Author: Mike

This year’s Spot Landing contest was held on Feb. 7, 2026 at Gila Bend airport (E63). The results are as follows:

Here are a few pictures of the airplanes and the picnic lunch gathering. (Click on image for a larger view.)

After rescheduling due to wet weather in November, we held the annual Poker Run event on Dec. 13. We had good weather and a great turnout. The results are as follows:

This year’s route took us to Buckeye, Gila Bend, Ak-Chin, and Grapevine. Here are a few pictures.

This year’s Spot Landing Contest was held on Feb. 8, 2025, at Gila Bend (E63). It was a nice day, and although Gila Bend is getting to be a busy airport on a Saturday morning, we got our landings in, and had a good lunch at the Barrio restaurant at DVT. Here are this year’s results:

Here are a few pictures taken on the return trip to DVT.

We had a small but successful poker run today, with 3 planes and 6 competitors flying an interesting route on a pleasant November day. The route took us north of the valley to Wickenburg, Bagdad, Cottonwood, and Payson before returning to DVT. Andy Durbin, Mark Henninger, and Michael Putz were the big prize winners. Thanks to all for your participation. Here are the detailed results.

Save the date! The 2024 Star Aero Club Poker Run will be held on Nov. 23, 2024. More information will be provided in the coming weeks. Participation is open to all, so if you’re interested, please let us know via the contact page on this site.

This year’s spot landing contest was held on Feb. 24, 2024, at Gila Bend airport (E63). We had a good time, and encourage others to join in next year. It’s a fun outing, and good training too!

Here are the results.

The 2023 Poker Run was held on Dec. 2, 2023. This year’s route went to Kearny, San Manuel, Pinal Airpark, and Ak Chin. The weather was great after a two week rain delay, and we had an excellent turn-out with 8 airplanes and 18 competitors. The results of the competition are as follows:

Here are a few pictures (click on an image for a bigger view):

The club’s annual spot landing contest was held on Feb. 25, 2023. We had a small group, but we all had a good time, and the day turned out to be very pleasant, even though a storm is forecast for later in the day.

Here are the results. Andy brought his new Carbon Cub and as you can see, he showed us all how to land slowly and accurately. Well done!

It’s time to save the date, February 25, for this year’s Star Aero Club Spot Landing Contest. More information will be provided in the coming weeks, but here are a few details:

We will meet at the Gila Bend airport (E63) at 9:30am. As we did last year, we will allow both the power-on and power-off options, and the scoring method will use the shortest distance of each pilot’s landings rather than the sum of the distances. The rules are available here.

Rather than going out for lunch, we will have a bring-your-own picnic lunch at Gila Bend following the competition. Bring your lunch and a lawn chair.

If you’re planning to participate, please RSVP as soon as possible. We need a good turn-out to have a decent competition, so we encourage your participation. If you haven’t tried this before, come join us. The more the merrier!

In picking a date for this event, we noticed several other aviation events in the valley you might be interested in.

The Buckeye Air Fair will be held the previous weekend, Feb 17-19. This year it is expanded to include an AOPA regional fly-in. More information is available here: https://www.buckeyeaz.gov/community/residents/events-in-buckeye/buckeye-air-fair

Also, the Copperstate Fly-in will be held March 24-26 at Falcon Field, Mesa. More info here: https://www.copperstateflyin.org

The 2022 Poker Run was held on Nov. 19, 2022. This year’s run went to Bagdad, Wickenburg, Buckeye, and Gila Bend. The participants and winners are as follows: