This week the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee released the draft of an FAA reauthorization bill, the 21st Century AIRR Act, that would remove air traffic control from the FAA and create a new private, non-profit corporation to run the nation's air traffic control system. The bill gives the privatized ATC corporation authority to enact new user fees to be paid by system users. While the bill also exempts general aviation operators from paying a user fee for air traffic control services, there is no guarantee that a future Congress or administration wouldn't remove that exemption. (The companion Senate bill proposes neither ATC privatization or aviation user fees.)

USPA today joined a host of powerhouse general aviation associations in a joint letter to President Trump expressing concerns for his administration’s proposal to remove air traffic control from the Federal Aviation Administration and hand it over to a private, non-profit corporation. President Trump made the announcement this morning in a press event at the White House.

USPA has joined a coalition of 15 general aviation associations in letters to Congress in strident opposition to the Trump administration’s proposal to privatize air traffic control. The Trump budget, released last week, proposes to end air traffic control as a government function of the Federal Aviation Administration and convert it to a private corporation. All general aviation groups are opposed to the concept, which grants airlines a majority position on the private board that would run the corporation.

The 2016 USPA National Championships of Wingsuit Flying completed Wednesday, August 24—two days ahead of schedule—at Chicagoland Skydiving Center in Rochelle, Illinois. This marked the second year for USPA’s newest Nationals competition, both years hosted by Chicagoland.

An international group of formation skydivers has set a new Fédération Aéronautique Internationale sequential formation skydiving world record (pending ratification) with a two-point 202-way. The group completed the jump Tuesday, September 29, at Skydive Perris in California. Dieter Kirsch, Milko Hodgkinson and Patrick Passe organized the event, which they called the Sequential Games. For the past five years, a number of attempts at this record have come close, but none has succeeded—until now.