The Stars Award Scheme

The Stars Award Scheme
From 1st November 2008, Stars will be awarded each month for members who take part in the following Club activities.	The Stars scheme has been a success, and has resulted in many more movements per month. Unfortunately sometimes pilots are often flying without seeing other Club members also flying. So the scheme is being amended as follows. The hope is that this will, together with appropriately designed events, encourage more Club traffic, and more members flying together.
Definitions
Star Events	Events organised by the Club, usually with briefings published on the web site, will henceforward be called Star Events, for the simple reason that members taking part in them on the published date will be awarded a Star..
Events	Flights and tours organised informally by members among themselves will in future be endorsed by the Club as Events, provided that they are advertised on the forum, and at least three members take part and make at least one flight, from take off to landing, if the Event comprises several flights. However, unless they are managed by the Club and re-designated as Star Events , they will not attract a Star.
Guest Airfields	Every month, the Events Manager will publish at least three guest airfields, sometimes four. These may be large regional airports, small general aviation aerodromes, or grass farm strips. Some guest airfields will be deliberately short simple flights to suit new members with limited experience, and others will be designed to present different challenges, be it navigation, short landing strips or complex controlled airspace. Briefings will not be provided by the Club, and members must choose their own route and do their own flight planning. The idea is to encourage members to explore Britain by Flight Simulator and provide at least some challenging flights.
Rules for Gaining Stars
Log the Flight	Only flights for which a member has logged a PIREP (Pilot's Report) will be eligible for the award of a Star. This is partly because the Club encourages members to file PIREPs but more significantly, because it is the PIREP data which is automatically analysed to create the Stars list for the month.
Flying at Club Bases	A Star will be earned by a pilot flying to or from one of our bases, so long as the flight duration is 20 minutes or longer. Pilots flying circuits at one of these bases will also earn a Star. Only one Star is awarded per month, no matter how often the member flies to or from that Base. (This is the existing scheme and is retained for our two bases; Biggin Hill and Gloucestershire).
Star Events	A Star will be earned for taking part in a Club Star Event, as long as the flight is made on the published date of the Star Event. This rule is designed to encourage more members to fly at the same time, increasing the enjoyment and companionship of events in the way that our early events were so enjoyable. A Star Event involving one of the Club Bases will attract a Star for the Event and a Star for flying to or from that Base, if that member has not previously earned a Star for that Base in that month.
Flight to a Guest Airfield	A Star will be earned for flying to, and landing at, a guest airfield, and will be awarded for the first flight only to that airfield while it is a guest airfield. Other flights to that airfield will not earn a Star, nor will flying circuits at that airfield. The challenge is to visit these places, with the planning that goes with it, rather than simply loading up that location in FS. Note that flying from a Guest Airfield will not qualify for a Star.
Multiple Stars	A Star will only be awarded for the first flight to, from or at a base airfield in a calendar month, and for the first flight to a guest airfield. However, taking part in a Star Event and flying from one of our bases as part of the event, or travelling to or from the event from one of our bases, will attract a Star for each activity - using the base field, and taking part in the event. Flying from one of our bases to a guest airfield will also attract a Star for each element. A flight from a guest airfield to one of our bases or to a Star Event will not attract a Star for the Guest Airfield.
Monthly Analysis	Stars will be earned on a calendar monthly basis. Members will quickly realise that, in a normal month with one Star Event, a maximum of 6 Stars may be earned. In future, the number of Stars won will be accumulated, and a rolling 12 month total will be displayed on the Membership List page along with the previous month's total.
Errors	Sometimes, for reasons outside a member's control, a flight cannot be completed online, such as when the software misbehaves. In such cases, the Membership Secretary, at his sole discretion, will award a Star where there is strong evidence from other members, Vataware etc., that the flight took place.

Page updated 01/11/08