The aviation reference
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Your aircraft
Aircraft art styles explained: blueprint, vintage poster, line, watercolour or oil?
There are five aircraft art styles to choose from when you upload a photo, plus the photo itself: keep it as a clean photo with the photo print, or restyle it with the aircraft print into a blueprint, a vintage…
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The sky
Airport code lookup
Type a code - LHR, EGKK, or whatever is on the mug - and get the airport it belongs to, the other code it carries, and the coordinates. UK and Irish airports with an IATA code are here, every other UK airfield …
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The sky
Airport codes: IATA and ICAO
Airport codes come in two systems, and most airports carry one of each: a three-letter IATA code for the commercial side of aviation, and a four-letter ICAO code for the operational side.
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The gift
Aviation Christmas gifts
Aviation Christmas gifts start with a favourite aircraft. Upload a photo of it and the aircraft print turns it into a blueprint, vintage poster, line drawing, watercolour or oil painting, free to preview first.…
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The gift
Aviation gifts
Aviation gifts land when they show one aircraft that matters to the person: a photo of it, redrawn in one of five styles and seen free before you pay. No photo to hand? The code of their home airport works with…
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The gift
Aviation gifts for men
Aviation gifts for men work when they show his aircraft, not just any aircraft: the one he flies, spots or keeps talking about, from your photo. They suit a partner, dad, brother or friend, and you don't need t…
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More guides and references
Aviation guides
Spotting locations and equipment, pilot training costs, aircraft photographs and personal gifts. Pick the question or decision you came here to answer.
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The sky
Aviation questions, answered.
Answers to the things people look up after something goes over, from how aircraft fly to the history and codes behind them. Every number here names its source.
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On the wall
Aviation wall art
Paper, frame, canvas, metal or a mug. What each format physically is, and which one suits the picture you have.
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Your aircraft
Birmingham Airport plane spotting: Car Park 5 and Sheldon
Birmingham Airport plane spotting has an official home: a free viewing area in Car Park 5, beside the perimeter fence and open 24 hours. When aircraft use runway 15, the airport points spotters to Sheldon Count…
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The sky
Contrails: why planes leave white trails
Contrails, short for condensation trails, are the white lines aircraft leave across the sky. NOAA's description is about as plain as it gets: they form when water vapour from an aircraft's exhaust condenses and…
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More guides and references
Craig Fearn
I run The Aviation Gift Co., a UK business that sells personalised aviation gifts to order. Nothing is warehoused: a piece is printed after somebody buys it. The brand exists because generic aeroplane merchandi…
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Help
Delivery
Free UK delivery in 4 to 9 working days, Priority delivery at checkout, and tracking by email.
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The gift
Flight attendant gifts for cabin crew
Flight attendant gifts here start from their working life: the aircraft type they crew, from a photo they took, or the code of the airport they are based at. The aircraft print turns that photo into one of five…
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The sky
Flight distance calculator
Pick two airports and see how far apart they are in miles, kilometres and nautical miles, and about how long the flight takes with no wind.
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The gift
Gifts for plane lovers
Gifts for plane lovers start with the aircraft they love most, even one they have never flown in, from a photo of it. For plane enthusiasts and aviation lovers without a photo, an airport they love works too.
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The gift
Gifts for student pilots, from first solo to licence
Gifts for student pilots land best on a training milestone: the first solo, the last theory exam, the skill test. Mark it with the aircraft they learn in. A photo of it goes into the aircraft print and comes ba…
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The sky
Heathrow airport code: LHR
Heathrow's three-letter airport code is LHR (IATA); its ICAO code is EGLL.
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The sky
How do planes fly?
A plane flies because its wings turn the air flowing past them, which holds the aircraft up. That gets explained two ways, by pressure and by Newton's third law, and NASA says both are correct.
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The sky
How fast do planes fly?
Today's larger airliners cruise at roughly 600 mph, about 80 per cent of the speed of sound, according to NASA. That works out at about 520 knots, or 965 km/h.
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The sky
How high do planes fly?
Passenger jets cruise at about 10 to 13 kilometres, according to Airbus. That is roughly 33,000 to 43,000 feet, or 6 to 8 miles up. It is a scale, not a set height for every plane, because performance, weight, …
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The gift
How to choose a gift that gets kept: aviation gift ideas
Start with their flying, photographs or favourite place, then compare the budget, occasion and whether they would enjoy a keepsake or an experience.
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Your aircraft
Manchester Airport plane spotting: the Runway Visitor Park and Concorde
The Runway Visitor Park beside the runways at Manchester Airport is run as a visitor attraction and keeps Concorde G-BOAC. Her cabin can only be seen on a booked guided tour.
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The sky
Phonetic alphabet translator
Type a name, an aircraft registration or an airport code and see it spelled the way pilots say it on the radio, from Alfa to Zulu. Copy the result with one tap.
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The gift
Pilot retirement gifts
For a pilot in commercial air transport, the end of a career is set partly by rule: a limit at 60 and another at 65. This page sets out what the rule says, then the gift for the last flight: their aircraft, fro…
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The sky
Plane identification: reading an aircraft's markings
Identifying an aircraft starts with the markings, not the shape. A UK civil aircraft carries a G- registration that anyone can search on the CAA's G-INFO register, and the name a controller uses on the radio is…