This Day in FAA History: June 29th

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19270629: Army lieutenants A. F. Hegenberger and L. J. Maitland made the first nonstop flight between the U.S. mainland and Hawaii, taking off from Oakland, Calif., in a Fokker three-engine monoplane.
19450629: CAA announced that it was conducting extensive tests of six different types of airport approach lighting systems under development at its Experimental Station at the Indianapolis Municipal Airport.
19460629: The Douglas DC-6 made its first flight, and CAA certificated the plane nine months later. The DC-6 entered U.S. domestic passenger service on April 27, 1947. The aircraft, the first Douglas plane with a pressurized cabin, could seat approximately 50 passengers.
19480629: The President approved legislation that authorized and funded a training program for air traffic control tower operators. It also empowered the CAA Administrator to conduct studies and research to determine the most desirable qualifications for such operators. (See Calendar Year 1968.)
19610629: FAA commissioned the first Doppler VOR system, for service at Marquette, Mich. The Doppler version of the very-high frequency omnidirectional radio range, a primary navigational aid of the Federal airways system, was developed for installation at sites where standard VOR’s could not be used. (See June 1, 1952.)
19620629: The British Aircraft Corporation’s VC-10 first flew. On April 29, 1964, this long-range jet airliner with four engines in lateral pairs on each side of the rear fuselage entered scheduled service with a BOAC flight from London to Lagos, Nigeria.
19650629: FAA established an Office of Congressional Liaison. Since August 31, 1962, congressional liaison responsibilities had been a function of the Office of General Aviation Affairs. (See August 31, 1962.)
19730629: FAA discontinued the position of Associate Administrator for Manpower (see March 4, 1970) following the retirement of the incumbent on this date; however, the agency did not officially abolish the post until December 4, 1974. The Associate Administrator for Administration assumed most of the functions of the position.
19920629: In a report released to Congress on this date, FAA recommended that all states be allowed to administer block grants for nonprimary airports on the basis of a successful pilot project under which three states had administered such grants. (See October 1, 1989, and October 31, 1992.)
20100629: FAA issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that would require plane manufacturers to show that small airliners could fly safely in certain icy weather conditions, such as rain that falls as a liquid but freezes when it touches a plane. To improve the safety of transport category airplanes operating in super cooled large droplet (SLD), mixed phase, and ice crystal icing conditions, the proposed regulations would
* Expand the certification icing environment to include freezing rain and freezing drizzle.
* Require airplanes most affected by SLD icing conditions to meet certain safety standards in the expanded certification icing environment, including additional airplane performance and handling qualities requirements.
* Expand the engine and engine installation certification, and some airplane component certification regulations (for example, angle of attack and airspeed indicating systems), to include freezing rain, freezing drizzle, ice crystal, and mixed phase icing conditions. (See December 1, 2009.)
20120629: Controllers began work at a temporary tower at East Hamptons (NY) Airport. The air traffic controllers directed planes into and out of the general aviation airport between 7 am and 11pm daily through October. The Town of East Hampton hoped controlled airspace during the busy summer season would mitigate aviation noise, in particular helicopter noise, in the area. The seasonal tower closed at the end of October. (See June 24, 2010; September 18, 2012.)
20170629: FAA and NASA researchers dropped a 5,180-pound cross-section cut from a 68-passenger regional jet with 10 crash dummies on board from the NASA Langley Research Center’s gantry. Both agencies planned to use the data from the drop to help inform the development of the next generation of aircraft frames. (See August 28, 2013.)
20200629: FAA and Boeing began a series of certification flights to evaluate Boeing’s proposed changes to the automated flight control system on the 737 MAX. The flights included a wide array of maneuvers and emergency procedures to assess whether the changes met FAA certification standards. Test pilots and engineers from FAA and Boeing conducted the tests. (See January 25, 2020; August 4, 2020.)
20210629: DOT issued an order proposing to block the sales of air transportation tickets between the US and Belarus. The U.S. would make exemptions on a case-by-case basis for necessary travel to the Eastern European country. This decision came as the result of the diversion of the Ryanair flight 4978, where Belarus forced the plane to land in its territory. (See May 28, 2021.)
20230629: In a six-day flight demonstration, FAA Japan, Singapore, and Thailand demonstrated the ability to jointly manage flights across multiple countries by using trajectory-based operations (TBO) to predict the location of an aircraft in flight. TBO used precise aircraft trajectory data (latitude, longitude, altitude, and time) to show where the aircraft expected to be on its route from takeoff to touchdown. It allowed aircraft to fly precise flight paths with seamless information exchange between air and ground systems.
20230629: FAA asked for public comment on the environmental assessment to replace 31 outdated airport traffic control towers at smaller airports nationwide. The agency had set aside over $500 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to support site evaluation, preparation, and early construction activities. Comments were due by July 31, 2023.