This Day in FAA History: August 13th

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19610813: Standard instrument departure (SID) procedures went into effect for the first time for civil aircraft at New York International Airport. In the form of pictorial charts, the SID’s simplified pilot-controller exchange of complex clearance information.
19750813: FAA completed its longstanding program to implement the ARTS III automated radar terminal system at the nation’s busiest terminals on this date with the commissioning at the Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Airport. All 61 ARTS III systems were now operational in the contiguous states, as well as one in Hawaii and one in Puerto Rico. The basic ARTS III contract had been signed in February 1969, and the first ARTS III procured under it became operational at Chicago O’Hare airport (see February 15, 1973). The sixty-second ARTS III, which went into operation in July 1975 at Atlanta Hartsfield airport, replaced an ARTS I–the prototype ARTS–which had been in operation there since 1965. (See August 10, 1976.)
19810813: President Reagan signed the Fiscal Year 1981 Airport Development Authorization Act (Title XI of P.L. 97-35) which briefly renewed the Airport Development Aid Program. The law authorized $450 million in grants from the Airport and Airway Trust Fund for airport development, planning, and noise compatibility projects during fiscal 1981. It also specified that at least $25 million be used for noise compatibility grants, and forbade future authorization in excess of $600 million for fiscal 1982.
FAA had only until the end of September 30, 1981, to allocate the $450 million, plus another $9 million resulting from adjustments to prior year’s grants. The agency approved 622 new grants and 181 amendments to previous grants, for a total of $450.4 million. FAA was unable to allocate the whole amount because one airport sponsor did not use all the money specifically set aside for it in the legislation. (See September 3, 1982).
19820813: The National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Chicago conducted a field experiment in the vicinity of Denver as part of the Joint Airport Weather Studies (JAWS) Project. FAA and many other agencies and research groups participated in JAWS, which employed Doppler radars and a variety of other data sources. The project resulted in new understanding of wind shear microbursts, yielding information on their formation, duration, decay, severity, and movement. (See June 24, 1975, and July 9, 1982.)
19860813: The National Academy of Sciences issued a report on airliner cabin air quality and related safey issues. The report had been mandated by Congress in 1984. Its most controversial recommendation was a ban on smoking on all domestic commercial flights (see April 23, 1988). The authors cited four major reasons: to lessen discomfort to passengers and crew; to reduce potential health hazards to cabin crewmembers from environmental tobacco smoke; to eliminate possible fires; and to align cabin air quality with standards for other closed environments. Further recommendations included an FAA review of carbon dioxide standards, which eventually resulted in a 1996 rule lowering the allowable concentration of this gas for occupied areas of transport aircraft from 3.0 to 0.5 percent. The report’s other suggestions included FAA consideration of requiring additional protective breathing equipment for use during in-flight fires aboard airliners (see May 26, 1987).
19910813: FAA held ground-breaking ceremonies for its Technical Center’s new Advanced Automation System Laboratory and its Aviation Security Laboratory. Construction was completed on both facilities during FY 1993.
19990813: FAA, UPS, and ATA conducted flight tests of the FAA prototype Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS) system at the FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center. Researchers studied the benefits of integrating a pseudolite into the existing LAAS prototype. A pseudolite is a ground component, installed at an airport that appears to an aircraft’s navigation system to be the equivalent of a global positioning system (GPS) satellite. (See April 2, 1999; May 1, 2003.)
20090813: FAA announced that mediation with NATCA had resulted in a draft labor agreement. NATCA members had 45 days to ratify the many agreed-upon issues in the proposed agreement. The five issues decided by arbitrators, including compensation, were not subject to ratification by members. The agreement provided employees with greater flexibility in their work schedules, childcare support, a new grievance review process, and a variety of other gains. At the same time, it gave FAA flexibility to more effectively redeploy labor to congested airports using controller incentive pay. The agreement also restored a more equitable pay standard, to benefit new hires as well as veterans nearing retirement. The associated costs would be phased in over the three years of the contract. (See May 18, 2009.)
20130813: FAA Administrator Michael Huerta announced that ATO COO David Grizzle would be leaving the agency in December. Grizzle’s last day at FAA was December 12, 2013. (See April 24, 2011; January 16, 2013; March 21, 2014.)
20130813: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit claiming the proposed merger between AMR Corp. and US Airways could be illegal on more than 1,000 domestic city pairs and must be dismantled to stop a clique of national carriers from manipulating services and ticket prices. The lawsuit was jointly filed by Justice, six states, and the District of Colombia. The states included Texas, where AMR was based, and US Airways’ home state of Arizona. In a review of the proposed merger, Justice’s lawsuit cited numerous public comments and internal communications by senior US Airways executives—some dating to 2006—that it said proved that competition between U.S. airlines would be weakened should the merger be approved. Both airlines reacted immediately, issuing a joint statement calling the DOJ’s assessment “wrong,” and stopping “this pro-competitive merger will deny customers access to a broader airline network that gives them more choices.” (See July 12, 2013; October 28, 2013.)
20140813: FAA announced that the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University’s UAS test site program was ready to conduct research vital to integrating UAS into the nation’s airspace. The site was the last of six nationwide to be declared operational. FAA granted Virginia Tech seven certificates of waiver or authorization for two years. They were for: Smart Road Flyer, eSPAARO, Aeryon Sky Ranger, MANTRA2, Sig Rascal, and two AVID EDF-8 micro UASs. (See August 7, 2014; August 31, 2014.)
20140813: FAA issued a legal opinion ruling against peer-to-peer general aviation flight-sharing Internet-based operations that allowed private pilots to offer available seats on flights they intended to take. AirPooler, Inc., had asked FAA for an interpretation of the regulations seeking to confirm a pilot participating in the AirPooler service would not be receiving compensation as prohibited by FAR 61.113, and whether pilots participating in AirPooler were commercial operators and thus required to hold a certificate under Part 119. FAA stated arranging for flights and passengers through the AirPooler website met all elements of common carriage and were not legal under Part 91. FAA noted its position forbidding website-based ride-sharing operations was consistent with rulings it had made previously on nationwide initiatives involving expense-sharing flights. Ride-sharing programs were offered by both AirPooler and Flytenow, both of which argued FAA had overstepped its bounds in the interpretation.
20190813: Drone delivery system developer Flytrex and jet charter and management company Causey Aviation announced they had received FAA approval to begin food deliveries by drone in Holly Springs, North Carolina. The approval allowed flights of Flytrex multirotor drones along a predetermined delivery route between the Holly Springs Towne Center shopping mall and Ting Park, a nearby outdoor sports and recreation facility.
20200813: DOT issued an order suspending all charter flights between the United States and all airports in Cuba, except for authorized public charters to and from Havana and other authorized charter flights for emergency medical purposes, search and rescue, and other travel deemed to be in the interest of the United States. DOT took the action at the request of the Department of State. For most charter carriers, the suspension allowed a 60-day wind-down period and became effective on October 13, 2020. (See October 25, 2019.)