The biggest airshow of the year is no doubt, EAA Airventure which takes place in Oshkosh, WI usually in the last week of July. I have been attending for the past two years and it is great fun. For any pilot, the trip is one you’ll never forget. We fly there in two days and filled up our log books with airports we’d never flown into before. But once you get to Oshkosh, there was an unexpected benefit we didn’t realize.
Most vendors in the aviation industry know that pilots from all over the world come to Airventure and they want to interact with you. They put their best foot forward for this one week in July. Many of them publish their largest sales and discounts of the year to coincide with the event.
It is rare that I see discounts on high end headsets like the ones with ANR (Active Noise Reduction). This year, Lightspeed, which sells the Zulu3 headsets, offered a 10% discount the week of Airventure. That’s an $85 savings off the sticker price of $850. In the four years I’ve been watching their prices, this is the first time I’ve seen them reduce the price.
So, if you want to start saving money on your aviation journey, plan to save up and make your purchases next July when everything you want goes on sale. Every pilot learning to fly needs supplies such as kneeboards, headsets, headlamps and more. The cost of learning to fly isn’t cheap, so why not save a few bucks where and when you can.