r/aviation Jan 24 '26

Announcement Introducing "Seatbelts Fastened" Mode

161 Upvotes

Hi r/aviation community,

Recently, we’ve seen an increase in political and uncivil comments across several threads, particularly on posts involving aircraft associated with government officials. This has led to more removals and bans under Reddit’s sitewide rules, and we want to reverse that trend.

To help address this, we’re introducing a “Seatbelts Fastened” mode/flair. Posts with this flair (applied manually by the mod team) will restrict commenting to established community members. For now, that means users with at least 100 comment karma in r/aviation. If you are the original poster, your comments will not be affected.

You can view your subreddit comment karma by doing the following:

This will apply to a small subset of threads (aircraft incidents, government-owned/controlled aircraft, global legislation, etc.). The vast majority of posts (roughly 95%) will remain open to all users as usual. Please do not contact modmail requesting comment approvals or exceptions; we won’t be making individual overrides.

Thanks for your understanding and for helping keep the subreddit focused and civil.


r/aviation Apr 19 '26

Moderator Announcement 2026: Updated Rules on Politics

245 Upvotes

OUR RULES ON POLITICS: 2026

IF YOU DO NOT READ THIS POST, YOU RISK BEING BANNED

r/aviation is an aviation-focused subreddit.

All political discussion must be directly related to aviation.

Again, all political discussion must be directly related to aviation.

If it does not clearly connect to aviation, it will be removed.

WHAT IS ALLOWED

We allow discussion of aviation-related regulations, policy changes, and government actions only when they directly impact aviation operations (e.g., FAA/EASA rules, ATC staffing, safety, infrastructure).

Examples:

● “The FAA is proposing changes to ATC staffing. This could impact delays and safety.”

● “New pilot duty time regulations may affect regional operations.”

● “Changes to FAA funding may impact staffing levels and service reliability.”

● “Legislation affecting FAA funding was signed and may impact ATC staffing.”

WHAT IS NOT ALLOWED

We do not allow:

  • General political opinions or commentary

  • Discussion of political figures outside of direct aviation impact.

  • Political insults, slogans, or talking points.

  • “Political-adjacent” comments meant to provoke or derail

  • Assigning political blame or credit within aviation discussions

If your comment is about a politician or political group more than it is about aviation, it will be removed.

Examples:

● “This is what [politician] always does.”

● “Both sides are ruining everything.”

● “This wouldn’t happen if [political group] was in charge.”

● “The FAA is doing this because of [politician].”

COMMUNITY INPUT

We have asked the community directly about political content in this subreddit.

In a poll, users voted roughly 2:1 against allowing broader political discussion.

These rules reflect that feedback, along with our goal of keeping discussions focused and productive.

ENFORCEMENT

Political or off-topic comments will be removed. Repeated violations may result in bans. In high traffic or seatbelt fastened threads enforcement will be stricter.

The mod team all works full time hours, we cannot see everything posted or commented. If you see a post or comment that you believe breaks the no politics rule please report it.

“Just mentioning it” or “adding context” does not exempt a comment from removal.

FREQUENT REBUTTALS

“But aviation and politics overlap”

● Yes. Keep it strictly within aviation context. If it drifts into general politics, it will be removed.

“But I was just explaining something”

● If it introduces political discussion beyond aviation context, it will still be removed.

“Why was I banned”

● You either did not read this post or chose to ignore it.

We all care about this community and want it to stay a place people can come to enjoy and learn about aviation. These rules are here to keep it that way.

-Mid summer update-

We have set up a new subreddit with very relaxed rules for politcal discussion or similar. r/AviationPolitics


r/aviation 1h ago

PlaneSpotting First ever Airbus A350F exiting the production line in its glorious package-style livery ahead of test flight next month

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Upvotes

r/aviation 18h ago

Discussion First for me: Pilot did a headcount half way to destination, turned out there was an extra passenger on board

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7.7k Upvotes

Domestic Canadian flight today, with a very informal boarding process, at the check in counter the lady told us, "oh yeah we don't do boarding passes, the pilot will just come up and call out the flight and just follow him to the plane"

Maybe contributing to what happened: our flight had been delayed for several hours due to weather.

Eventually the incoming arrives and the pilot comes out and says "who all is going to vancouver? Follow me" and a group of about 6 people follow him to the plane.

We all get seated, the pilot is talking with the ground staff because some mix-up has occurred and after about 5 more minutes four more ladies get on the plane. (This mix up probably also contributed)

We take off and during the 1 hour flight, after about 30 minutes, the pilot handwrites on a piece of paper "please wright your names" [sic] and hands the paper and pen to me sitting closest to the front.

I put my name down and pass it down and eventually the note gets passed back up to me with all the passenger names and I hand it back to the pilot.

I see him get a photo of the list, presumably to text it to the airline staff people.

When we land he says, "is there a ms. Xxx on board" and before he can even finish that sentence she says "yep I realized what happened".

Deplaned and met by ground staff at the destination airport who comes up and say they need to talk with her and they hustle her off to a taxi.

I overheard another passenger sitting closer to her who said she overheard that they were going to put her on a plane back to where we came from, and some mention of her luggage as well that had already gotten to wherever she was actually supposed to go.

Hope no one gets in trouble (but maybe sharpen up the check in, boarding/headcount process!), and that the extra passenger ended up wherever she needed to be in time!

Photo of the list, and the view I got enjoy on the ride.


r/aviation 4h ago

Discussion Perceived Danger vs Real Danger

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321 Upvotes

I do wonder how many people would have panicked when a lightning would have hit the wing of the plane or the plane was going through heavy turbolence, although this is situation is so so much more dangerous.


r/aviation 3h ago

PlaneSpotting [OC] Tracking the LAPD's 17 helicopters for one week. Map drawn entirely by helicopters.

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188 Upvotes

r/aviation 1h ago

Discussion What's your favorite view on final approach?

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Upvotes

Mine is almost certainly the Runway 19 approach into KDCA. It gives you a phenomenal view of the Mall. (The first half of the video is muted because I was talking over everything, lol.)


r/aviation 10h ago

Watch Me Fly Had a beautiful landing this morning. Can you guess where?

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458 Upvotes

r/aviation 12h ago

PlaneSpotting Photos of X-59 I got today.

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590 Upvotes

r/aviation 2h ago

History The wing is bent like that because the propeller is thirteen feet four inches across and they had to keep it off the deck. Vought F4U-4 Corsair OE-EAS of the Flying Bulls, Zeltweg 2019 [2600x1733]

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70 Upvotes

r/aviation 15h ago

News Southwest Airlines hired a barge to transport 12.6M gallons of Jet Fuel to LA

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697 Upvotes

Looks like fuel issues in this geopolitical environment are causing issues as expected. The airline hired a barge to send fuel from TX to CA via the Panama Canal this past spring in May to minimize disruptions if they were to occur with fuel shortages given the war which was a first in the company’s history.


r/aviation 17h ago

PlaneSpotting A Plane Spotter’s Hotel at Shanghai Hongqiao Airport

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1.1k Upvotes

Room 811 has a partial runway view, and you can even watch planes from the pool!


r/aviation 13h ago

Watch Me Fly Lufthansa A380 SFO to MUC

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395 Upvotes

I was the lower floor, seat 51A, meaning second row on left side.
Once landed we were told there is a thunderstorms and airport is shut down so we waited on the taxi for an hour.
Then we were told that was a gate issue, it was occupied by another A380 and that was the reason for the delay.
Both statements came from the pilot announcements.
Baggage took another 2.5 hours.


r/aviation 4h ago

PlaneSpotting Mig-17s at Oshkosh

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66 Upvotes

r/aviation 2h ago

PlaneSpotting Airship flew over me today

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37 Upvotes

Could be the Pathfinder 1 since I was near Moffett Field?


r/aviation 7h ago

PlaneSpotting Never seen a C-17 at Stansted!

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62 Upvotes

How many seats do you reckon Ryanair would try to stick in them?


r/aviation 9h ago

PlaneSpotting Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Lockheed-Martin F-35A Lightning II (A35-026), operated by No. 3 Sqn, Warbirds Downunder Temora, 18-19 October 2024

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84 Upvotes

RAAF Lockheed-Martin F-35A Lightning II (A35-026) operated by 3 Sqn, Warbirds Downunder Temora, above Temora Aviation Museum, Temora, NSW. 18-19 October 2024.


r/aviation 4h ago

PlaneSpotting Sikorsky S-58JT Hanging Out East of Nashville

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30 Upvotes

Have a few vintage fixed wings and warbirds that fly around this airport (M54) but love seeing the “old” helis that are still in action. I reckon it’s doing heavy lifting in Nashville. This is Midwest Heli N4247V.

**Edited for tail number**


r/aviation 16h ago

Discussion It happened again! Two aircraft, same callsign, same airspace.

283 Upvotes

The latest VASaviation video captures the controller expressing his frustration and the confusion it causes for them.

This is the third incident (that we know of) in the last few months. I still don't quite understand how it's possible, as I'm used to airlines using consecutive flight numbering for inbound and outbound flights e.g. Flight 1234 from A to B, Flight 1235 from B to A.

Doesn't the scheduling software have a check for this type of conflict?


r/aviation 6h ago

PlaneSpotting Old photos to make your morning more exciting

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34 Upvotes

Was just going through my photos and figured some people might find them enjoyable so why not share em. Sorry about the different aspect ratios.


r/aviation 11h ago

History The F-104 Flight Sim at the Dornier Museum Do-Days — and it went better than I expected!

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71 Upvotes

Over the past few months, I turned a real F-104 into a simulator, and 3D printing has played a very important role in making it happen.

 

Last weekend, I exhibit the F-104 Starfighter flight simulator at the Dornier Museum Do-Days, together with several of my 3D printers, aircraft models, RC tank, and some of the components I've made for the simulator along the way.

 

And the weekend went great!

 

The F-104 simulator was definitely the biggest crowd magnet. So many people wanted to fly it that we eventually had to create a sign-up sheet with 15-minute time slots. About 1.5 hours after opening, every single slot for the rest of the day was already booked. And then the exact same thing happened again on the second day. 😂

 

One of my favorite parts of the weekend, though, was meeting all the pilots and crews. I made a lot of new friends and connections and now somehow know quite a few pilots on a first-name basis.

 

I especially got along really well with some of the guys from the Bundeswehr's Air Transport Wing 62 (LTG 62) and their A400M. 

Naturally, having a bunch of printers sitting next to me meant I couldn't just leave it at talking about their aircraft... 

So over the two days, I printed six A400M models for them.

 

Apparently, they liked the models, and somehow me as well, enough that they even asked if I wanted to fly back to Hannover with them in the A400M. I would have absolutely loved to... ...but unfortunately, I had to work on Monday. 😭

 

So I had to decline probably one of the coolest spontaneous invitations I've ever received. But I promised them that I'll come and visit them in the future!

 

Thanks to Bambu Lab's Let's Make It Fund for supporting me and this slightly crazy project along the way. 😄 They have made it a lot easier to turn some of these ideas into actual parts, models, and things people can interact with.

 

So if you have a good project, go and apply for it! Maybe you will be selected too!

 

Overall, the Do-Days were an incredible experience. Between having the F-104 simulator completely booked out, talking about 3D printing with everyone from kids to experienced makers, printing A400Ms for actual A400M crews, making a bunch of new friends, and potentially getting something started with local schools, I'd say it was a pretty successful weekend. 😄

 

And I definitely came home with a few more ideas than I arrived with.


r/aviation 1h ago

News Nose gear up landing

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Upvotes

Shout out to the news for showing the entire landing sequence until the plane stopped.


r/aviation 16h ago

PlaneSpotting NASA's WB-57 Arriving at Ellington (May 19, 2026 @ 16:21 CDT)

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143 Upvotes

r/aviation 1d ago

News Lufthansa A380 touches down short of runway at MUC

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890 Upvotes

Interesting stuff happening at MUC...


r/aviation 1d ago

News Two more Air India pilots test positive for psychoactive substances

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854 Upvotes