This Day in FAA History: October 30th

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19551030: The first commercial flights began at the new O’Hare Field, Chicago International Airport, which had been under construction since 1949. The facility was named for Lt. Commander Edward H. O’Hare, who won the Medal of Honor as a naval aviator in World War II. Subsequent years saw major improvements at the site, and the expanded Chicago-O’Hare International Airport was dedicated on March 23, 1963.
19631030: FAA announced a proposed program to stimulate development of a new passenger/cargo aircraft for the short haul market, still dominated by the venerable DC-3. A preliminary design competition was completed in June 1964, but FAA did not consider any of the designs submitted a sufficient advance in the state of the art to warrant a detailed design contract.
19641030: FAA and Eurocontrol signed an agreement to increase their cooperative efforts in the area of air safety. The agreement opened the way for a free exchange of technical information and air traffic statistics between the two organizations. Eurocontrol was an organization of six European States established in 1963 for the unified control of air traffic in the upper airspace of Europe. Its members were Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
19691030: FAA dedicated its new Systems Training Building at the Aeronautical Center. In addition to classrooms for air traffic control and systems maintenance personnel training, the building contained simulators, computers, and other equipment used in training FAA personnel.
19861030: President Reagan signed the Public Law 99-591, including Title VI, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Act of 1986 authorizing the transfer of control of Washington National and Dulles International Airports to an independent regional authority under a 50-year lease (see June 8, 1984, and June 7, 1987). The authority was to be created by agreement between Virginia and the District of Columbia. It would be governed by a board of 11 members appointed by the Governor of Virginia (5), the Mayor of the District of Columbia (3), the Governor of Maryland (2), and the President (1). The law also prohibited airlines from operating non-stop flights between Washington National and any airport more than 1,250 miles distant, a wider non-stop service perimeter than previously set by policy (see December 6, 1981).
Title V of P.L. 99-591, the Aviation Safety Commission Act of 1986, established for 18 months a commission of seven Presidentially appointed members to study how FAA might most effectively fulfill its functions. In April 1988, the commission released its final report, concluding that overall the nation’s air transportation system was safe, but that the regulatory structure was inadequate to deal with future growth and technological change. The commission’s recommendations included: the creation of an independent federal aviation authority with a separate safety director; increased safety inspections; tighter regulation of commuter aircraft operations; mandatory use of Mode C transponders for general aviation aircraft flying near hub airports; and a set term for the FAA administrator.
19871030: Administrator McArtor met a group of air traffic controllers in Atlanta in the first of a series of Employee Focus Group meetings, an approach to problem solving in which personnel in various specialties met directly with top managers.
19971030: National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) President Michael McNally told the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Aviation, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure that “NATCA has made it very clear to FAA that there are problems with the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS) that must be rectified before it can be a workable product within the terminal environment.” At the urging of Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA), the FAA agreed to bring in MITRE and work with the Department of Transportation Inspector General in an attempt to resolve the dispute with NATCA over STARS. Wolf asked the FAA to report by December 15 on progress in resolving cost, delay, and human factors issues. (See September 11, 1997; April 26, 1999.)
20011030: FAA issued a rule that protected the data collected under airline FOQA programs from FAA enforcement action, except in criminal or deliberate cases. A FAA rule issued on June 25 protected voluntarily provided information from disclosure to encourage data-sharing programs such as Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA). The rule responded to a mandate from Congress to protect information that aided in improving safety and security. It also responded to recommendations made by the 1997 National Civil Aviation Review Commission, chaired by Norman Mineta. November 30, effective this date, FAA codified enforcement protection for FOQA programs. The agency would not use an operator’s FOQA data, or even aggregate FOQA data, in any enforcement action against the operator or its employees when the information was obtained from an FOQA program approved by the Administrator. Criminal or deliberate acts would not be protected by this ruling. The rule required air carriers participating in approved FOQA programs to submit aggregated FOQA data to the FAA for use in monitoring safety trends. (See June 25, 2001.)
20061030: FAA completed the deployment of the User Request Evaluation Tool (URET) at all 20 air route traffic control centers. URET was a conflict-detection tool that automatically detected and advised air traffic controllers of predicted conflicts between aircraft or between aircraft and other operational elements within the NAS. This strategic planning tool allowed controllers to create alternative conflict-free flight routings and to manage better the changing air traffic or weather conditions. (See May 6, 2002.)
20081030: The U.S. Department of Justice approved the merger between Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines. The airlines had announced the merger on April 14, 2008. (See December 31, 2009.)
20081030: FAA extended the expiration date of Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR) No. 105 through October 31, 2010. The action maintained the reservation system established for unscheduled arrivals at Chicago O’Hare International Airport following the expiration of limitations imposed on scheduled operations at the airport. (See June 16, 2008.)
20121030: Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast of the United States causing power outages and damage to FAA facilities and equipment. FAA prepared for the storm by pre-positioning restoration assets, readying control facilities, and working with airlines as they cancelled thousands of flights. FAA reported the storm affected three ARTCCs, nine TRACONS, 40 control towers, and equipment, including 25 airport surveillance radars, 121 localizers, and 74 very high frequency omni directional range facilities with tropical storm force winds, rain, snow, and flooding.
20151030: Effective this date, a new FAA rule required air carriers conducting domestic, flag, and supplemental operations to make available on their websites information to enable passengers to determine which child restraint system could be used on airplanes in these operations. Specifically, the rule required air carriers to make available on their websites the width of the narrowest and widest passenger seats in each class of service for each make, model, and series of airplane used in passenger-carrying operations. (See September 2006.)
20151030: FAA announced the Austin air traffic control tower and TRACON facility sustained water damage during flooding from heavy rain. Air traffic controllers provided limited services while FAA assessed the damage. The Houston ARTCC, which normally controlled high-altitude traffic over the area, provided radar separation for flights in the Austin area. Because repairs to the facility were likely to take some time to complete, FAA evaluated options for providing longer-term radar services for lower-altitude aircraft from another facility. Meanwhile, the agency brought in a portable air traffic control tower from storage in Kansas City. For safety reasons, FAA increased the spacing between aircraft using Austin Bergstrom International Airport, which may have resulted in delays during busy periods. The tower and TRACON reopened on November 4.
20151030: FAA asked RTCA Special Committee 186, the group that created ADS-B industry standards, to consider the feasibility of encrypting ADS-B Out messages to prevent eavesdropping by the public on aircraft identification, position, speed, and other data available on the satellite link. Unlike with radar surveillance, the public could easily acquire low-cost receivers that captured the unencrypted ADS-B Out data from a growing number of equipped aircraft in the United States and globally. (See August 27, 2015; November 11, 2015.)
20171030: Workers at Alaska’s Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow) airport removed a seal estimated to weigh 450 pounds from the runway. Workers from North Slope Animal Control used a sled to haul the seal off the runway. Alaska’s Department of Transportation joined the fun by issuing a warning to pilots of “low sealings” at the airport.
20201030: Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao announced the three-year Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Pilot Program successfully concluded on October 25. Eight of the nine state, local and tribal governments that participated in the program have signed new agreements with the FAA to continue to tackle remaining UAS integration challenges. (October 25, 2017.) This new initiative called BEYOND, included the following participants
* Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma
* Innovation and Entrepreneurship Investment Authority of Virginia
* Kansas Department of Transportation
* Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority
* North Carolina Department of Transportation
* North Dakota Department of Transportation
* City of Reno, Nevada
* University of Alaska-Fairbanks