This Day in FAA History: May 13th

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19400513: The VS-300, precursor of today’s fully mature helicopter, made its first free flight, at Stratford, Conn. As designer Igor I. Sikorsky continued to improve the aircraft, which employed a single main rotor, it set records that included a world flight endurance record of over 1 hour, 32 minutes on May 6, 1941. The VS-300’s first flight in its final configuration took place on December 8, 1941.
19460513: President Truman signed the Federal Airport Act establishing the Federal-aid airport program (FAAP), the first peacetime program of financial aid aimed exclusively at promoting development of the nation’s civil airports. Sen. Pat McCarran (D-Nev.) and Rep. Clarence F. Lea (D-Calif.) had introduced the legislation. The Act authorized appropriations of $500 million for the contiguous United States and $20 million for Alaska and Hawaii over a period of seven years, beginning July 1, 1946. Federal allotments were to be matched by local funds. For fiscal year 1947, Congress appropriated $45 million for construction and nearly $3 million for preliminary planning and surveys. (See Appednix VIII and October 8, 1946.)
19470513: Dr. Lewis H. Bauer, a pioneer in aviation medicine who had served as the first medical director of the Aeronautics Branch (1926-1930), received the Theodore C. Lyster award for “outstanding achievement in the general field of aviation medicine,” becoming the first person to receive that prestigious award. The award was established in honor of Brig. Gen. Theodore C. Lyster, the first Chief Surgeon of the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps, U.S. Army, a man generally considered to have been “the father of aviation medicine in America.”
19650513: FAA advised homeowners that radio-controlled garage doors could be hazardous to air navigation since a pilot might inadvertently “home in” on the radio signal emitted by the equipment. Effective September 7, 1965, the Federal Communications Commission barred the use of radio-controlled door openers operating within the frequencies reserved for radio navigation of aircraft.
19900513: The FAA Depot at the Aeronautical Center was renamed the FAA Logistics Center.
19980513: FAA unveiled a new, data-driven air carrier inspection program called the Air Transport Oversight System (ATOS) to enable FAA inspectors to spot safety trends and catch problems before they could lead to an incident or accident. (See October 1, 1998.)
20140513: Smoke resulting from a burning electrical motor at the terminal radar control (TRACON) facility in Elgin, IL, resulted in an evacuation of the facility, causing more than 1,000 flights to be cancelled at O’Hare International Airport and Midway International Airport. FAA stopped flights in and out of the two airports for approximately four hours.
20190513: FAA announced the Republic of Costa Rica did not comply with ICAO safety standards and had been assigned a Category 2 rating based on a reassessment of the country’s civil aviation authority. A Category 2 rating meant the country either lacked laws or regulations necessary to oversee air carriers in accordance with minimum international standards, or its civil aviation authority – a body equivalent to the FAA for aviation safety matters – was deficient in one or more areas, such as technical expertise, trained personnel, record-keeping, or inspection procedures. In 1996, FAA assigned Costa Rica an initial Category 1 rating. FAA conducted an in-country reassessment of Costa Rica under the IASA program in October 2018. (See February 14, 2019; November 11, 2019.)
20220513: FAA issued a license to the Huntsville-Madison Airport Authority in Alabama to operate the Huntsville International Airport (HSV) as a commercial space reentry site. The license allowed the airport to offer its place for Sierra Space Dream Chaser vehicles returning to Earth from future NASA resupply missions to the International Space Station. The Reentry Site Operator License is valid for five years. The Huntsville site is the 14th FAA-licensed commercial spaceport. (See December 20, 2021.)