Badges & Leaderboards
PlaneWX recognizes pilots who fly often, plan carefully, and give back to the community. Here's how achievement badges and leaderboards work — and exactly what earns each one.
Badges are earned privately — you choose whether the world sees them
PlaneWX tracks your badge milestones behind the scenes regardless of any privacy setting. What's opt-in is showing them on your public profile. If your profile is set to private, no one sees your badges except you — in your own profile view inside the app. Turn on Profile Visible to let other pilots see them.
Achievement Badges
Badges are awarded automatically by PlaneWX when you hit a milestone — there's nothing to claim or apply for. You'll get an in-app notification the moment you earn one. Here are all the badges currently available:
Weather Nerd
25 confirmed-flown trips that had a PlaneWX briefing
You briefed and then actually flew 25 times. That's disciplined.
Frequent Flyer
50 confirmed-flown trips that had a PlaneWX briefing
Fifty briefed flights in the logbook. That's a real habit.
Century Pilot
100 confirmed-flown trips that had a PlaneWX briefing
One hundred briefed, flown flights. Elite-level commitment.
ADS-B Verified
First ADS-B confirmed flight with a PlaneWX briefing
Your briefed flight was matched to real ADS-B tracking data.
Oshkosh 2026
A confirmed-flown trip to or from KOSH
EAA AirVenture — the pilgrimage. You actually made it.
PAVE Starter
Completed your first PAVE risk assessment
Every structured self-assessment starts with one.
Safety Conscious
Completed PAVE on 10 or more flights
Structured self-assessment is consistently part of your pre-flight workflow.
PAVE Champion
100% PAVE completion rate across at least 10 flights
Every flight, without exception, got a full PAVE review.
Social Pilot
Following 5 or more pilots
Community starts with showing up for others.
Popular
10 or more pilots follow you
Other pilots are watching your routes.
Community Pillar
50 or more pilots follow you
You've become a go-to voice in the PlaneWX community.
Storyteller
Added a mission description to 5 or more trips you actually flew
You document the why, not just the where — and you followed through.
Mentor
Completed your first PlaneWX mentor session
You helped another pilot think through the weather.
Experienced Mentor
Completed 10 mentor sessions
Ten pilots flew more safely because of your guidance.
Master Mentor
Completed 25 mentor sessions
You've built a track record of helping pilots make good decisions.
Flight-activity badges require confirmed flights. Badges like Weather Nerd, Frequent Flyer, and Storyteller count only trips you actually flew — confirmed by ADS-B tracking or by marking the trip as flown yourself. Planning a trip and generating a briefing without departing does not count toward these milestones. PAVE badges are the exception: they count assessments you completed before any flight, since the goal is to encourage good pre-flight habits.
Leaderboards
The Discover tab shows five leaderboards. Switch between Month (the current calendar month) and All Time using the toggle in the top-right corner of the leaderboard section. Only pilots with a visible public profile appear on any leaderboard — pilots who've turned off Profile Visible are excluded entirely.
Top Flyers
Ranked by total flight hours, ADS-B confirmed. If no ADS-B data is available, only manually-logged trips count. The leaderboard shows each pilot's most commonly-flown aircraft type.
Note: ADS-B confirmation means your tail number was positively matched in the ADS-B Exchange feed to a takeoff and landing matching your filed route.
Most Miles
Ranked by total nautical miles flown, ADS-B confirmed. Calculated the same way as Top Flyers — same data source, different metric.
Safety Leaders
Ranked by distinct trips where a PAVE self-assessment was completed. Multi-leg journeys count as one trip — completing PAVE on leg 1 covers the whole journey.
Note: This counts trips with PAVE, not raw assessment count. Ten trips each with one PAVE = 10 on this board.
Top Mentors
Ranked by completed PlaneWX mentor sessions. This is always all-time — there's no monthly view since mentor relationships develop over long periods.
Most Followed
Ranked by number of other pilots who follow them. Always all-time. This reflects how much of the community watches a pilot's public routes.
Leaderboards show the top 5 pilots. If you're not appearing, either your profile is set to private, your handle isn't set, or you haven't yet accumulated enough of the relevant activity to crack the top 5. The boards update approximately every 10 minutes.
How Privacy Settings Affect Badges & Leaderboards
Privacy controls in PlaneWX are designed so that nothing you earn is ever lost — you simply control how much of it other people see.
| Setting | Effect on badges | Effect on leaderboards |
|---|---|---|
| Profile Visible: On (default) | Badges visible on your public profile page and Discover pilot cards | You appear on all relevant leaderboards |
| Profile Visible: Off | Badges still tracked and visible to you in the app — just hidden from others | You are hidden from all leaderboards |
| Trip Sharing: Off (default) | Badges still tracked regardless | Top Flyers and Most Miles use ADS-B data, independent of your Trip Sharing setting |
ADS-B and Trip Sharing are independent. Your ADS-B flight record is pulled from public data (ADS-B Exchange). PlaneWX uses it to confirm flights for leaderboard purposes regardless of your Trip Sharing setting — it's not something PlaneWX controls. If you'd like to opt out of ADS-B-based tracking entirely, you'd need to block your tail number through your aircraft's transponder or the ADS-B Exchange opt-out program.
Where Badges Appear
Your public profile
All earned badges display next to your handle, visible to anyone who can view your profile.
Discover pilot cards
Badge icons appear on pilot cards in the Discover tab so other pilots can see what milestones you've hit at a glance.
Leaderboards
The Discover tab's leaderboard section. Top 5 pilots per category, updated every ~10 minutes.
Public Profile & Following
How to set up your profile, what's visible to others, and how to follow pilots.
Community Groups
Airport and event groups — shared flight boards, message boards, and privacy rules.