It’s that time of year for fly-in events, large and small. Seaplane pilots will be headed to Greenville,  Piper Cub aficionados have taken a sentimental journey to Lock Haven,  and nearly everyone will be winging to EAA AirVenture at Oshkosh.

Best of all, nearly every weekend someone will open their hangar door and invite their friends to stop by. This month we had a pig-roast at Plymouth (above), the EAA Pancake Breakfast at Cranland, and our own Taunton Pilots Association breakfast-on-the-grill at KTAN. Like a car show, we like to look at airplanes and talk to other owners and pilots about flying. (By the way, studies at leading universities have shown that one out of three of the flying stories told at these aviator conclaves may be true!)

And if the truth be known, like the old warriors at the VFW post or the ladies playing canasta every Thursday, sometimes we just like to be with our own kind.

After all, doesn’t everyone know that airports — especially municipal airports — attract posers and pretenders with their political agendas and backroom deals? But when it’s just us pilots and our friends and our airplanes, we can forget about all that self-important drama for a day. Whether we’re a millionaire in a jet, or a homebuilder in a beautiful new ship that came together in our garage, or just some old guy like me in an ordinary old Piper Cherokee,  we’re all just people who share the same sky.

Happy flying!