Please welcome new VATSTAR Instructors, James Adamini and Daniel Martin!

James hails from South Africa and has several hundred hours each of piloting and controlling on VATSIM.  He is also studying to achieve his real-world Private Pilot's Certificate.  Daniel is from Australia, also has several hundred hours flying and controlling, and is also rated as a VATSIM Oceanic controller.  Both will be teaching in the P1 and P2 programs and are both looking to progress toward achieving and teaching within higher Pilot Ratings programs.

VATSTAR's Instructor staff is becoming truly global, with ten total Instructors on staff now: five from the US, one from Canada, one from Denmark, one from Singapore, one from South Africa, and one from Australia.  We recently reduced the minimum time commitment to four hours per month, to help us broaden our reach and diversify our staff's background.  We are still accepting applications so please visit us at www.vatstar.com, "About Us," and "Careers" if you are interested.  Minimum qualifications are 1 year on the network, 150+ pilot hours, and P1 and P2 pilot ratings.

Greetings all -- please welcome Aaron Essary, VATSTAR's newest Instructor, to the staff!  Aaron joined VATSIM in 2010 and has logged over 1200 pilot hours on the network; prior to that, he was active (as was yours truly) with FlightGear Flight Simulator.  There he logged many hundreds more hours, was a regular in online events, and founded a successful VA within the community.  Aaron holds the P1 and P2 Pilot Ratings and is well-versed in airliners, but does a good amount of GA flying as well, all in both the US and Europe.  I'm very pleased to welcome an old friend to the VATSTAR team and I know he will become a wonderful asset to our Students!

VATSTAR is proud to announce the unveiling of its Oceanic Training Certificate!  This course covers everything you need to know to get started flying international, trans-oceanic flights on VATSIM, including basics of latitude/longitude and Great Circle routes, route creation including use of the North Atlantic OTS, tips on international procedure and terminology, filing your flightplan and obtaining your clearance, using SELCAL, announcing your position reports, and even some tips and tricks for participating in VATSIM's semi-annual Cross The Pond event!
 
Pilots holding the VATSIM P4 rating are eligible to enroll now by visiting us at VATSTAR.com!  If you don't have the P4, you can acquire it from us through our simple process of attending a Written Exam Review, taking and passing the exam, performing a practice flight, and performing two fairly brief (~1.5hr) checkride flights, each of these steps with one of our staff Instructors.  (If you prefer a self-study method of obtaining the P4, Boston Virtual ARTCC offers it through their Pilot Rating Program; their P4 consists of five short flights you can do pretty much anytime ZBW ATC is staffed.  Visit http://www.bvartcc.com/ for more details.)
 
The VATSTAR Oceanic certification is obtained by written exam only; there is no practical checkride to fly.  Because of that, the exam IS NOT A JOKE and should only be attempted once having THOROUGHLY reviewed the study materials.  A Written Exam Review session with a staff Instructor is mandatory prior to attempting the exam.  The exam itself is 40 multiple-choice questions with a 60-minute time limit.  There are NO "joke responses" among the choices.  You have to know your stuff to achieve this certificate!
 
Please note that this Certificate is NOT a VATSIM Pilot Rating.  The VATSIM Pilot Training Division does not currently officially recognize a rating for International and Oceanic flying, although a designation for one has been set aside for future expansion.  If that changes, graduates of the VATSTAR Oceanic Certificate program will be contacted and advised what steps, if any, they must take at that point to convert their Certificate into an official VATSIM Pilot Rating.
 
Anyone who wishes to enroll can visit us at VATSTAR.com.  Questions about enrollment and access can be directed to [email protected].  Questions about the training material itself can be directed to [email protected].  We look forward to serving your VATSIM Pilot Training needs.  See you in the skies!

Season's Greetings, all --

Let me set the scene for you -- I am driving along in my car, with my phone's media player on shuffle taking the role of DJ via the Bluetooth-enabled sound system.  Van Halen's "Dreams" is playing, which is a song that the United States Navy's Blue Angels have used as background music for several of their promo video montages.  So I already have images of them dancing in my head as I tool down the streets of suburban Baltimore, all smiles, with the volume cranked.

About two-thirds of the way through the song, right at the beginning of the third refrain (just after the guitar solo ends), I get an email at my VATSTAR account.  On my phone, that triggers the sound effect of an F/A-18 Hornet fly-by -- which then booms through the cabin of the car overtop of the music, rattling the glass a little as it does.

This is the recipe for a huge grin and uncontrollable laughter, and a few little tears of joy, this holiday season -- at least for me.  And it was a mighty tasty one indeed.  I hope each of you reading this gets to experience your own flavor of joy sometime throughout the holiday.

Best wishes and safe travels!

Greetings, all --

Please join me in welcoming Ricky Petersen, VATSTAR's newest Instructor.  He is rated and available to teach the VATSIM P1, P2 and P4 Pilot Ratings, and is halfway done his P3 checkrides as well.  Ricky will be our first intercontinental Instructor on-staff -- until now, all of us have been from North America, but Ricky hails from Denmark and we are excited to elicit his help in serving students in time zones outside of the US.

Welcome, Ricky, and thanks for becoming a part of our team!

(FYI, the message within my signature is still current as of this writing -- we're still looking to pick up two, maybe three more Instructors.  If you are interested, visit our website, the "Careers" menu option, and the "Apply Now" link.  Email me with any questions.  Thanks!)

Hi all -- great news.  VATSTAR, a standalone Authorized Training Organization that JUST celebrated its first anniversary, is now certified to offer ALL FIVE available VATSIM pilot ratings, P1-P5.  Come on over to VATSTAR.com and see why we're one of the most active ATOs on the network!

Hi all -- VATSTAR is pleased to announce that we are now authorized to administer the P3 Pilot Rating, in addition to the P1 and P2 programs we already offer.  Our P3 program is 12 self-study written lessons, a written exam review and test, then one practice flight and two checkrides.  If you're interested in enrolling, please head over to our site and check it out.  Note that our P3 program builds off of concepts covered in the P2 rating, so we consider the P2 (earned from us or anyone else) a prerequisite for our P3.  We look forward to offering this exciting new program in 2016!