Medema/Balloon Works FIREFLY 7
N5182U is a Medema/Balloon Works FIREFLY 7, a balloon with no engine, built in 1987. It has 3 seats. It is registered to co-owned owners in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. The registration is valid: it was issued on November 20, 2025 and expires on November 30, 2032. It holds an experimental airworthiness certificate for racing, dated September 19, 2007.
Aircraft
- Maker
- Medema/Balloon Works
- Model
- FIREFLY 7
- Serial number
- 114
- Type
- Balloon
- Power
- None · None NONE
- Seats
- 3
- Year built
- 1987
- Transponder code
- A681D8 (octal 51500730)
Registration
- Status
- Valid registration
- Certificate issued
- November 20, 2025
- Expires
- November 30, 2032
- Last FAA action
- June 23, 2026
- Airworthiness
- Experimental · Racing · September 19, 2007
- FAA region
- Southwestern
- FAA record id
- 00814141
Owner as the FAA publishes it
- Name
- Scott Michael R
- Type
- Co-owned
- Address
- 285 Tigris Rd NE
Rio Rancho, NM 87124-4802 - Co-owners
- Scott Josephine R
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 2
Records check free · 3 to understand · 2 clear
The public federal record on N5182U, 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 Scott Michael R, a co-owned, certificate issued November 20, 2025, expires November 30, 2032. No fractional interest recorded. [1]
The airworthiness certificate on file is dated September 19, 2007, 20 years after the 1987 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 114 for this model in the deregistered file. [2]
N5182U was previously assigned to 2 other aircraft: Cessna 172RG (serial 172RG0276, cancelled May 16, 1980); Cessna 206 (serial 206-0182, cancelled May 26, 1964). 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]
1 NTSB record under N5182U: Accident on September 15, 1991 at Baytown, TX: serious injuries. 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: Barnes AX 7 · operated under 091
THE CREWMEMBERS IMPROPER POSTURE DURING LANDING WHICH LED TO A SERIOUS INJURY.
Search the NTSB's CAROL system for FTW91LA161 for the docket and final report. Open CAROL
- 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