[Suggestion] Changes to "search by registration number"

[thematrixant]

Hello,

I noticed that when searching for a registration number that was de-registered (US, FAA), tar1090 shows the yellow "no results" alert, and the "selected aircraft" box does not come up. This is of course correct behavior (as it's currently coded), but may I suggest this be changed to work for recently de-registered aircraft?

I can understand this behavior for invalid registration numbers (ones that never existed).
But to pull up history paths for a de-registered aircraft, the ICAO address must be used to display the "selected aircraft" box.

The reasoning behind this request is actually the FAA PIA program. I believe there are de-registered reg. numbers that are being re-used by the PIA program (reassigned). So the better solution might actually be to compare "seen" reg. numbers to the FAA database. Any reg. number that is seen in-flight but is de-registered is likely a PIA number, correct? Maybe there's a logical method to get PIA numbers to come up in the search results?

Thanks