No free picture of N5W or its model is known to the site yet; spotters' pictures may be on Planespotters · JetPhotos · Airliners.net. Operator or owner? Send your own picture.
Registered aircraft · FAA record as of October 23, 2026Piccard AX-5
N5W is a Piccard AX-5, a balloon with no engine, built in 1967. It has 1 seat. It is registered to an individual in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The registration is valid: it was issued on March 25, 2020 and expires on March 31, 2030. It holds an experimental airworthiness certificate for amateur built, dated September 27, 1982.
Where is it now checking the live feed…
Checking the volunteer receiver network for a recent position…
Aircraft broadcast their own position; volunteer receivers pool what they hear. Owners who have asked the FAA not to be displayed are not shown.
Flight history: where it flew in the last seven days · follow it on the live map
Aircraft
- Maker
- Piccard
- Model
- AX-5
- Serial number
- 18
- Type
- BalloonFAA type of aircraft code 2 (the FAA's broad category for the airframe). Every aircraft with this code · All codes
- Power
- NoneFAA type of engine code 0 (what powers it, as the FAA classes engines). Every aircraft with this code · All codes · None NONE
- Seats
- 1
- Year built
- 1967
- Cruising speed
- 60 mph
- Transponder code
- A63732 (octal 51433462)
Registration
- Status
- Valid registrationFAA registration status code V (whether the registration certificate is in force). Every aircraft with this code · All codes
- Certificate issued
- March 25, 2020
- Expires
- March 31, 2030
- Last FAA action
- October 13, 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 · Amateur builtFAA certificate purpose code 2 (the kind of airworthiness certificate it flies under and what it is approved for). All codes · September 27, 1982
- FAA region
- Great LakesFAA region code C (the FAA regional office that handles the record). All codes
- FAA record id
- 00540865
Owner as the FAA publishes it
- Name
- Eckmeier Charles D
- 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
- 5008 Harriet Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55419
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
Connections how N5W links to the rest of the register
- Piccard 17 aircraft on the register
- Minneapolis, MN 170 aircraft registered in this town
- Anoka County/Blaine (Janes Field) · ANE
- Crystal Airport · MIC
- Flying Cloud Airport · FCM
- Minneapolis-St Paul Intl/Wold-Chamberlain Airport · MSP
- 1 more landing places in town
- Minnesota 6,933 aircraft registered
The whole map of how records connect · these connections as data: /graph/aircraft/N5W.json.
Records check free · 2 to understand · 3 clear
The public federal record on N5W, 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 Eckmeier Charles D, an individual, certificate issued March 25, 2020, expires March 31, 2030. No fractional interest recorded. [1]
The airworthiness certificate on file is dated September 27, 1982, 15 years after the 1967 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 18 for this model in the deregistered file. [2]
N5W was previously assigned to 1 other aircraft: Gliders Inc PT GLIDER NO 1 (serial 1, cancelled November 1, 1931). 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 N5W. 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 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