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Registered aircraft · FAA record as of November 9, 2026Sportavia Putzer RF5B SPERBER
N55BG is a Sportavia Putzer RF5B SPERBER, a glider with a piston engine, built in 1972. It has 2 seats. It is registered to an individual in New Oxford, Pennsylvania. The registration is valid: it was issued on November 5, 1990 and expires on October 31, 2028. It holds an experimental airworthiness certificate for exhibition, dated April 30, 1980.
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Aircraft
- Maker
- Sportavia Putzer
- Model
- RF5B SPERBER · all RF5B SPERBERs and related versions
- Built of
- steel tube, wood and fabricA welded steel-tube fuselage and wooden wings, all covered in fabric: the construction of the 1930s and 1940s, which makes wood rot and fabric age the inspection items. The Fournier motor gliders: all wood. This is how the Sportavia-Putzer RF5 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
- 51006
- Type
- GliderFAA type of aircraft code 1 (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 · Limbach 1700E · 68 hp
- Fuel
- 100LL avgas; the engine's maker also approves mogas, UL91, UL94
- Seats
- 2
- Year built
- 1972
- Cruising speed
- 60 mph
- Transponder code
- A6FD32 (octal 51576462)
Registration
- Status
- Valid registrationFAA registration status code V (whether the registration certificate is in force). Every aircraft with this code · All codes
- Certificate issued
- November 5, 1990
- Expires
- October 31, 2028
- Last FAA action
- June 16, 2023
- Airworthiness
- ExperimentalFAA airworthiness class code 4 (the kind of airworthiness certificate it flies under and what it is approved for). Every aircraft with this code · All codes · ExhibitionFAA certificate purpose code 3 (the kind of airworthiness certificate it flies under and what it is approved for). All codes · April 30, 1980
- FAA region
- EasternFAA region code 1 (the FAA regional office that handles the record). All codes
- FAA record id
- 00713365
Owner as the FAA publishes it
- Name
- Chick James e
- Type
- IndividualFAA type of owner code 1 (who holds the registration: a person, a company, a trust or a government body). Every aircraft with this code · All codes
- Address
- 13 Hearthside Dr #102
New Oxford, PA 17350
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 N55BG links to the rest of the register
- Sportavia-Putzer RF5 8 registered
- Sportavia Putzer 8 aircraft on the register
- Built of steel tube, wood and fabric · as the model family is built; the register does not record it per aircraft
- Limbach 1700E 17 aircraft with this engine series · 68 hp
- New Oxford, PA 11 aircraft registered in this town
- Pennsylvania 6,194 aircraft registered
The whole map of how records connect · these connections as data: /graph/aircraft/N55BG.json.
Records check free · 1 to understand · 4 clear
The public federal record on N55BG, 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 Chick James e, an individual, certificate issued November 5, 1990, expires October 31, 2028. No fractional interest recorded. [1]
The airworthiness certificate on file is dated April 30, 1980, 8 years after the 1972 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 51006 for this model in the deregistered file. [2]
No other airframe has carried N55BG 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]
No NTSB investigation records located under N55BG. 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 November 9, 2026. registry.faa.gov/
- FAA deregistered aircraft file (part of the same download), file of November 9, 2026. registry.faa.gov/
- FAA document index: registry documents received in recent weeks, file of November 9, 2026. registry.faa.gov/
- NTSB aviation accident database (CAROL), records through October 28, 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, November 9, 2026. See this record on the FAA site · This record as data