Present idea help- airplane mad 10year old

[MercyNursey]

My Ds is obsessed by planes/airports. He spends hours watching live feeds of airports, has the flight radar app, we’ve been to the airport to watch the planes land more than I can count.. he’s obsessed

i want to get him something related this for Christmas. He doesn’t play with toys so any replicas of planes etc he wouldn’t be interested in, i’m thinking an experience. He’s been on loads of flights so actually flying doesn’t really excite him but he loves looking at the plane and being in the airport.

does anyone have any good ideas? He’ll be almost 11 at Christmas.

Thanks ✈️

Some flying schools give lessons starting at age 10.
https://flyinglessons.co.uk/faq/#:~:text=Age%3A%20Though%20you%20have%20to,children%20as%20young%20as%2010.

Or a go on a flight simulator?

Where do you live OP? There are a few air shows, see britishairshows.com/british-uk-airshows-2023-calendar-dates

If he would be interested in museums, in SE England there's Brooklands Museum, the Farnborough Air Sciences Trust, and in the SW the Fleet Air Arm Museum. May be others too.

flight simulator, my DS loved his... got to learn to land a plane in a blizzard.

Thank you all for your ideas!

the flight simulator looks right up his street, can anyone recommend a good one?

Has he been on concorde? There's a nice little museum in bristol dedicated to it.

There’s a VIP spitfire experience at Duxford https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/spitfire-n3200-the-vip-experience and a cheaper Vulcan one https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/in-the-cockpit-avro-vulcan

We were at the Ayr Airshow at the weekend and it’s definitely worthwhile keeping an eye out for airshow dates too. The airforce were on the ground with exhibitions, BAE systems, red arrow’s representation etc.

Can go on concord at Manchester airport runway centre

My son is the same! Depending where you live, Manchester airport visitor centre is good. They do experiences where you get to go on airplanes ie. Concorde and they do a little talk about it. He loves books so usually gets a few each birthday/ Christmas. One year we got him the flight simulator game with a control stick which he loves.

Airband radio scanner - https://www.radioworld.co.uk/ubc75xlt_handheld_scanner this one is out of stock at the moment but is decent, might be available elsewhere. Or here are some budget ones: https://rugbyradiosuk.com/collections/airband-receivers
It means he could hear the pilots in the planes even 36,000ft in the air. Then match them up with the planes he sees on the apps. Great fun and fun to listen to. And comms at nearby airports.