Plane & Aeroplane Gifts: When You Do Not Know Which Plane

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, stop here and read aircraft gifts instead, because knowing changes the answer completely.

Two facts 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 nobody suspects a thing. 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. Getting one is as simple as saying you liked the ones they posted, and the spotter page covers how to prise the best one loose without giving the game away.

What to avoid, and why

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. Getting it wrong is worse than not trying, because it demonstrates that you asked nobody. A place is safer than a machine when you are working with thin information.

Plane gifts and airplane gift searches land here from both spellings, and the answer is the same either way: a place or a photograph, then a format.

If you would like this sorted by person rather than by what you know, the gift lists every recipient page, and the gift ideas guide is the long version.

More gift ideas

Questions, answered

How do I find out which airport to use?

Ask where they fly from, or where they go to watch. It is a harmless question in ordinary conversation and it gives you everything you need. Failing that, the nearest airfield to where they live is usually the right one.

Is a photograph better than an airport code?

Only if the photograph means something to them. A picture of an aircraft they have no connection to is just a picture of an aircraft. A place they chose has meaning built in, which is why it works so well when you know less.