Downloading and using our data files

Helpful advice and tips when downloading and reading our aircraft register data files.

If you open the aircraft register data Microsoft Excel, it may cause the Excel file columns to convert cells to different values automatically. For example, the serial numbers column in the file may convert to dates or exponential format numbers.

Postcodes with a leading zero may also change. There may be other conversion errors as well.

If you're having trouble viewing data in Excel and require correct conversion of all fields, follow these steps:

1. Open a new, blank spreadsheet in Excel.
2. Select the 'Data' menu in the top tool bar.
3. Select 'Import External Data'.
4. Select 'Import data'.
5. Find and open the aircraft register file you previously downloaded. You may need to change the file type setting to "all files" rather than "text".
6. A data conversion dialog appears.

Changing the data format

Once you are in the dialog box, complete the final steps to finish formatting the file.

1. Choose 'Delimited' and select 'Next'.
2. Choose 'Comma' as the delimiter, Text qualifier should be " (double quote mark) then select 'Next'.
3. Find and select the 'Serial Number' column (column 5). Change the data format from 'General' to 'Text'.
4. Find and select the 'regholdPostcode' column (column 18). Change the data format from 'General' to 'Text'.
5. Find and select the 'regopPostcode' column (column 26). Change the data format from 'General' to 'Text'.
6. Find and select the 'Propmodel' column (column 36). Change the data format from 'General' to 'Text'.
7. Choose 'Finish' and the data should appear in your spreadsheet with correctly formatted data (if asked where you want to put the data, select 'Existing worksheet'.)

There may be other fields affected as well but these are the ones that have been drawn to our attention.

If you have questions about using the data file, feel free to contact us. We will post the answers to common questions on this page as they come in.