Author: ENDaviationinequity

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19641002: President Johnson proclaimed 1965 as International Cooperation Year (ICY) within the United States, in support of a similar action by the United Nations on a global basis. FAA was represented on the President’s ICY Cabinet Committee, which planned and coordinated United States participation in ICY, and chaired the ICY Aviation Committee.
19641002: Taking another step toward the goal of all-weather landing, FAA announced qualifying criteria for Category II landing operations. Air carrier and commercial aircraft operators meeting these criteria could land at properly equipped airports under weather conditions permitting a decision height (vertical visibility) as low as 100 feet and a runway visibility range (horizontal visibility) as low as 1,200 feet. Hitherto, under Category I weather minimums, landing operations were permitted only when the decision height was at least 200 feet and the runway visibility range was at least 1,800 feet (four-engine jets required a runway visibility range of 2,600 feet).

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19261001: Northwest Airways began service as a contract mail carrier. The company began passenger service the following year, and expanded its routes in the late twenties and early thirties, changing its name to Northwest Airlines on April 16, 1934. Further expansion included routes to Asia, beginning in the 1940s, and for a time the carrier used the name Northwest Orient Airlines.
19291001: William P. MacCracken, Jr., resigned as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics and was succeeded by Clarence M. Young (see July 1, 1927), who had been serving as Director of Aeronautics. (See May 23, 1933.)
19291001: Allocation of radio frequencies by the Federal Radio Commission cleared the way for air transport companies to develop a communications network supplementing Federal facilities.

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19360930: Three reporters left New York City to journey around the world as passengers. Herbert R. Ekins, who made all major links by air, arrived back in 18 days, 14 hours, 56 minutes. Dorothy Kilgallen and Leo Kieran made surface connections that included a sea voyage from Hong Kong to Manila. Keiran’s time of 24 days, 14 hours, 20 minutes was 1 hour 45 minutes slower than Gilgallen’s, but he claimed to be the only one of the three who used only regular transportation available to all citizens.
19410930: Following evaluation of British jet engine development, the U.S. Army Air Forces decided to produce a Whittle-type jet engine. (See January 15, 1930, and October 1, 1942.)
19500930: The Prototype Aircraft Act (Public Law 867) declared that congressional policy was to promote the development of improved transport aircraft, particularly those that were turbine-powered, especially adapted to economical cargo operations, or suitable for feeder-lines. The act authorized appropriations of up to $12.5 million for a five-year period. The Secretary of Commerce was directed to consult with interested government, labor, and industry groups in carrying out the act, and the Prototype Aircraft Advisory Committee was accordingly established in December.

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.

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19680928: Under provisions of a rule effective this date, FAA required an approved altitude alerting system to be installed on all U.S. civil turbojet aircraft by February 29, 1972. Aided by this device, a pilot climbing or descending to a preselected altitude would be alerted, by signals to both eye and ear, in sufficient time to establish level flight at the desired altitude. The device would also provide a warning if the pilot strayed from an assigned altitude. FAA considered this necessary because of the dangers posed by inadvertent aircraft deviations from assigned or predetermined flight lanes in an environment increasingly populated by turbojets possessing capability for rapid climb and descent.
19840928: A DOT Inspector General report on drug and alcohol abuse among FAA employees concluded that the problem was more widespread than management realized and recommended stronger action on the issue.

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19380927: The Civil Aeronautics Authority announced that President Roosevelt had approved its recommendation for the immediate construction of a close-in airport to serve the District of Columbia–the Washington National Airport. Expected to serve as a model for the rest of the nation, the new airport would be located at Gravelly Point on the Potomac River. The site of approximately 750 acres would include 500 acres of “made” land from dry fill and dredging. The project was to begin immediately and was scheduled for completion by the end of 1940. (See June 16, 1941.)
19560927: CAA announced the formation of a team of aviation specialists to provide technical assistance and guidance to Afghanistan in developing a national airways system.

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19640926: The Bureau of Budget released the first significant amount of hardware-procurement funds for modernizing the National Airspace System (NAS). These funds were specifically designated for installing the first complete NAS En Route Stage A configuration (FAA’s semiautomated system for en route air traffic control) at the ARTCC at Jacksonville, Fla. (See February 1, 1967.) Modernization of both the en route and terminal air traffic control subsystems of NAS had been recommended in 1961 by the Project Beacon task force (see September 11, 1961). The modernization was a long-range program that would require a decade or longer to fully implement.
19650926: A rule effective this date required biennial requalification of all flight instructors. It also required instructors to assume additional responsibilities for the supervision of student-pilot solo flight operations.

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19500925: Overruling the Civil Aeronautics Board, President Truman permitted the merger of American Overseas Airlines into Pan American World Airways. (See October 24, 1945.)
19610925: FAA, NASA, and the Defense Department agreed on a plan for the research and study phase of the commercial supersonic transport (SST) program. Assigning FAA responsibility for overall program leadership and management direction, the plan provided for a Supersonic Transport Steering Group–headed by the FAA Administrator and including the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Materiel and NASA’s Director of Advanced Research Programs–to formulate broad policy and give overall guidance for the Federal role in the program. The Steering Group would be supported on the working level by the SST task group, which had been in operation for some time.

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19290924: At Mitchel Field, N.Y., Army Lt. James H. Doolittle became the first pilot to use only instrument guidance to take off, fly a set course, and land. Doolittle received directional guidance from a radio range course aligned with the airport runway, while radio marker beacons indicated his distance from the runway. He relied on a sensitive altimeter to determine his altitude, and controlled the attitude of his aircraft with guidance from a directional gyro and an artificial horizon. Doolittle made the flight as part of research he conducted for the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics, with cooperation from the Bureau of Standards, the Aeronautics Branch of the Department of Commerce, and other organizations. He flew in a hooded cockpit, but was accompanied by a check pilot who could have intervened in an emergency. On May 9, 1932, Capt. A. F. Hegenberger flew without a check pilot to make the first blind solo flight on instruments only, at Dayton, Ohio.
19830924: Continental Airlines filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 and suspended flights.

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19440923: Theodore P. Wright was sworn in as Administrator of Civil Aeronautics. Nominated on August 22, Wright succeeded Charles I. Stanton (see July 20, 1942), who submitted his resignation on August 18 and, on its acceptance, reverted to his former position of Deputy Administrator.
Wright was educated at Lombard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was commissioned in the Naval Reserve Flying Corps in 1918, and was superintendent of naval aircraft construction for the New York district during 1921, his last year of naval service.