19,450 Cessna 172 Skyhawks are currently on the FAA registry — more than any other single aircraft family in the country. Production ran from the 172's 1956 debut through nineteen distinct model designators still flying today: the early straight-tail 172 (1,806), the classic 172M (3,581) and 172N (3,140) of the 1970s Skyhawk boom, the fuel-injected 172S (1,914) that anchors most modern flight schools, the retractable-gear 172RG Cutlass (447), and models spanning every letter from 172A through 172R in between.
Why a 45-plus-year production run makes a history check matter more
A 172 built in the 1970s has typically passed through several owners and flight schools by now, and a high-hours trainer airframe is exactly the kind of aircraft most likely to have an incident buried in its past — a hard landing, a prop strike, a gear-up. Because the FAA reissues a cancelled N-number to a new airframe after five years (14 CFR 47.15/47.17), and because some 172s have been re-registered after a rebuild, a search of the CURRENT tail number alone can miss an accident that happened under a PRIOR tail — or, just as easily, attribute a different airframe's accident to the one you're buying. A serial-number cross-match is the only way to tell the two apart.
What a $79 report adds
Current FAA registration status, prior registrants, recent FAA filings (bills of sale, security agreements/liens), full NTSB accident and incident history, and the serial-number cross-match that catches an accident hiding under a prior tail number.
Check a specific tail number
Use our free tail-number lookup to check registration status and a summary of what a full report would show, or see our used aircraft pre-purchase checklist for what to budget alongside a history check.