircraft with this code · All codes · NormalFAA certificate purpose code N (the kind of airworthiness certificate it flies under and what it is approved for). All codes · April 24, 1961
- FAA region
- CentralFAA region code 3 (the FAA regional office that handles the record). All codes
- FAA record id
- 00046028
Owner as the FAA publishes it
- Name
- Shawver Aviation LLC
- Type
- LLCFAA type of owner code 7 (who holds the registration: a person, a company, a trust or a government body). Every aircraft with this code · All codes
- Address
- 1770 S Lincoln St
Knoxville, IA 50138-1771
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.
Connections how N23161 links to the rest of the register
- Piper J-3 Cub 3,806 registered
- Piper 44,847 aircraft on the register
- Built of steel tube and fabric · as the model family is built; the register does not record it per aircraft
- Continental C85 series 4,671 aircraft with this engine series · 85 hp
- Shawver Aviation LLC 5 aircraft in the fleet
- Knoxville, IA 28 aircraft registered in this town
- Knoxville Municipal · OXV
- Iowa 4,503 aircraft registered
- FAA orders naming the Piper J-3 Cub 19 airworthiness directives
- Failure reports filed on the Piper J-3 Cub 46 reports since 1995
- Approved modifications for the Piper J-3 Cub 241 supplemental type certificates
- FAA orders naming the Continental C85 series 7 airworthiness directives
- Failure reports on the Continental C85 series 12 reports since 1995
The whole map of how records connect · these connections as data: /graph/aircraft/N23161.json.
Records check free · 2 to understand · 3 clear
The public federal record on N23161, 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.
Valid registration to Shawver Aviation LLC, an LLC, certificate issued September 9, 2026, expires September 30, 2033. No fractional interest recorded. [1]
The airworthiness certificate on file is dated April 24, 1961, 22 years after the 1939 manufacture year. A re-issued certificate commonly follows export and re-import, a rebuild, or a return to the register after cancellation. The cause is documented in the FAA aircraft records file, which the full report obtains. [1]
No earlier tail number is recorded against serial 2943 for this model in the deregistered file. [2]
No other airframe has carried N23161 according to the deregistered file. [2]
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]
1 NTSB record under N23161: Accident on June 26, 2023 at Elbert, CO: minor injuries, substantial damage. Details below. [4]
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.
AD compliance against the logbooks and flight-activity reconciliation are researched layers of the full report.
NTSB records 1
Aircraft on the NTSB record: Piper J3C-50 · operated under 091
The pilot's loss of directional control during takeoff and subsequent excessive use of brakes which resulted in a nose-over. Contributing to the accident was his decision to takeoff downwind.
Full record in plain English · Docket and reports at the NTSB
- FAA Releasable Aircraft Database, master file, file of October 23, 2026. registry.faa.gov/
- FAA deregistered aircraft file (part of the same download), file of October 23, 2026. registry.faa.gov/
- FAA document index: registry documents received in recent weeks, file of October 23, 2026. registry.faa.gov/
- NTSB aviation accident database (CAROL), records through September 30, 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 23, 2026. See this record on the FAA site · This record as data