About r/aviation
In its own words:
Aircraft, airplanes, aviation, and flying. Helicopters & rotorcraft, airships, balloons, paragliders, and anything that sustains you in the air is acceptable to post here. Please read our rules before posting, and check if there are megathreads active for any topics. Thank you for participating in the r/aviation community.
Community guide
r/aviation (#394, about 2.8 million) covers aircraft, flying, helicopters, balloons, paragliders—anything that sustains you in the air. Rules: be nice, no memes/low-effort/FlightRadar posts, stay on topic, no edited headlines, no politics/religion, no ads. News/planespotting/discussion (~65.5 ppd).
Real aviation content
News, spotting, identification, and watch-me-fly flairs fit; memes and bare FlightRadar screenshots do not.
Headlines and discussion
Don’t rewrite article headlines; contribute to discussion rather than drive-by dumps.
Practical pointers
Check for active megathreads on breaking topics; no politics/religion or ads.
SubMouse Editorial
The community was created on Apr 19, 2008, which makes it 18 years old. Since Oct 26, 2026, it has gained 3,250 subscribers (+0.12%). It sits just behind r/CasualUK (#393) and ahead of r/lego (#395) in our ranking.
What sets r/aviation apart
It is also one of the faster-growing big communities: its 0.70% gain since Sep 19, 2026 beats 90% of the Top 100. Its rhythm is strongly tied to time zones: the busiest hour (21:00 UTC) sees about 5.6× as many posts as the quietest (09:00 UTC).
Subscriber growth
Between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026, r/aviation grew from 2,808,566 to 2,828,345 subscribers (+19.8K, +0.70%). That is about 450 new members per day. The chart uses our weekly snapshots (9 so far), so it gets longer every week.
What r/aviation talks about
Across 531 recent posts (Oct 29–Nov 5), the words that come up most are “crash”, “learjet”, “plane”, “air” and “flight”. Other frequent themes are florida, airport, pilot, aircraft, atc and video. Recurring phrases include “palm beach”, “learjet crash”, “plane crash” and “international airport”. By format, 27% are text posts, 24% are images and 22% are videos.
Popular post flairs: News (125), PlaneSpotting (112), Discussion (89), Question (87), Analysis (33), History (23).
Activity and best time to post
r/aviation gets about 66 new posts a day. The public archive holds 400,955 posts and 5,638,844 comments in total, about 14.1 comments per post. Last week the busiest day was Monday (120 posts) and the quietest was Saturday (49). Posting peaks around 21:00 UTC and is lowest around 09:00 UTC.
Rules of r/aviation
The moderators of r/aviation list 8 rules. In short:
- Be Nice To Each Other
- No Memes/Low Effort Content/FlightRadar Posts
- Keep Content On Topic
- Follow Reddiquette
- Contribute to the Discussion
- Don't edit article headlines
- No politics or religion.
- No Advertisements of Any Kind
How to join
Open reddit.com/r/aviation and press “Join”. Read the community rules in the sidebar before you post: every subreddit is run by its own volunteer moderators.
Frequently asked questions
How many subscribers does r/aviation have?
r/aviation has 2,828,345 subscribers (Nov 2, 2026), which makes it the #394 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 19,779 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026.
How old is r/aviation?
r/aviation was created on Apr 19, 2008, so it has been around for 18 years.
How active is r/aviation?
Very active: r/aviation gets about 66 new posts a day (average of the last four weeks). Over its lifetime the archive counts 400,955 posts and 5,638,844 comments. In a sample of 531 recent posts we counted 449 different authors.
When is r/aviation most active?
Based on post counts from Oct 29, 2026 to Nov 4, 2026, the busiest day was Monday and the quietest Saturday, and most posts arrive around 21:00 UTC, with the fewest around 09:00 UTC. More posts also means more competition, so a quieter hour can help a post get noticed.
What is r/aviation about?
The community describes itself as: “Aircraft, airplanes, aviation, and flying. Helicopters & rotorcraft, airships, balloons, paragliders, and anything that sustains you in the air is acceptable to post here. Please read our rules before posting, and check…” Recent post titles often mention crash, learjet, plane, air and flight. Most posts are text posts (27%).
Is r/aviation safe for work?
Yes. Reddit does not mark r/aviation as an 18+ (NSFW) community. SubMouse lists safe-for-work subreddits only.
How do I post on r/aviation?
Join the community on Reddit first, then use “Create post”. r/aviation accepts both text and link posts, with images, videos and galleries enabled. It has 8 posted rules, starting with: “Be Nice To Each Other”; “No Memes/Low Effort Content/FlightRadar Posts”; “Keep Content On Topic”. Moderators remove posts that break the rules, so read them in the sidebar before posting.
Which communities are like r/aviation?
Communities with similar topics include r/OnePunchMan (2.3M), r/UFOs (4.2M), r/introvert (2.9M), r/AnimalCrossing (2.9M) and r/canada (4.3M).
Stats from public data (data updated Nov 2, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Nov 6, 2026). Point and comment counts are archive snapshots and can be lower than on Reddit today. SubMouse is an independent directory and is not affiliated with Reddit or the moderators of r/aviation.