VTRANS110610 | The supply of ships and aircraft: aircraft: definition of an aircraft

There is no current legal definition of an aircraft but as a guide the (now repealed) Air Navigation order of 1954 (SI 1954/829) Article 73(1) defined an Aircraft as:

includes all balloons (whether captive or free), kites, gliders, airships and flying machines.

It further defined flying machines as:

means an aircraft heavier than air and having a means of mechanical propulsion.

The current Air Navigation order 2005 (SI 2005/1970) has no such definition but does contain a ‘classification of Aircraft‘ under Schedule 2 Part A which includes in it a similar list as the 1954 order but also refers to aeroplanes (landplanes, seaplanes, amphibians and self-launching motor gliders), power lift (tilt rotor) and rotorcraft (gyroplanes and helicopters) under the term flying machine.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines an aircraft:- ‘flying machines collectively‘.

For the purposes of Group 8, aircraft includes:

• aeroplanes (civil or military)

• helicopters

• airships

• drones (unmanned craft)

For the purposes of Group 8, aircraft excludes:

• space craft

• satellites

• missiles

• hovercraft (treated as ships)