American Champion Aircraft 8GCBC
N778AC is an American Champion Aircraft 8GCBC, a fixed-wing airplane with one motor with a piston engine, built in 1997. It has 3 seats. It is registered to co-owned owners in Willcox, Arizona. The registration is valid: it was issued on October 20, 2022 and expires on October 31, 2029. It holds a standard airworthiness certificate for normal, dated May 6, 1997.
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Flight history: where it flew in the last seven days · follow it on the live map
Aircraft
- Maker
- American Champion Aircraft
- Model
- 8GCBC · all 8GCBCs 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. Metal wing spars on American Champion production. This is how the American Champion Aircraft 8 Decathlon and Scout 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
- 381-97
- 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 · Lycoming 0-360-A1D · 180 hp
- Seats
- 3
- Year built
- 1997
- Transponder code
- AA86C2 (octal 52503302)
Registration
- Status
- Valid registrationFAA registration status code V (whether the registration certificate is in force). Every aircraft with this code · All codes
- Certificate issued
- October 20, 2022
- Expires
- October 31, 2029
- Last FAA action
- September 9, 2023
- 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 · May 6, 1997
- FAA region
- Western-PacificFAA region code 4 (the FAA regional office that handles the record). All codes
- FAA record id
- 00046401
Owner as the FAA publishes it
- Name
- Schaefer Timothy R
- Type
- Co-ownedFAA type of owner code 4 (who holds the registration: a person, a company, a trust or a government body). Every aircraft with this code · All codes
- Address
- PO Box 968
Willcox, AZ 85644-0968 - Co-owners
- Schaefer Lisa C
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 N778AC links to the rest of the register
- American Champion Aircraft 8 Decathlon and Scout 672 registered
- American Champion Aircraft 1,101 aircraft on the register
- Built of steel tube and fabric · as the model family is built; the register does not record it per aircraft
- Lycoming O-360-A1D 1,057 aircraft with this engine series · 180 hp
- Type certificate A21CE · held by American Champion Aircraft CORP
- Willcox, AZ 39 aircraft registered in this town
- Cochise County · P33
- Arizona 8,418 aircraft registered
- FAA orders naming the American Champion Aircraft 8 Decathlon and Scout 24 airworthiness directives
- Approved modifications for the American Champion Aircraft 8 Decathlon and Scout 105 supplemental type certificates
- FAA orders naming the Lycoming O-360-A1D 25 airworthiness directives
- Failure reports on the Lycoming O-360-A1D 82 reports since 1995
- Report filed on this aircraft: Bolt, improper part · 1998-09-04
- Report filed on this aircraft: Fuel Line, damaged · 1998-08-15
- Report filed on this aircraft: Line, chafed · 1998-08-12
The whole map of how records connect · these connections as data: /graph/aircraft/N778AC.json.
Records check free · 0 to understand · 5 clear
The public federal record on N778AC, 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 Schaefer Timothy R, a co-owned, certificate issued October 20, 2022, expires October 31, 2029. No fractional interest recorded. [1]
Standard certificate for normal, dated May 6, 1997, consistent with the 1997 manufacture year. [1]
No earlier tail number is recorded against serial 381-97 for this model in the deregistered file. [2]
No other airframe has carried N778AC 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 N778AC. 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 27, 2026. registry.faa.gov/
- FAA deregistered aircraft file (part of the same download), file of October 27, 2026. registry.faa.gov/
- FAA document index: registry documents received in recent weeks, file of October 27, 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 27, 2026. See this record on the FAA site · This record as data