Plane gifts
Plane gifts, aeroplane gifts and airplane gifts are at their strongest when they show their own plane, and you don't need to know what it is called. Start from a photo of it, or from a place they fly from.
Christmas picks
-
MetalPrints from £81.00 -
PosterPrints from £17.99 -
Aircraft photo printPrints from £17.99Mug £16.99Digital file £9.99
Most gift writing in this subject quietly assumes you share the hobby. You don't, or you wouldn't be reading a page called plane gifts, and the usual advice to "pick their favourite aircraft" is useless when you have no idea what it is.
The good news is that you do not need to know. If you do know, by the way, the second half of this page is for you, because knowing changes the answer completely.
What to get someone who loves aeroplanes?
Get them their own aircraft or their own airport, not airplanes in general. A photo of the one they love becomes a print as it was taken or a restyle in one of five art styles; the field they fly from or watch at becomes an airport code print, with no photograph needed. For every day, the same photo goes on a mug.
What an aeroplane gift can be built on
The first is a place. Almost everybody who is into flying is into it somewhere specific: a club field, a home airport, the strip they learned at, the one they commuted through for years. It's a normal thing to ask, and it gives nothing away. The airport code print is built entirely from that, and needs no photograph.
The second is a photograph they already took. If they own a camera and an interest, there are pictures. You do not need to identify what is in them; they do, and the photo print keeps the shot as it was taken. Getting one is as simple as saying you liked the ones they posted, and gifts for plane spotters covers how to prise the best one loose without giving the game away.
Plane gifts to avoid: generic objects, guessed types
The generic aviation object. Anybody keen enough to be described as loving planes has been given several, and there is a shelf somewhere that proves it. The failure is not that the object is cheap. It is that it says nothing about them, which is also true of an expensive one.
The other trap is guessing a type. Telling one family of aircraft from another is a subject in itself, and getting it wrong is worse than not trying, because it shows you never asked. A place is safer than a machine when you are working with thin information. If a photograph does turn up, plane identification explains how a registration or type designator is read.
When you can name the aircraft, print that one
It happens more often than people expect. There is usually one airframe in the story: the trainer somebody went solo in, the type they flew for a decade, the warbird they drive two hours to see every summer, the kit they have had half-built in a hangar for years. Ask around a family and it surfaces in about a minute.
It is worth a photograph. Somebody who cares about one specific airframe has almost always got a picture of it, or knows somebody who has, or is one phone call from a club noticeboard full of them. That photograph is all the aircraft print needs.
For one particular interest, Spitfire gifts explains the photograph, permission and detail checks, while the Spitfire history guide covers the aircraft's story.
It also decides the treatment. An aircraft loved for its engineering suits the blueprint restyle, which reads as a drawing-office plan. One loved for a moment, a display or a departure into low sun, suits the oil or the poster. Aircraft art styles explained takes all five in turn.
Known aircraft, no photograph: two options
This is the awkward middle, and it is common with types somebody flew long before phones had cameras. Two ways round it. Ask them for a photograph outright, which spoils a surprise but produces the right object. Or shift the gift from the machine to the place, because somebody who flew a type for years also flew it from somewhere, and the airport code print needs nothing uploaded.
What we will not do is invent the aircraft. There is no describe-it-and-we-paint-it option here, and a page promising one would be selling something that does not exist.
Plane gifts for him, for her or for a child
The products are the same whoever the gift is for. What changes is the fact you go looking for.
- A partner or a dad. Usually there is a place behind years of weekends: a club field, an airshow he goes back to, the airport where he worked. Aviation gifts for men goes through finding it.
- A partner or a mum. Start from what she does with planes. If she flies, gifts for pilots works from her aircraft and her field; if she photographs them, gifts for plane spotters starts from her best shot.
- A child who loves planes. The place is easier than the machine. The airport where family holidays begin, as an airport code print, suits a bedroom wall. So does a photo they took themselves at a viewing area or an airshow, printed as they took it; a phone photo is checked against every size before you pay, so you only see the sizes it can carry.
If you would like this sorted by person instead, the gift lists every recipient page, and the gift ideas guide is the long version. What it all gets printed on is covered in on the wall.