Balloon Works FIREFLY 8B
N3741X is a Balloon Works FIREFLY 8B, a balloon with no engine, built in 1983. It has 1 seat. It is registered to an individual in Groton, Connecticut. The registration is valid: it was issued on September 20, 2007 and expires on July 31, 2028. It holds an experimental airworthiness certificate for research and development, dated June 24, 1991.
Aircraft
- Maker
- Balloon Works
- Model
- FIREFLY 8B · all FIREFLY 8Bs and related versions
- Serial number
- F8B-001
- Type
- Balloon
- Power
- None · None NONE
- Seats
- 1
- Year built
- 1983
- Transponder code
- A44538 (octal 51042470)
Registration
- Status
- Valid registration
- Certificate issued
- September 20, 2007
- Expires
- July 31, 2028
- Last FAA action
- May 26, 2023
- Airworthiness
- Experimental · Research and development · June 24, 1991
- FAA region
- New England
- FAA record id
- 00431444
Owner as the FAA publishes it
- Name
- Silva Richard W
- Type
- Individual
- Address
- 95 Corey Rd
Groton, CT 06340-4303
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 1
Records check free · 2 to understand · 3 clear
The public federal record on N3741X, 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 Silva Richard W, an individual, certificate issued September 20, 2007, expires July 31, 2028. No fractional interest recorded. [1]
The airworthiness certificate on file is dated June 24, 1991, 8 years after the 1983 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 F8B-001 for this model in the deregistered file. [2]
N3741X was previously assigned to 1 other aircraft: Aero Commander 100-180 (serial 5051, cancelled December 30, 1975). Histories keyed to the tail number alone can mix aircraft up; this check keys on the serial number. [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]
No NTSB investigation records located under N3741X. CLEAR means the query ran and returned nothing, not that nothing ever happened. [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.
- FAA Releasable Aircraft Database, master file, file of October 2, 2026. registry.faa.gov/
- FAA deregistered aircraft file (part of the same download), file of October 2, 2026. registry.faa.gov/
- FAA document index: registry documents received in recent weeks, file of October 2, 2026. registry.faa.gov/
- 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