Sky DutyCessna 185: US Fleet Statistics
Cessna 185 — commonly known as the Skywagon
As of the FAA registry snapshot on July 11, 2026, there are 1,581 Cessna 185 aircraft with a valid US registration — ranking it #29 among all US civil aircraft model families by registration count. Every figure on this page is computed directly from the public FAA aircraft registry.
How many Cessna 185s are registered in the United States?
The FAA aircraft registry lists 1,581 Cessna 185 aircraft with a valid registration as of July 11, 2026. The Cessna 185 is a single-engine airplane, and this family groups every registered variant of the Cessna 185 together. It ranks #29 by registration count among the model families tracked in this dataset.
These counts come from the FAA MASTER file and reflect aircraft with an active “valid” registration status. To pull up the current owner, based state, and registration dates for a specific airframe, use the free FAA tail number lookup. To browse every model in this dataset, see the US aircraft fleet statistics index.
Cessna 185 registrations by state
Alaska has the most registered Cessna 185 aircraft, with 468. The table below shows the ten states with the most Cessna 185 registrations by the owner address on file with the FAA.
| Rank | State | Registered | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alaska (AK) | 468 | 29.6% |
| 2 | Washington (WA) | 111 | 7.0% |
| 3 | Texas (TX) | 87 | 5.5% |
| 4 | Montana (MT) | 78 | 4.9% |
| 5 | Minnesota (MN) | 72 | 4.6% |
| 6 | Idaho (ID) | 64 | 4.0% |
| 7 | Colorado (CO) | 63 | 4.0% |
| 8 | California (CA) | 56 | 3.5% |
| 9 | Oregon (OR) | 52 | 3.3% |
| 10 | Maine (ME) | 51 | 3.2% |
Share is of all 1,581 registered Cessna 185 aircraft. Based on FAA registered-owner state; not all aircraft are based where they are registered.
How old are registered Cessna 185s?
The median registered Cessna 185 was manufactured in 1975. Most were built between 1964 and 1981, and manufacture years across the registered fleet span roughly 1961 to 1985. A manufacture year is on file for 1,337 of the 1,581 registered aircraft.
Model year is one of the fields Sky Duty tracks on every tail alongside Hobbs and tach times. See how the app handles aircraft and fleet records.
Cessna 185 engine, seats, and aircraft class
The typical registered Cessna 185 is a single-engine airplane with a single piston engine, configured with 6 seats. The values below are the most common across all registered Cessna 185 aircraft in the FAA data; individual airframes vary by variant and configuration.
- Aircraft class
- Fixed Wing Single-Engine
- Engines
- 1 × Piston
- Typical seats
- 6
- Manufacturer
- Cessna
Data: FAA Releasable Aircraft Database (registry.faa.gov), snapshot 2026-07-11. Counts reflect US civil aircraft with a valid FAA registration (status codes V, M, and T). Variants of the Cessna 185 are grouped into a single model family. Manufacture-year bounds use the 1st and 99th percentiles to exclude data-entry outliers in the FAA year field. Figures update when the registry is re-imported.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Cessna 185s are registered in the US?
Which states have the most registered Cessna 185s?
How old is the average Cessna 185?
What engine and how many seats does the Cessna 185 have?
Manage your aircraft, not just look them up
Sky Duty keeps FAA registry data, Hobbs and tach times, maintenance, and scheduling together for every tail in your fleet.
