The U.S. aircraft register, updated daily
A General Atomics MQ-9, the same model family as N870NA
A General Atomics MQ-9 like this one, not N870NA itself. Photo: Lt. Col. Leslie Pratt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Operator or owner? Send your own picture.
Drone · FAA record as of November 11, 2026
N870NA

General Atomics MQ9PREDATORBUHK97000

ValidFAA registration status code V: Valid registration. All codesDefense dronesCalifornia
Records check, free: 1 to understand, 4 clear

N870NA is a General Atomics MQ9PREDATORBUHK97000, a fixed-wing airplane with one motor with turboprop engines. It is unmanned. It is registered to NASA Neil A Armstrong Flight Research Center, a government body in Edwards, California. The registration is valid: it was issued on February 27, 2008 and expires on July 31, 2029. No airworthiness certificate is on file, which is normal for drones and for aircraft still being built or tested.

Aircraft

Maker
General Atomics (United States)
FAA spelling: GENERAL ATOMICS AERO SYSTEMS
Model
MQ9PREDATORBUHK97000 · all MQ9PREDATORBUHK97000s and related versions
Built of
carbon fibre and plastic
A drone: a carbon-fibre or moulded plastic frame carrying electric motors, batteries and the flight computer. A large military drone with a composite airframe. This is how the General Atomics MQ-9 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
04870
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
TurbopropFAA type of engine code 2 (what powers it, as the FAA classes engines). Every aircraft with this code · All codes, 1 motor
Seats
0
Year built
Not given
Transponder code
ABF783 (octal 52773603)

Registration

Status
Valid registrationFAA registration status code V (whether the registration certificate is in force). Every aircraft with this code · All codes
Certificate issued
February 27, 2008
Expires
July 31, 2029
Last FAA action
August 18, 2023
Airworthiness
None on file
FAA region
Western-PacificFAA region code 4 (the FAA regional office that handles the record). All codes
FAA record id
01001511

Owner as the FAA publishes it

Name
NASA Neil A Armstrong Flight Research Center
Type
GovernmentFAA type of owner code 5 (who holds the registration: a person, a company, a trust or a government body). Every aircraft with this code · All codes
Address
Attn: James e Coleman III
PO Box 273
Edwards, CA 93523-0273

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 N870NA links to the rest of the register

Design
Owner
Place
  • Edwards, CA 38 aircraft registered in this town
  • California 28,158 aircraft registered
Record
Analytics

The whole map of how records connect · these connections as data: /graph/aircraft/N870NA.json.

Records check free · 1 to understand · 4 clear

The public federal record on N870NA, 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.

CLEARRegistration and identity

Valid registration to NASA Neil A Armstrong Flight Research Center, a government body, certificate issued February 27, 2008, expires July 31, 2029. No fractional interest recorded. [1]

ATTENTIONAirworthiness certificate

No airworthiness certificate is on file. Usual for a newly registered aircraft, a project, or an aircraft that has not flown since a change of registration; ask for the certificate. [1]

CLEARPrior registrations of this airframe

No earlier tail number is recorded against serial 04870 for this model in the deregistered file. [2]

CLEARTail number reuse

No other airframe has carried N870NA according to the deregistered file. [2]

NOTERecent registry documents

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]

CLEARAccident and incident record

No NTSB investigation records located under N870NA. CLEAR means the query ran and returned nothing, not that nothing ever happened. [4]

PENDINGTitle chain, liens and 337 forms

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.

PENDINGAirworthiness directives and utilization

AD compliance against the logbooks and flight-activity reconciliation are researched layers of the full report.

CLEAR the source was checked and shows no adverse findingATTENTION a fact a buyer or lender should understand, often routineNOTE context onlyPENDING covered by the full report
  1. FAA Releasable Aircraft Database, master file, file of November 11, 2026. registry.faa.gov/
  2. FAA deregistered aircraft file (part of the same download), file of November 11, 2026. registry.faa.gov/
  3. FAA document index: registry documents received in recent weeks, file of November 11, 2026. registry.faa.gov/
  4. 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.

Request the full report for N870NAWhat the full report adds

Source: FAA Civil Aviation Registry, Releasable Aircraft Database, November 11, 2026. See this record on the FAA site · This record as data