TOP OF THE DOCUMENT

To best utilise this document, on the top bar, click ‘View’, then
click ‘Show outline’, this will bring up a sidebar to which you can
then go to the different sources.

(Image is from me)

Do you want to find a tail number/registration of a flight

you did in the past? Here is a list of sources you can

😉
look at to try and help you find it. Need more assistance
(or want me to try and do it for you )? Message me on
Discord: 𝓟𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖚#9902 and I can help with your hunt for
the tail number(s). (Make sure it’s those fancy
characters copied when searching for me).

If there are any more sources, no matter how

scarce/incomplete they are, please absolutely let me
know, and I will add them in. This doc is updated fairly
often. Look for (NEW) for newly added sources! This
tag will get deleted after a bit. The more sources the
better!

ALSO NOTE: ‘Tail number’ and ‘registration’ are

used interchangeably in this doc, and they mean the
same thing here, so if you see either of them, then
they are referring to the same thing.

Things you should have (Plus tips for finding such

information):
-Date of departure | If you don’t really have this, then it will be quite difficult, in fact near on
impossible to find.

-Flight number | This is a very helpful piece of information. If you just use the departure
(and/or arrival) date plus the flight number, there’s a solid chance you’ll find what you’re
looking for. As you will shortly find out, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t have it; it’s
definitely still possible to find the tail number without it, but having the flight number makes
life so. much. easier! If you don’t have the flight number, then fear not as there are ways of
obtaining it further down below.

-Scheduled/actual departure time | If you have the flight number, then this might not be
necessary, but it will be useful to provide nonetheless to account for delays (NOTE: some
flights depart near to midnight and end up having delays, so they actually fly the next day.
You may need to account for this. A good example is SQ282 AKL-SIN, which departs around
midnight, sometimes before, sometimes afterwards).

-If you don’t have the flight number or departure time, BUT you have the date, then think
back to the flight. Was it an early morning flight, or late afternoon? Was there light outside, or
was it pitch black? Have a rough idea of the time your flight would have departed. Of course
the more specific the better. But you can still get decently far with this (I know I have). If
there was a connection, then think about how much time you would have had to connect
onwards, especially for international flights.

-Departure AND arrival airports | Obviously! If you don’t have this, and I’d be surprised if you
didn’t, then you can find it through the flight number reasonably easily (but beware flight
numbers change routes …or vice versa I guess). If you don’t have either, then you’re
completely out of luck, I’m afraid.
-Look at old emails, be it your parents or yours, if possible. Look for Microsoft Outlook files, if
on Windows, as they are essentially email backup files that you can open on Outlook.
Regardless, use the search function if available to your advantage. Search up airlines, flight
numbers, the place of origin and/or destination, and so on and so forth. You may come
across itineraries for these flights which I can guarantee you will include flight number, date
of departure, scheduled departure/arrival times, and can oftentimes even feature aircraft
type and departure terminal too, if that’s your thing.

-Alternatively, look through the house to see if you still have plane tickets or printed
itineraries lying around somewhere (or probably stored away). Look in the area where you
keep your travel memories (if applicable) or documents or whatever and you may stumble
upon plane tickets or printed itineraries.

-Aircraft type | This could come in handy, however don’t worry if you don’t know this, though,
as it will be discovered upon the discovery of the tail number if it is found anyway.

The more details of the flight you have, the easier it will be to find the tail number for. But do
not fret if you still don’t have all the exact details, you can still work around it.

Here are some tips for hunting:

1: Try and find your/relative’s/friend’s photos.

If you look at the nose gear (or sometimes above the cockpit), sometimes it may spell out
parts of the tail number (or the fleet number, which you can look up to get the tail number.
Look up the aircraft+airline to see the registration pattern to fill in the blanks. Alternatively,
you may have a photo of the rear of the plane. This is almost always where the
registration/tail number is (NOTE for Taiwan: The registration/tail number is usually also
located at the front of the plane as well as the rear). Registrations can be found on top of or
underneath the wings also, so look out for that.

Even if you cannot find the tail number from the photo(s), it can still tell you a lot of
information (pictures speak a thousand words so they say). This includes, but is not limited
to, aircraft type, airport, or date and/or time of day/night (whether it be departure, mid flight,
or arrival).

That last point is a very useful thing to remember. This is because, if your camera at the time
had the clock/time on the correct setting, then you can use it to find the time of departure, to
which then you can find the flight number. With this tip, be mindful for an international flight
that crosses one or more timezones, because your camera may have still been in the
departure airport’s timezone. However, if your camera had incorrect clock settings, then this
data on the photo/photo file could be misleading if off by a few days, or even just a few
hours. It could lead to you getting the wrong flight number, and therefore the wrong plane, so
don’t always rely on the photo time/date whilst hunting for your tail numbers. If your photo
has a completely wrong date/time (i.e. off by many years), then disregard this time tip. You’ll
be able to tell this from whether the time of the photo file is at the beginning of some random
year at midnight, even if the photo is in the late-morning for example, or if it’s off by a long
time, and you know when that photo/those photos were actually taken.

2: Check overflight sources of places you may have flown

above/near
Of course you should check sources for the departure/arrival airports, but also, you should
look at sources from places your flight may have flown over. (The Sydney ‘16Right’ one
down below is a great example of this. Using its historic ACARS/ADS-B search, you can find
some New Zealand-Asia and vice versa flights ie AKL-SIN that would’ve flown above the
Sydney area and Melbourne-Pacific/USA). This may not apply if the source does not feature
ACARS (or equivalent) data.

For this, I advise you to check the estimated departure/arrival times (which will more often
than not be in the local timezone to the airports) and calculate what time the flight would
have flown above the source, REMEMBER to account for change of day in many overnight
flights. This will be harder if you don’t have the flight number, but for this, look at the other
tips/tricks to work around this. Remember most trans-Atlantic flights from the US/Canada to
Europe leave at night/evening and arrive the NEXT morning in Europe.

3: Look for the inverse flight and then study the flight pattern.
What I mean by this is that you should look at the flight arriving at the airport if you cannot
find the departing one. Vice versa if the flight departs from (one of) the airline’s hub airport.
And what I mean by ‘study the flight pattern’ is that you need to see whether or not the
aircraft operating the flight (for example arriving) at the airport is the same as the one (e.g.
departing). Look at the arrival/departure times for the flights and you should be able to tell
whether or not the arriving flight is/was operated by the same aircraft (you can use common
sense/logical thinking to tell if there was enough time to do all of the ground procedures
between flights such as cleaning, baggage, etc. Anything less than 20-30 minutes between
the arriving flight and departing flight means it probably isn’t your plane. Less than 30
minutes for a long haul flight means that the plane is almost definitely not your flight).

In short, if you cannot find your departing flight, look for the arriving flight (or vice versa) and
research to see if it would have been operated by the same airframe.

4: Remember time zones.

When looking at the worldwide ACARS, remember the time zone differences and the fact it
may be in UTC time. Take this tip into consideration as it may leave you with more than one
result, or maybe even the wrong result. You also have to remember that some flights leave
one one day and arrive the next day, or, in the case of US/Canada-Australia & NZ flights 2
days after the departure date.

5: Look at timetables/flight scheduling for etd/eta/aircraft type

If you have the flight number, but not the etd/eta (estimated time of departure/arrival), or vice
versa, then it may help to try and find timetables of the flight. These may even help pinpoint
the flight you flew on even without either info. Here are some down below:

1) My ZIP file of various timetables I have found online:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W7MtdHnWf4DZnM16Vph73NLns5e--S8Q/view?usp
=sharing

2) Lufthansa callsigns guide. Note that LH/DLH callsigns might change over the years;
this is best for around mid-late 2000s I would like to say.
https://vatil.org.il/forum/topic/16394-all-lufthy-callsignsflights/

3) Qantas 2018 (This one will download to your device)

https://pdf4pro.com/cdn/terms-of-use-qantas-4a0528.pdf

4) Qantas SEP14-OCT14
http://peterseniordrivecommunity.weebly.com/uploads/4/0/5/7/40574255/welcome_pa
ck_to_residents.pdf

5) Airline memorabilia blog https://airline-memorabilia.blogspot.com/

6) Departed Flights (Not being updated, see Departed Flights 2 down below)
http://www.departedflights.com/index.html
 7) Departed Flights 2 https://departedflights2.com/

8) Airline timetable images (WARNING: I think most images are just the cover, not any
of the information inside of the timetables)
http://timetableimages.com/ttimages/complete/complete.htm

9) My document of Air NZ timetables

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GA9oUuBJFBYBBUEavU4hPrnAZXYrRTqjSB
7hFoND58M/edit?usp=sharing

10) Northwest Timetables can be found here:

https://northwestairlineshistory.org/timetables-northwest/

11) Check Ebay (or other online auction websites) for timetable images. Many will
include a couple of photos of the inside of the timetable. Be quick though! Almost all
of them are not up forever, and many are gone in about a week or so!

12) Check out this daily aircraft movements timetable from Singapore from 31 August
1985
https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/biztimes19850831-1.2.12.
3?ST=1&AT=filter&DF=&DT=&AO=false&NPT=&L=&CTA=&NID=&CT=&WC=&YR=1
985&K=DAILY+AIRCRAFT+MOVEMENTS&KA=DAILY+AIRCRAFT+MOVEMENTS&
P=8&Display=0&filterS=0&QT=daily,aircraft,movements&oref=article\
This one below is from 3rd September 1985
https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/biztimes19850903-1.2.16.
7?ST=1&AT=filter&DF=&DT=&AO=false&NPT=&L=&CTA=&NID=&CT=&WC=&YR=1
985&K=DAILY+AIRCRAFT+MOVEMENTS&KA=DAILY+AIRCRAFT+MOVEMENTS&
P=7&Display=0&filterS=0&QT=daily,aircraft,movements&oref=article

13) Phuket Airport 1992 departures/arrivals. Note: You will need to scroll a little bit, but
includes flight number, time of arrival/departure, and days of the week operated on
https://openjicareport.jica.go.jp/pdf/11112604_02.pdf

You can do some further research to find the airline that you need. Try the wayback machine
to see if you have any luck there.

6: Test your luck with the various aircraft photo websites.

I mean, it’s unlikely that your exact flight will be on there (especially with nighttime flights),
but it’s worth a shot.
(If NZ, check these blogs too, they could come in handy maybe):
http://mrcaviation.blogspot.com/2007/09/north-island-notables-august-2007.html
https://flyinggeek.blogspot.com/2012/07/airliners-at-wellington.html
http://nzcivair.blogspot.com/
http://3rdlevelnz.blogspot.com/
These sites could come in handy somehow

Examples include:
https://www.jetphotos.com/
https://www.airliners.net/
https://www.planespotters.net/
https://www.airplane-pictures.net/
https://www.planepictures.net/v3/index_en.php
https://www.airhistory.net/

Some pics feature a description. Pay attention to these incase it has flight info!

7: Research the various airframes.

Let me explain.

For example, if you flew on a Qantas 767 back in 2013, then, in finding the exact one you
flew on, you should research what Qantas 767s were still in operation at the time of your
flight. This way, you can eliminate specific planes from your search, and it narrows the list
down, which is a good thing. However, this is a much more useful tip if the fleet of aircraft is
smaller. You also can look for flights operating the same plane BUT on different routes at the
same time as your flight in a process of elimination. You can narrow down the list of potential
aircraft that you flew on that way, and it is very good to keep in mind if worst comes to worst
and you cannot find your plane otherwise. It’s a tried and tested tactic that has worked
before and has its benefits.

8: Useful source for flight times in the EU

If in the EU, you can look up flight times on https://www.euclaim.de/. This site does not give
tail numbers (at least in my experience), but does provide routes and times of departure and
arrival. In my experience,it goes back to around mid-late 2012 ish, but I’ve heard it can go
back to some point in 2011. Don’t count on it going all the way back to 2011, though.

9: Check flight logs.

😂
Unfortunately, it’s quite unlikely that your flight is on there, unless either you added it yourself
(in which case why are you looking at it for info if you already have all the info? ) or some
crazy strange coincidence occurs that someone else was on the same flight as you and
logged it, but hey, it’s worth a shot! But actually, looking at flight logs is more useful than you
may think.
You see, flight logs can provide flight numbers and aircraft types. You can see what types of
aircraft were operating on what routes.
Here are some flight log websites you can look at:

1) Look up myFlightradar24 logs on Google and see what people have (so long as they
are public of course).
Alternatively, if you click/tap on a plane and scroll down to the section where it says
‘travellers’ with the myflightradar24 logo next to it, you may find flight logs that way.
This bit shows the people who have travelled on that particular flight number the
most, with the left most profiles being the people who’ve flown on that flight number
the most.
Here is one for example: https://my.flightradar24.com/Dazza787/flights
It could be useful for domestic NZ flights. (If you are based in Tauranga, then this is a
MUST look at).
Also check out my flight log! https://my.flightradar24.com/yos6 (if your flight is on my
flight log then you MUST contact me as soon as possible! Immediately!)

Tip: Look at the ones who have flown that flight number the most as they tend to be
crew members. Perhaps they serviced you? It’s worth a shot anyhow, and I enjoy
seeing how far they’ve flown and how many times they’ve flown on each particular

😉
type of aircraft. You’ll see some of them have flown on the same type of plane literally
hundreds of times, it’s mind blowing (and makes me wanna do it too! ). Anyway,
back on topic:

2) Check out https://www.airfleets.net/flightlog/search.htm. You can search with specific

terms too.
3) https://www.flugstatistik.de/login/?go=flugdaten suche is another useful source. Here
you can look at ‘compare my flights’, which I’m not sure is a feature on the English
version of this site. Let me know!

4) https://www.flightmemory.com/community/ This one is the same as above but in

English for if you do not speak German (HOWEVER see note on German site above)

5) http://www.aeromoe.com/FLIGHT_LOG.html This one is an interesting one. This

guy’s large flight log

6) https://www.stephencodrington.com/Aviation/
An Australian professor who has done tons of travelling

7) https://ba97.com/report.asp This site is by the YouTuber Wingin’ It Paul Lucas. You

only really get to see the flights by either clicking “Surprise Me!”, or searching up the
person’s username. It’s therefore not the most reliable source on this doc, but it’s
very good fun clicking “Surprise Me!” and seeing what you get!

Please let me know if you have any other sites, and I’ll add them. Or any useful/interesting
flight logs for that matter.
10: Email people/companies

Email/message the airport, airlines, your national ATC company, or national civil aviation
authority and so on. It doesn’t hurt to try, and the worst response you’ll get will be along the
lines of “We do not have that information”, or “That information is not publicly available”. In
fact, this is probably one of the best things you can do out of everything on this entire doc!
Here are some tips I have from when I have tried to do this:

Airlines:
-Eastern Airways straight up says that they do not release the information without any further
explanation. I was impressed, however, by the fact that they responded within minutes when
they estimated a response would take up to 72 hours later. Quickest response I’ve ever
received.
-Air New Zealand has that data dating back five years. But beware of long waits.
-Sounds Air (a small regional airline in New Zealand) gave me the biggest surprise when
they were able to provide two tail numbers from mid-2014, and so I’m not sure how far back
their data goes. It didn’t even take them long to respond to me, either! Good on ya, Sounds
Air!
-Qantas I had lost hope in. I asked in January, had radio silence until April when they
emailed me saying they “hadn’t forgotten about my request”, then emailed me again in June
saying that they would close my case within seven days unless I responded, though I did not
realise that they would automatically close my request until months later. I mean, I admit, I
made a mistake there by not responding, but at the same time, if you email Qantas, don’t
expect a response for months due to how busy they are.

Airports/Aviation authorities/other:
-Auckland Airport advised me to check with the CAA of New Zealand, who in turn told me to
contact the airline as they did not have that data, and then we loop back above to Air New
Zealand, who I had already emailed and received a response from by that point.
-Melbourne Airport was useful in finding a tail number from mid-2011, even providing the
gate number. Granted, they said the tail number was a bit of an estimate, but based on my
research, it seemed the most plausible tail number anyway.
-Aberdeen Airport in Scotland advised that they didn’t have this information and that I should
ask NATS (as of 4/11/22 I am awaiting a response from NATS, I will update this as I get
more responses) (UPDATE 12/11/2022: NATS responded to me saying that they do not have
such information :( ).
-New Plymouth advised me to check with the city council (whom I am awaiting a response
from months later as of 26/07/2023) for data dating before 2017 as the company that
manages the airport was formed in 2017.
-The CAA for both the United Kingdom and New Zealand do not have this sort of information
either

The German forum (link at the bottom of the doc), on page 1 of their forum, has got a list of
airlines/airports that have been contacted and if their response was good or not. I’d advise
against spamming emailing the companies/airports though, as A) usually they are busy with
other stuff, and B) so that we do not make them sick of helping by overloading them with
requests all of the time. We should make requests there sparingly.

11: Flight numbers don’t always look the same, if you know
what I mean. Let me explain:

Remember that you won’t always find a ‘clean’ simple flight number. Sometimes 1-3 digit
flight numbers may have a leading zero (e.g. QF25 = QF025 or QF0025), up to 4 digits long.
You will encounter this especially with ACARS data.
Alternatively, you might encounter a codeshare flight number. For example,
QF3355=BA1306. Itineraries from time to time show off the codeshare flight number rather
than the normal flight number. Do research to find the original flight number, and if it goes
wrong, then compare times of arrival/departure.
Also, remember callsigns are a thing (eg. British Airways domestic routes like LHR-ABZ or
LHR-MAN are operated with BA Shuttle callsigns, e.g. GLA-LHR SHT7R=BA1473).
Callsigns sometimes can be completely different from the flight number, so watch out for
that. Lastly, you might even encounter the airline’s 3-letter code instead of the 2-letter one.
E.g.: QF0114 → QFA114. The three letter code is for the callsign. I have heard warnings
about Lufthansa callsigns changing around too when looking at ACARS data, so be aware.

When looking, consider all of the possible combinations. Such as:

QF0114, QF114, or QFA114. Don’t rely on just one.

12: Go out to town and research

I’ve seen people say to go to your local research centre/library to see if they have any log
books. So do that perhaps if you have time!

13: Advice for ACARS log searching

I would like to give some advice for searching ACARS logs.

Firstly, remember the tip just above this one, tip #12. This is a very important tip to
remember. Also, search the route (e.g. AKL-MEL), however, ALSO search the ICAO airport
codes.

You see, AKL is an IATA code. It’s the one most familiar to most people. But us avgeeks
know that there are ICAO codes. Auckland's one is NZAA. Sometimes in ACARS logs, you
will not just find AKL-MEL, but perhaps NZAA-MEL, or NZAA-YMML. Again, consider all
possible combinations. Routes don’t always show up though.

Also look at the location of the flight. We will use QF0002 LHR-SIN-SYD as an example.
Look at the source location of the log of that flight. Is it over Europe, or is it in Sydney?
Sometimes you will see multiple flights of the same flight number as they are multi-stop
direct flights. In this scenario, look at the location of the flight to receive your answer.
Beware, however, as sometimes it will show the location as [somewhere], which is not really
useful on a multi-stop/direct flight. For non-stop flights, this isn’t as much of an issue, but
multi-stop flights have multiple different locations that span over a few days. So again, just
be careful and perhaps seek advice on one of the forums linked at the bottom of this doc.

14: Look at passport stamps

I’ve found flight details from flights dating back to 1992 through this method. Be warned; not
every country does this, but some countries write the flight number on/next to the passport
stamp. Here’s a list of countries that I know of that do this:
-Thailand is one of the best ones. I’ve even seen the flight number of a domestic flight
written down.
-Philippines does it too
-Papua New Guinea might do this as there is a section on the stamps that says flight/vessel,
but I’ve never seen it filled before. But hey, check it anyway, it won’t hurt.
PLEASE let me know if there are other countries that do this!

But you can still work out a flight you did by looking at one stamp, and then finding another
stamp from the same/next day. Then you can look at flight schedules and see what airlines
operated that route. You might not find the most information through this method, you’ll only
really find out route and maybe airline, aircraft type, and potentially flight number, only if you
look at timetables though.

Useful flight info resources:

https://vatil.org.il/forum/topic/16394-all-lufthy-callsignsflights/
Lufthansa callsigns from 2007.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1woBOznNwXEIc3P5UIVlEbTKSvdZKfp0V4yTPjFs
5Usw/edit#gid=0
My own callsigns/flight times guide

Now let’s get hunting!

Sydney ACARS/ADS-B
https://www.16right.com/spotting/acars?Regno=&Flightno=&ACARSdate=2007%2F02%2F2
5&submit=SEARCH
Goes back from 2005/2006 ish until 2012. Warning: 2007 may be incomplete.
Features some ACARS for the Sydney area up until 2012
https://adsb.16right.com/logs
Goes back from the present day to 2012 but covers years that the above one doesn’t cover,
and is the updated one for the present date.

Both feature a number of flights that fly past Sydney, be it above or near (Such as NZ-Asia,
NZ-Perth, NZ-Melbourne, Melbourne-USA, etc.) but it can be a bit of a hit or miss as to
whether it shows up or not. AKL-SIN & AKL-Middle East flights often show up, though.

London Heathrow/Gatwick plus ACARS/SBS

http://www.lhr-lgw.co.uk/archive-main-munu.html

Features Heathrow departures/arrivals back to the 1960s. Be warned, pre 2000s, flights are
scarce and grow scarcer the further back in time you go (early-mid 90s only show arrivals).
Gatwick is the same but this goes back to ~1970s. This source is great as it features ACARS
from the 1990s-early 2010s, and SBS from 2006 to the present day. This is excellent for
trans-Atlantic flights. But, if you’re lucky, there may be some Europe-Asia flights featured
too and rarely some North Sea flights. This is one of the best sources there is by far.

Note: a lot of the 1990s for LHR feature arriving flights ONLY, so you will need to be mindful
when looking.

Also pre 2000s data for Gatwick gets really limited too. There are not as many results.
Gatwick also doesn’t tend to feature the airport the flight arrived from/departed to except for
throughout the 2000s. Even a lot of the years during the 90s are quite empty.

~1960s-present

2002-2005* ACARS Logs

*Goes to 2013, but beyond 2005 doesn’t really exist much at all.
http://www.qth.net/pipermail/acarslogs/

One of the best sources for early-mid 2000s. Though remember, beyond 2004/2005
basically doesn’t exist.
1998-2001 ACARS Logs
http://mailman.qth.net/

Go to List Archives, then click the link, then go down to ACARSLogs, there you will be on the
2001 ACARS Logs, but you can go down to the years prior at the bottom.

One of the best sources for the late 90s/very early 2000s. Can feel incomplete at times, but
we’ll take everything we can get for this time period anyway.

Skymaster ACARS Logs (Wayback) (NEW)

https://web.archive.org/web/20001020000355/http://www.skymaster.freeuk.com/

March 1999-January 2000, with the exception of November 1999. You can download March,
June, July, December, and January as zip files, it just depends what day you select on the
Wayback Machine, perhaps the other months are available too? This source will surely come
in handy to someone. I think it’s ACARS of the United Kingdom.

ACARSD Logs (Wayback)

https://www.acarsd.org/world_ACARS_reports.html

You cannot use the link above directly unfortunately, due to outdated website stuff (I’m not
100% why since I’m not a website programmer). So, in order to access the data from this
site you need to use the Wayback Machine. This is a very useful tool for tail number hunting
as you will see later on. Then you will have to either download the .zip files from the site
(basically all of them are archived so you will be able to download them) or click on the text
link to open in the browser (to my knowledge, all of the days/years except for 2015 and I
think 2014 are not included). Here is the link to where you need so you don’t have to search
around for it:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180425185655/http://www.acarsd.org/world_ACARS_reports.
html

Goes back to 1st January 2006 until 2013/2014-ish. Some of the best ACARS Data for the
2000s-2010s NOTE: 2010-2014 may not be the most complete years featured on this
site.

Domestic USA (BTS)

https://www.transtats.bts.gov/ONTIME/Departures.aspx

Does NOT feature International flights

For the USA, you have this site. You can search using even now defunct airlines, and it
covers the USA back to the late 1980s. Is the best source for the USA. NOTE: Pre-1995
does not feature tail numbers often, if at all, however.

NOTE: ‘Here's the catch - AA actually reports fleet numbers to the BTS, in the format
N###AA, where ### = fleet number. So, you may see what are invalid registration numbers.
Some older American Eagle flights are also reported in the format N###MQ, where the two
trailing letters are actually not MQ.
Query rzjets.net by fleet number (and airline if necessary) to identify the true tail number for
your aircraft. For American Eagle flights, you can query rzjets.net by registry, omitting the
last two characters. Also note that Embraer 140 (ERD) and Embraer 145 (ER4) aircraft are
both registered under Embraer ERJ-145; Embraer 140 (ERD) aircraft have registry numbers
N8##AE while Embraer 145 (ER4) aircraft have registry numbers N6##%% and N9##%%
(where %% is often AE, but not always). N800AE was the first E140 aircraft delivered to
American Eagle, the launch customer.’ (This came from the German forum)

In other words: For airlines like AA that have internal ship numbers that differ from the
registration, it will often incorrectly show the ship number in place of actual registration. For
example, N5TNAA corresponds to ship 5TN, which was registered N713TW. This may apply
elsewhere too, so just be careful.

This site here is pretty useful for this issue, but it has quite a few gaps. It doesn’t cover
everything, but may still be quite useful:
https://sites.google.com/site/newamericanfleet/home

US East Coast ACARS

http://www.qatipi.com/air/air.php

Logs for DCA/EWR/BWI/IAD/JFK/LGA/PHL All the way back from January 2006 to present
day

To complement the above one, this one is a source to look at for sure. It seems like it has
great potential, especially considering it has international flights too.

Toronto 2005 ACARS (Wayback)

https://web.archive.org/web/20070221034045/http://www3.sympatico.ca/scos/dailylogs.htm

You will need to download the zip file, so get a software that unzips files (I’d advise 7zip to
avoid Winwar stuff UNLESS you encounter a .rar file, though you won’t encounter .rar files
on this specific website), but this site has Toronto ACARS from 2005. There isn’t too much
per day, but it’s at least something.
Amsterdam Schiphol
https://schiphol.dutchplanespotters.nl/?date=2017-09-19

Goes back to November 2009.

This is an excellent source. It has so much information. Unfortunately no tail numbers

starting from March/April 2022 for reasons described on the site itself, but those won’t be
hard to find as there is another source for that (as of February 2024, this is still the case).
Features Rotterdam arrivals/departures as well, except not as extensive as AMS (and in the
present day there are no logs).

Weeze (Niederrhein)/(NRN) Movements

https://www.nrn-forum.net/viewforum.php?f=8&sid=2f86c658ed1efedc62aa1d8784790f39

Goes from April 2004 until October 2022, perhaps will be updated one day. One of the oldest
Netherlands sources, but is quite niche.

Nue-Wings.de/Nuremberg (NEW)
http://www.nue-wings.de/
2006-2016, select “movements” at the top of the menu. Mostly just special movements but
could be helpful.

Flightera
https://www.flightera.net/en/search

The best source for Late-September 2017 to the present day, worldwide, however
Late-September-November 2017 can be a bit of a hit-or-miss in terms of whether the flight is
covered or not. Also be warned that Flightera can be a bit weird. I’m not sure how to
describe it, but it is. Some flights will just take you to the general overview of the route/flight
number, some just leave you with a “Cannot find the page you’re looking for, please try
again”, so Flightera actually can be a bit of a hit-or-miss in general, too. I have noticed some
American Airlines flights in 2022 might not show the tail number, so be careful. Also I have
noticed recently that newly delivered planes don’t often show up their tail number for at least
a small while.

Tip: you can search in the URL instead of using the search feature on the site itself. It might
help you, I’m not sure.
FlightAware
https://flightaware.com/

FlightAware does not show tail numbers unless you upgrade to a paid account, but not all is
lost here.

‘You see, one other feature of FlightAware is that it is (sometimes) possible to find historical
flight data using its URL data archive system. For example this is an example of an Emirates
flight from January 2014 from Dubai (OMDB) to Amsterdam (EHAM):
https://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/UAE149/history/20140129/1210Z/OMDB/EHAM

The URL component lists flight number, date, takeoff time and four letter ICAO airport codes.
The difficulty of this method is the takeoff time which is in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC
or GMT in old money). It may often be listed as 10 minutes after the scheduled departure
time as well.
The Emirates flight has a scheduled departure time of 1610 local but was listed as 1210
(plus add a Z to the time in the URL).’ -(This came from the German forum as well)

This method is not that reliable, however, but it might be worth a shot for exact details.

Balus (Wayback) (NEW)

https://web.archive.org/web/20130521160450/http://balus.info/

Logs on certain days in the mid-2010s for the south-east of Queensland, Australia. Might
come in handy for someone

Copenhagen ACARS on Flightspot.dk (Wayback)

This could be useful for Europe-Asia flights. Goes from September 2003-August 2004, but
from what I have heard it hasn't all been archived sadly. Worth a shot for sure though!
https://web.archive.org/web/20040925184937/http://www.flightspot.dk/

ACARS from London Biggin Hill Airport (Wayback)

https://web.archive.org/web/20030407224911/http://members.lycos.co.uk/WADET/index.htm

The original site is sadly no longer here, but thankfully the site is archived on the Wayback
Machine. You can find ACARS logs from around late-2001 until June 2004. Seems useful!
Plus has a couple of ACARS logs from major English cities like Birmingham
Berlin
http://www.planeboys.de/Movements/movements.htm

Covers BER, TXL, SXF, and even THF, goes back to 2003

Frankfurt
https://www.dfld.de/Mess/StatAirportTag.php?R=1&D=17.04.2012

Frankfurt Airport. Tail numbers go back to 2010, but it can be a bit of a hit or miss from what
I’ve seen for the mid-2010s. Worth a shot for sure, though!

Washington D.C. & Baltimore Area ACARS

http://www.lockonaviation.net/html/acars.php

Goes from 2004 to present day.

Washington D.C. Noise Reports

http://public-reports-us-standard.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/MWAA/ReportingPor
tal.html
Goes from 2015-Present day. Haven’t explored it thoroughly, so I’m not sure where to
access the tail numbers, but go onto the first page of the German Forum thread, it’ll have
instructions there. Looks promising though!

Germany-Poland Border Region

https://flightlog.openspotter.org/flights.php?date=2018-03-13

Can go back to 2017 I think? Not sure how great it is, as it was done by planespotters, so it
may be quite incomplete. But hey! The more sources the merrier.

NOTE: The date can be adjusted in the URL, search for call sign, operator, type.

Dublin
http://notam-ireland.blogspot.com/
Goes back to 2011

Aussie ADS-B
http://aussieadsb.com/VirtualRadar/desktop.html#
Covers both Australia and New Zealand. Data goes back to mid-late July 2018 from what
I’ve seen. The way to find data from this is:

1: Click on the ⚙ Menu box in the top left corner

2: Then click on reports,

Then you have some options.

Option one: you click on Registration Report for VH/ZK-XXX (or whatever the registration is
that you’re clicked on. You are usually automatically clicked on an aircraft when you open the
site). There, you can change the registration in the URL. Use the elimination strategy here.

Alternatively, you can look at the Callsign report. However, you will need to figure out the
callsign, which may not be the easiest for some flights. Then you can change the callsign in
the URL as well.

Perth Airport Spotters Blog

http://aegwaspotters.blogspot.com/
Self acclaimed as “Western Australia’s only aircraft movements blog”, this one has potential
to be of use. It goes back to 2010, although be warned as it isn’t the most complete. It
usually covers unique flights. But, in saying that, someone might find it of use to them.

Far North Queensland Skies Blog (FNQS)

SOURCE LINK TO COME SOON!
Carrying on the Aussie themed streak of sources, FNQS is one that is not by any means
complete. It’s quite empty, and also only really covers interesting flights. In saying that, it also
may be of use to someone, and I feel it is still a good one to include in the list. As I say, the
more sources, the merrier! Goes back to 2011.
ADS-B NL (Military planes)
https://ads-b.nl/

ADS-B NL is an interesting one. It covers mostly military aircraft all around the world, and I
believe goes back to late-October 2016. It covers what planes were in the sky at specified
regions around the globe, and while it doesn’t usually show where those planes came
from/going to (obviously, because we’re talking military here), it still may be of use as it
shows the callsigns as well. You can search the movements as certain bases around the
world, too! This is one to look at if you have flown on military planes.

Dallas ACARS
http://www.dfwtower.com/index.php

Goes back to 2010

Scotland
Edinburgh:
http://www.egph.co.uk/Archive%20Logs.htm
~1996-Present day

Glasgow:
http://www.egpf.com/
2000-2020
For 2021-Present: archive at www.egpf.vze.com

Aberdeen:
http://egpf.bravehost.com/ABZ/
1999-Mid-2012. Can be fairly incomplete, BA flights basically never appear on here, so just
try and use other sources one for the flights to/from those airports.

OTNE (Over The North East)

https://www.otne.co.uk/eta/
Provides coverage for North-East England/North Sea/Southern Scotland coverage since
2007

Google Groups
Here are a few Google Groups that could come in handy:

1: CAE ACARS https://groups.google.com/g/cae_acars

This could be a very good source. It has ACARS data primarily from Europe between
mid/late 2006 until mid 2017.

2: MAN-EGCC Movements https://groups.google.com/g/man-egcc-movements

NSFW WARNING! The first to second pages may contain some, let's just say, weird
stuff on them. SKIP PAST THEM, THEY DO NOT CONTAIN SBS LOGS! You have been
warned! (I never thought I’d need an NSFW warning here of all places!)
Aside from that, it has SBS logs for Manchester airport between 2009 and around early 2007

3: Manchester Movements https://groups.google.com/g/man-mov

No, this isn’t the same one as above. This one A) doesn’t have weird stuff on it, and B) It is
updated daily. Goes from present day back to the 2000s, probably 2008/2007 (It takes a
while to go back in time on Google Groups)

4: ACARS Group https://groups.google.com/g/acars

Features 4 or so from 2013, and the rest are from 2011. Only shows one aircraft per post,
however, and they appear to be only interesting/unusual flights. Still might be interesting to
look at!

5: Mil-south-east group https://groups.google.com/g/south-east-mill

Again, be warned of a few weird posts on the first page! Aside from those few posts, the rest
are logs from around Southeast England. Goes back from 2012-mid-2000s probably.

With Google Groups, a lot of groups are either extremely dead, filled with weird stuff, or are
private. The ones I have shown are the best ones I could find, but some of them you will
need to ask to join (Including the CAE ACARS and Manchester Movements). Overall, be
careful with Google Groups.

Geneva
https://aragge.ch/cgi-bin/movements.pl

2008-present movements
Hamburg
http://hamburgspotters.net/flightplan/fp200507.html

Mid-Late 2000s (2005-2009)

NOTE: Adjust YYYYMM in the URL

South Korea
https://ubikais.fois.go.kr:8030/sysUbikais/biz/pib/routeType/flightm#

Goes back to 1st January 2015 for Korea.

Leipzig/Central Germany
http://www.airportbilder.com/movement/
(Registration with guest/guest, then select via search). Doesn't seem particularly complete,
rather special fliers from a spotter's perspective. But maybe it will help one or another with
their research.

Stansted One
https://airbritainstanstedbranch.wordpress.com/stansted-archive-movements/

2012-2016

Stansted Two
http://www.stanstedaviation.co.uk/movements.html

2002-2007
Or maybe this one should be Stansted #1?

Stuttgart
https://www.saa-news.de/movements/
Only 2017 I think

Warsaw
http://www.epwa-spotters.pl/

Goes back to 2016

Linz
http://www.vffl.at/index.php/movements/movements

2010-2014

East Midlands
http://emamovements.blogspot.com/2016/
Goes back to 2016, not quite sure how ‘filled’ it is, but is worth a shot.

Brussels (ACARS/Movements)
https://www.skystef.be/BRU-acars.htm

Movements 2004-2015 & 2021-Present, ACARS Mid-2007-2015

It’s a pretty great source for west Europe

Ostend (Belgium)
https://www.replo.be/Quality%20Airport/

1968 to the present day, but be careful as older dates may be more incomplete. One of the
oldest sources, but mostly cargo flights (it does not cover ACARS/overhead flights)

MIT Edu Stuff

http://www.mit.edu/~kolitz/1_200/bos_asqp_0797.dat
This one if from July 1997
http://www.mit.edu/~kolitz/1_200/bos_asqp_0298.dat
This one is from February 1998

I stumbled upon these one day and I think that they could be handy.

Tokyo Narita July 2015

http://yokoyama-m.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2015/07/index.html

From Narita airport, Tokyo from July 2015. May come in handy!

Palma De Mallorca Spotters

http://palmamovements.blogspot.com/

2011/2012 I believe

Grafdx Radio Things Blog

http://grafdxradiothings.blogspot.com/
2018, From Italy I think?

Manchester A
https://tasmanchester.wordpress.com/

Goes until 2017, plus a random day in February 2018, Might take a while to go back in time
though

Manchester B
https://www.tasmanchester.com/manchesterlogs

Up to date, not sure how far back it goes though (possibly back until 2017, which would line
up with the above source), also may take a while to go back in time but it does cover the
present day

These two are from the same site though.

United Kingdom ACARS via Civilian Aviation
Forum
https://www.civilianaviation.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=69

NOTE: You need to have an account to access this, but Civilian Aviation UK Forum has a
section for ACARS/SBS logs that can go back to December 2009. It isn’t the most complete
in terms of locations, which come and go over the years, and dates when they are from, but
it is still a useful thing to know. There are also OTT (Over the top) sightings that go back to
the same time period, but these only really include special sightings, and are not reliable for
finding the tail number of a regular passenger flight.

OTTSpotters Blog
http://ottspotters.blogspot.com/
Could be useful to someone. Covers the North Atlantic (somewhere around between
Glasgow and Reykjavik). NOTE: Mostly covers “other” flights (ie non-passenger flights),
goes back to the end of 2007 however has significantly died down since 2019.

Original OTT Spotters

https://web.archive.org/web/20090105162553/http://ottspotters.com/movements

This is via our good old friend the Wayback Machine as the original site is down :(

You have two places you’ll want to look at:

1 is the UK/Atlantic movement reports and the other is the ACARS reports. The ACARS
reports go from about March/April 2004 until early-September 2005. December (plus some
other months) are seemingly inaccessible due to the time frames in which the site has been
archived (Perhaps the zip files are archived? Please let me know). Also April 2005 zip files
have not been archived much at all. Only a couple are, and seemingly not on the specific
day calendar one. Regardless, this is a useful one to remember.

March 2004-Early September 2005 (with a few gaps)

Poor man’s SBS

https://aviationforall.proboards.com/thread/5754/dongle-poor-mans-sbs

Has some SBS data from 3 June 2016 from somewhere in the United Kingdom
Teeside
http://www.dtvmovements.co.uk/index.html

Not sure how far back it goes, but is up to date to the present day

UCL PDF Files

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/~zcape69/sbs-1/flightlog_03_Apr_2009_21_00_23_00.pdf
3 April 2009
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/~zcape69/sbs-1/flightlog_05_Apr_2009_00_00-23_59.pdf
5 April 2009

Found them randomly one day, I think the data is from the United Kingdom.

Other weird but interesting logs:

These are weird but interesting logs that I have stumbled upon:
https://www.openintro.org/data/tab-delimited/nycflights.txt

Aviation24.be random log

https://www.aviation24.be/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19705

Is from 12 December 2006 from around Europe. Is from a forum, which may contain more
logs, so far I haven’t checked yet.

Flightradar24 Via (Wayback)

You can get mid-2014 from FR24 Via Wayback machine.

First you need to look at an older version of FR24 on Wayback Machine

Then go to:
-Data/Database/History (depends how far back you are)
-Flights history

Then you can select the airline and then the flight number

May-October 2014 tends to appear, and in 2014 you can look back many months.
I am not sure if you can get other time periods as well, but I know for a fact that mid-2014 is
there.

Also, you can look at specific aircraft from a couple of different time periods and see where
they flew to from the previous 1-or-so weeks.

To do this, do the following:

-Go to data/database/history
-Then go to airline fleets
-Then click on the airline you want

It will take a while going over all the different airframes, as you will need to use an
elimination strategy here, but you may come across a surprise.

You can find some stuff from 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and a little bit of 2016
potentially. It’s pretty awesome.

Bear in mind, with FR24 via Wayback Machine, you are unable to use the map. This is due
to Google API stuff that I am not experienced enough to know what it really means. But all
you really need to know is that the map is simply not usable.

Flightradar24 otherwise has free historical data of 7 days before the present day, with up to 1
year’s worth with the most expensive premium plan they offer

If you would like to look at specific parts of 2010/2011/2012, then I suggest:

Flight24.com Via (Wayback)

https://web.archive.org/web/20120728012247/http://data.flight24.com/airplanes/9v-sva/

This is the predecessor to FR24, and it could be useful.

Change the registration in the URL, and you can look at different time slots to see if your
flight shows up. You will need to do an elimination strategy here too, but you can look on
airfleets.net to see all of the planes from an airline (e.g. all 777s from Emirates). It takes a
while to do, but you may come across your flight. Some planes don’t show up on the site
though, so beware! As stated just before, you can get 2010/2011/2012 from here, but the
data only goes back like 3 weeks prior to the date.
Pay-To-Receive Data Sources:
Have you exhausted literally everything else that you haven’t had to pay for with no results to
show for it? Well, I’m afraid you may need to pay up if you’re desperate enough.

1: FlightAware

This is probably the most well known of the pay to get data sites. They may be the most
useful, however.

You see, you can fill out a form requesting data and you can get discussing with an agent to
create a specific data plan of your liking. Obviously this will not be free, however FlightAware
claims that their data goes back 25 years (plus perhaps?). As of January 2023, that would
be January of 1998. How far back their tail numbers go, I am not sure. However, they don’t
say that the tail number data ends at a certain year, so there is great hope with FlightAware.

2: FlightStats

https://www.flightstats.com/v2/

FlightStats is like FlightAware, in that it has historical data that you need to pay for. I’m not
sure how far back their data goes, but what I am fairly sure about is the fact that the tail
number data pretty much stops somewhere between the mid-late 2000s/early 2010s. Also
you can only search up to 250 historical flights per month with the professional subscription.
Which, while it is a fairly big number, it’s still a downside that you have only so many
searches with the HIGHEST tier of subscription. And the professional subscription is the
ONLY one that you can search historical flights with.

I am not sure if you can create custom reports with FlightStats. I have tried contacting them,
but I have received no response as of yet.

3: As I mentioned before, Flightradar24 has subscriptions, with the free tier offering 7 days of
historical data, the second tier offering one month of historical data, and the highest tier
offering a whole year of data.

Forums to get help

If you cannot find the tail number from any of these sources, then I recommend posting to
one of the forums, maybe even all, as many of the members have access to databases that
you don’t (ie payed-for stuff or non-publicly acessable data, or applications like
Libhomeradar that are no longer downloadable by the normal person)

https://www.vielfliegertreff.de/forum/threads/masterthread-registration-suche.84975/#post31
57093
This is the German forum I keep talking about! It’s mostly in German, but some of them
speak English too. Keep your English simple though, as many of them are likely not native
English speakers, and in general it helps everyone understand exactly what you want
anyway. This is one of the best places to get help. (It has a way of getting mid-2010s global
ACARS too! ;) You’ll have to dig/browse for it though! It will be your reward for searching,
and trust me, is it worth it! These are logs from the defunct Libhomeradar if you want to find
it.)

The German forum is actually where many of these sources are from. There are some very
knowledgeable fellows there who have access to more tools than I have. This is arguably the
best place to go if you are looking for a tail number.

https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1415925&start=300

Then there’s this one on Airliners.net. This one is pretty decent too!

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-tools/1836337-historical-flight-data-delays-cancellation
s-etc-consolidated-thread-38.html

FlyerTalk has this thread too. Not quite as active as the other two, though

https://www.civilianaviation.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=69

I’ll mention what I mentioned above again, incase you forgot or missed it, or don’t want to
scroll all the way back up again:
NOTE: You need to have an account to access this, but Civilian Aviation UK Forum has a
section for ACARS/SBS logs, primarily from the United Kingdom, that can go back to 2009. It
isn’t the most complete in terms of locations, which come and go over the years, and dates
when they are from, but it is still a very useful source to keep in mind.

If there are any other places like these, then let me know.

I would also like to give a quick mention to this article here:

https://www.airtravelgenius.com/personal-flight-history/

Key to reading
You may notice many abbreviations or weird words that have appeared in this document.
Here’s what they mean:

A/C: Aircraft
ACARS: Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System
SBS: Surveillance/Special Broadcasting Service(s)
ADS-B: Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast
Etd: Estimated time of departure
Eta: Estimated time of arrival
UTC: Universal coordinated time
Airport examples include:
LHR/EGLL: London Heathrow
LGW/EGKK: London Gatwick
AKL/NZAA: Auckland Airport
MEL/YMML: Melbourne Airport

Last notes:

I have now provided you with lots of tips, tricks, advice, sources, and places to get help. So
all I need to say is good luck! And be sure to check here often, as it gets updated/modified
fairly often. Again, check for this colour here for new sources! This tag will get deleted after a
few months or so. This colour here means this source is only available via the Wayback
Machine on archive.org.