If you read older flying materials and books like the classic Stick and Rudder by Wolfgang Langewiesche, aircraft are very frequently and consistently referred to as "ships". Many movies and videos from World War 2 also use the word, based on what I've found on Youtube.
But today "ship" isn't used widely – if at all – and it now seems very old-fashioned. What happened? When and why did "ship" stop being a common term for an aircraft?
(Cross-posted from aviation.SE)
Best Answer
A fairly high percentage of early "aircraft" were what we still refer to using the word...
It was quite natural to call them airships because (being lighter than air) they "floated". But the 1937 Hindenburg disaster "shattered public confidence in the giant, passenger-carrying rigid airship and marked the end of the airship era".
There were probably a small number of people who simply weren't attuned to the developing technology and vocabulary, but I don't think airship = airplane (with rigid wings and propeller) ever had any significant currency, even before the term accidentally acquired those seriously negative overtones in 1937.