James, a private pilot and airplane owner in South Carolina, writes: What happens if someone wrecks your plane while they are considering buying it?
Opinion
Notes from SUN ‘n FUN 2025
Attending SUN ‘n FUN for the first time since 2019, Publisher Ben Sclair filled his reporter’s notebooks with news from the show.
We don’t know what we don’t know
If we can’t or won’t acknowledge our own ignorance, we can’t learn. And since we can all be sure we truly don’t know what we don’t know, we can proudly stand up and say, “I know a lot, but I’m still learning.”
The conflict within
After canceling a flight I’d planned due to weather, a friend commented to me as I tucked my airplane back into the hangar, “A lot of pilots have been buried on a sunny day because they flew when they shouldn’t have.”
Human Factors: Certified, not qualified
As it becomes harder to find a CFI, pilots may find they are waiting quite a while for flight training. But a long wait is much better than watching a brand-new airplane broken to pieces right in front of your eyes before you’ve even made the first payment.
Disappointment along the way
Setbacks are going to happen. A lot, unfortunately. How we handle the challenges we face is a big part of what defines us as individuals. And as anyone involved in aviation on any level knows, delays are part of the deal. Eventually we manage to get where we’re going anyway.
Fees for thee, but not for me?
A Montana state bill, if signed into law, will establish a line of who can, and can’t, be charged airport usage fees generated using ADS-B.
Albin Longren: The aviation pioneer you don’t know
Longren did not have any formal education as an aeronautical designer and engineer. He also lacked any flight training. Neither stopped him from achieving success with his original biplane, the Longren Topeka.
Michael Jordan on the diamond
I often talk to men and women who tell me how badly they’d wanted to learn to fly, but they never did. And now, they tell me, it’s too late. They’re pushing 40, or perhaps they’re even older. That ship has sailed, they moan. The opportunity is gone for good. What a load of horse hockey.