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United States Pilots Association |
Although USPA Regional VP Bob Worthington wrote the following report of the Odessa USPA flyin/meeting for the benefit of the New Mexico Pilots Association, it is so thorough that I felt all USPA members would like to see it.
UNITED STATES PILOTS ASSOCIATION ANNUAL MEETING
20-23 MAY 2004 AT ODESSA, TEXAS
As you know the NMPA is a state affiliate of the US Pilots Assoc and NMPA has five directors on the USPA Board of Directors. Two of these directors, Bob and Anita Worthington, attended the USPA annual meeting to represent NMPA. Bob is also a USPA Regional VP for the Southwest Region.
About 12 planes and 35 USPA members and directors came to the meeting. While it was windy, the weather was sunny and clear during the entire meeting.
The meeting began Thursday evening with an FAA WINGS Safety Seminar presented by John Boatright, FAA Safety Program Manager for the FAA Southwest Region. Friday the FAA gave the three hours of flight time required to complete the entire WINGS program which counts the same as completing a BFR. The FAA also inspected planes on request during the PACE program. There were about 30-35 attendees at the Thursday evening seminar.
Friday morning the general session began with reports from the affiliated states and individual chapters. Of interest to NMPA members was the info presented on the next (summer) USPA Meeting. It will be in Geneva, IL and we will be using DuPage Airport (DPA). The dates are 26-29 August with the Comfort Inn of Geneva being the meeting hotel. Thursday evening the safety seminar will be held at the FERMILAB, the world's largest (one trillion volts) atom smasher. Speakers will be an FAA Safety Program Manager; a recently retired FAA Regional Medical Examiner; and a former member of the WASP, also a 99, a Round-the World Race pilot, and an author. Sounds like an interesting line-up.
In addition to the normal USPA business meetings (Friday and Saturday mornings), Friday afternoon will include a scenic riverboat cruise. The evening will see USPA at a local dinner theatre. Saturday the business meeting will be at the FERMILAB where we will have lunch and then a tour of the lab. Saturday evening will be the banquet with a guest speaker. Sunday we will depart for home. The registration deadline is 13 August. Complete information will be in the next issue of America's Flyways magazine, which all NMPA members receive.
The fall meeting will be at the AOPA annual EXPO in Long Beach, CA 21-24 Oct. USPA will hold only one meeting on Saturday 23 Oct from 10 am to noon. Registration information will become available on the AOPA web site on 9 June. There is no separate registration for the USPA meeting, only for AOPA.
Most of the rest of the morning was devoted to various committees working individually.
That afternoon we had two choices; the Commemorative Air Force Museum in Midland (formerly the Confederate Air Force) or a unique shopping tour. I went to the museum and Anita went shopping. That evening we had our annual banquet and several awards were presented to hard working and deserving USPA members. Full details will be available in the next issue of America's Flyways.
Saturday we had the short annual meeting where the only business was the election of officers. Steve Uslan of Odessa was elected president (when Steve lived in Hobbs a few years ago he was president of NMPA). Immediate past-president, Chuck Huber of Denton, TX is VP Membership; Arnold Zimmerman (co-founder of USPA, former president, former executive director, and co-chairman of the board of the MO Pilots Assoc) is VP Meetings. The other officers and regional VPs did not change.
The regular board meeting followed and much work was accomplished. USPA had worked hard during the year to have over-turned several FAA decisions to include shutting down all of an airport's instrument approaches and to close an FAA office in the Northwest that approves the design and manufacture of airplane parts (which could effectively close down several businesses that are in the Northwest). During the year, USPA assisted in the creation of two USPA individual Chapters; one in AR and one in TX. It is expected that a new chapter will soon be formed in Odessa/Midland, having signed six new individual members during the meeting.
The financial report shows that up to May USPA was slightly behind budget but that does not include income that is due in May and June, which should put USPA in the black for the past fiscal year (1 July-30 June).
Two business items of interest to NMPA, USPA has applied to the IRS to receive a special status, which, if approved, could place every USPA affiliated state under a blanket USPA 501-C-3 status. Currently, while NMPA was created to be a 501-C-3 tax-exempt organization, it never did due to the initial paperwork and the annual reporting requirements. Since our dues income is in a non-interest bearing checking account (at no cost to NMPA) we have no income and therefore pay no taxes. If we were a 501-C-3 organization under USPA we could then raise more money as a charitable organization and contributions would qualify for the givers as a charitable donation for income tax purposes. If this goes through then NMPA may have to do some fine-tuning of its By Laws to comply with IRS requirements to be similar as USPA's.
The second item is USPA is planning to put together a flying trip to Alaska for the summer of 2005, next year. While this will not exactly be a USPA sponsored trip, USPA will put everything together, provide guides who have taken the trip before more than once, and provide all the info needed, where to get maps, charts, etc and line up over night stops and places to stay. The costs will be the individual's responsibility and USPA will not be collecting any money except for possible copying and mailing costs to people wanting to go.
The trip will probably be in July and probably have the group meeting in either MT (Cut Bank or Great Falls) or Calgary or Edmonton in Canada. The trip will consist of flying to AK via the Al-Can Highway to Northway, AK and then Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Homer. Since some people will not have as much time as others there will probably not be a return trip with all planes. From Calgary to Fairbanks will take about 3-5 days, depending on weather. The last time USPA went to AK was in June, 1999 for our annual meeting and USPA conducted Alaska's first ever complete FAA WINGS weekend (just like we did in Odessa last week). So if any NMPA members are interested you can contact me at 505 522 6785 or email at rworthin@zianet.com. More details will be in a future issue of America's Flyways. Think about it. While AK has a lot of big, tall mountains, on my first trip there I never flew above 5500' in AK. That’s my traffic pattern altitude at Las Cruces. It is a lot of fun and isn't as expensive as taking a cruise or combination trip to AK.
Saturday afternoon we went to the Odessa airport and then went to Midland to enjoy a Bar B Q picnic and watch a double-header base ball game with the local team, the Rock Hounds. It was especially good the last half of the second game, very close score and very exciting.
Sunday morning it was a nice flight back home, with a slight headwind.
Bob Worthington, SW Regional VP
USPA