This Day in FAA History: September 29th

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19500929: President Truman signed an amendment to the Civil Aeronautics Act authorizing the Secretary of Commerce and the CAA Administrator to delegate to qualified private persons the authority to perform examinations, tests, and inspections and to issue certificates under the Act’s Title VI (Safety Regulations). As the House report covering this legislation noted, the great postwar increase in civil aircraft and pilots had already caused CAA to enlarge its designee program in recent years. Using the provisions of the new legislation, CAA placed new delegation option procedures in effect on November 3, 1951 for small aircraft weighing no more than 5,000 lb. and carrying no more than five persons. Under these procedures, manufacturers of such aircraft could choose to apply for authority to submit information that would serve as the basis for CAA certification. On November 2, 1956, the delegation option procedures were revised to include aircraft and gliders weighing less than 12,500 lb., as well as small aircraft engines and propellers. (See November 25, 1947, and October 8, 1965.)
19590929: A Braniff Lockheed Electra lost a wing and exploded in flight over Buffalo, Tex., with the loss of all 34 persons aboard. (See March 17, 1960.)
19640929: The tilt-wing XC-142A (LTV-Hiller-Ryan VHR-447), a triservice assault transport, made its first flight, flying horizontally. This V/STOL (vertical/short takeoff and landing) aircraft was capable of taking off, landing, and flying like a helicopter or a conventional aircraft. The craft made its first hovering flight on December 29, 1964, and its first transition flight–from hover to horizontal flight and return–on January 11, 1965.
19680929: AN FAA-sponsored report released this date outlined four optional plans for modernizing 27-year-old Washington National Airport through a new or enlarged terminal building, more vehicular parking, the accommodation of a rapid transit station, and such airport-related facilities as a hotel and office building. In its 1972 budget submission, FAA unsuccessfully requested $26 million as the Federal share of a modernization program for which air carriers and concessionaires were expected to contribute $131 million.
19990929: FAA banned installation of in-flight entertainment systems on all McDonnell Douglas MD-11 aircraft registered in the U.S. An agency review concluded that incompatibilities between the electrical power switching technologies of the entertainment systems and the design concept of the MD-11 airplane limited a flight crew’s ability to respond to a smoke or fumes emergency. (See April 20, 1999.)
20160929: FAA announced Administrator Michael Huerta had approved the performance-based navigation (PBN) national airspace system navigation strategy. The strategy, which had been in development for two years, set a clear vision of PBN as the daily basis for operations at all locations in U.S. airspace. It established near-, mid- and long-term goals for implementing PBN approaches across the NAS and identified navigation capabilities and services that would be available over the next 15 years. (See October 8, 2014.)
20210929: FAA cleared Virgin Galactic to operate space flights again, but found the company failed to communicate a mistake that occurred during a high-profile mission earlier in the year. FAA completed a probe into the July flight that carried billionaire Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Galactic, and five others to the edge of space and back to a facility in New Mexico. The agency found the company’s spacecraft deviated from its assigned airspace during its descent back to Earth, and Virgin Galactic failed to report that error to the FAA as required. (See September 2, 2021.)
20210929: FAA issued an operational viability decision for the continued use of the remote air traffic control tower at Leesburg Executive Airport in Virginia. Swedish aerospace company SAAB partnered with nonprofit scientific organization Virginia SATSLab and the town of Leesburg in 2014 to launch the system, which became the first project under the FAA’s Remote Tower Pilot Program. (See November 23, 2016.)