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The FAA predecessor was conceived and established as part of the Air Commerce Act of 1926. It was about commerce. World War II resulted in massive new technologies and it was in 1958 that the FAA was formed. Its role remained true to the original goals set out in the Air Commerce Act of 1926 but it was further acknowledged that it needed to consume the new technologies of RADAR and communications. There was a cross road that we faced in the early 60's - would the FAA use the new air defense system Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) or would it move in an independent direction. The decision was to move in its own independent civilian direction with the establishment of Project Beacon by President Kennedy. By the mid 60's President Johnson realized that the FAA needed to be part of an integrated transportation system and so it was made part of the Department of Transportation. The goal of commerce had been achieved and now it was about the entire transportation system. In the 1960's the FAA was also given the challenge of developing the Super Sonic Transport, a clear departure from relying on military aircraft for future civilian transportation. Unfortunately the SST program was canceled and the FAA lost future aircraft development charters.
Much like NASA the FAA lost its R&D roots shortly after 1980. The NASA charter was modified by new public law while the FAA public law that originally established its charter is still in place. Unfortunately most in the FAA and its industrial base believe it is a service organization providing services to airlines as part of safe and efficient air space management. They / we have de-scoped and shrunk the FAA role. That is why knowing and understanding this history is so critical to the country.
The FAA has a very long history:
May 20, 1926: President Calvin Coolidge signed the Air Commerce Act of 1926 into law. The act instructed the Secretary of Commerce to foster air commerce; designate and establish airways; establish, operate, and maintain aids to air navigation (but not airports); arrange for research and development to improve such aids; license pilots; issue airworthiness certificates for aircraft and major aircraft components; and investigate accidents.
Dec 2, 1929: Fifteen air carriers pooled $100,000.00 to set up the not-for-profit organization, Aeronautical Radio, Inc. (ARINC), to serve as the single coordinator of aeronautical communications for the air transport industry, using a common network of ground stations.
August 11, 2013: Rockwell Collins announced it had agreed to purchase ARINC, Inc., for $1.39 billion. The purchase, when completed, would expand Rockwell Collins' aerospace business by combining its avionics and cabin technologies with ARINC's ground-based navigational networks. (See December 2, 1929.)
FAA History Analysis Tool A document mining tool is available to help understand FAA history. It is available from the download page. Just select other versions. This will take you to a directory housing gda-faa.zip and other gda-faa install file methods. Follow the Compressed Instructions on the download page to install. Once installed select the browse button, load the all-history.txt document select a rule such as NAFEC and press submit. The journey through the FAA history while mining for various documents is fascinating and critical for all who engage in policy affecting the FAA.
Thge following are some key mining reports from the FAA history which as of 2018 exceeds 700 pages:
Startup Shutdown . SAGE History . Air Defense ADIZ . Replacing the manual system from the 1950's . SST . Hijack and Terrorists . FAA Budget History
May 20, 1926: President Calvin Coolidge signed the Air Commerce Act of 1926
into law. The act instructed the Secretary of Commerce to foster air commerce;
designate and establish airways; establish, operate, and maintain aids to
air navigation (but not airports); arrange for research and development to
improve such aids; license pilots; issue airworthiness certificates for aircraft
and major aircraft components; and investigate accidents. (See
Introduction.).
Sep 11, 1961: The Project Beacon task force on Air Traffic Control (see Mar
8, 1961) submitted its report to the FAA Administrator. While finding that
the air traffic control system was "being expertly operated by a highly skilled
organization," the report concluded that substantial improvements were needed
to meet the future challenge of aviation's projected growth. FAA urgently
needed an overall systems plan. In effect, the recommended improvement involved
a major reorientation of the modernization effort that had been launched
in 1957 following the Curtis report. Keyed to the use of an air traffic control
radar beacon system (ATCRBS) as a primary means of providing controllers
with aircraft position information, the new concept found little promise
in ground-based altitude measuring devices such as the 3-D radar under test
as part of the earlier program (see Apr 7, 1961, and Dec 27, 1963). The report
also urged expanded use of general purpose computers rather than special
computer systems formerly under development for air traffic control. Rejecting
the idea of fully merging air traffic control with the SAGE air defense system,
the report urged that only radar elements of SAGE be used for the air traffic
control system (see Apr 17, 1960, Feb 21, 1962, and Dec 1, 1963).
Mar 2, 1966: President Johnson recommended to Congress the creation of a Cabinet-level Department of Transportation. The President noted that the United States lacked a coordinated transportation system permitting travelers and goods to move conveniently from one means of transportation to another, using the best characteristics of each. The responsibility for transportation within the Federal government, he observed, was fragmented among many agencies resulting in a series of uncoordinated modal policies. What was needed was a single department to develop and carry out comprehensive policies and programs for transportation in its totality. The President proposed that the following agencies and functions be consolidated in the new department: the Office of the Under Secretary of Commerce for Transportation; the Bureau of Public Roads; the Federal Aviation Agency; the U.S. Coast Guard; the Maritime Administration; the safety functions of the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB); the safety functions and car service functions of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC); the Great Lakes Pilotage Administration; the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation; the Alaska Railroad; and certain minor transportation-related activities of other agencies. The President also recommended the creation within the Department of a National Transportation Safety Board, which would absorb the safety functions transferred from CAB and ICC. (See Oct 15, 1966.)
1950's
This was the decade of SAGE. The FAA was established via public law and within that law was embedded the concept of performing research and development. This makes sense because of the massive success and transformation that SAGE represented. The ATC system was manual using broadband technologies. It needed to change.
1960's
This was the decade of moving the manual system to an automated system with the use of beacon RADAR, computers, communications, and other technologies.
1970's
This was the decade of NAS Stage A. Automation of the manual activities of the air traffic controller was a clear success. Towards the end of the decade dreams of new levels of automation beyond the manual activities were being captured in labs at NAFEC, MITRE, Hughes, Sanders, and a plethora of companies that were starting to form an ATC industrial base.
1980's
The 1980's was supposed to follow the successful model of the 1960's and 1970's. Instead political upheaval in Washington that is now clear to the most uninitiated started to negatively impact the FAA. A large portion of the workforce was fired and the FAA was targeted for privatization.
1990's
The effects of government downsizing and the massive political infighting take their toll on the FAA and its shrinking industrial base. The Berlin Wall comes down and hopes of a new economic age are lost as Norm Augustine sets the policy that defense companies should downsize and merge rather than seek and develop new industrial and commercial markets. There is no leadership in Washington on this serious issue as government continues to move away from the New Deal policies. This further disrupts and shrinks the FAA industrial base as IBM sheds Federal Systems group, RCA, Hughes Aircraft, Burroughs, Univac, E-Systems, Martin Marietta, Lockheed, and dozens of other companies go through multiple mergers and downsizing events.
2000's
A time for recovery. The FAA using its diminished and fragile industrial base regroups and starts to build new levels of automation as part of the ERAM, STARS, ADS, TSAS, TBFM and other programs. Significant portions of the previous AAS work at Hughes is captured and merged into the ATC system via Raytheon while Lockheed takes on the previous AAS work from IBM Federal Systems Group.
One of the recommendations of a presidential task force, established in 1961, called for the application of computer technology to the air traffic control system. The FAA's automation efforts have been in two broad, but related, areas--the enroute system and the terminal system.
In 1961, President Kennedy asked for a long-range plan to insure safe and efficient control of all air traffic within the United States. A taskforce was established by the Administrator of the FAA to prepare this plan. The task force report, under the name "Project Beacon," submitted an analysis of the existing methods of air traffic control, recommended a number of near term improvements, and presented an advanced concept for an air traffic control system to meet future needs.
The task force recognized the huge demand for air transportation and the implications the rapid rate of increase would have on the air traffic controllers, who were already considered to be operating at capacity. One solution to this problem obviously, would have been to steadily increase the number of controllers. Terminal facilities are limited by space however, and this answer would have prompted more problems than solutions. An alternative, which "Project Beacon" recommended, called for the application of computer technology to the system. The Automated Radar Terminal System {ARTS) is one outgrowth of this proposal. In addition, they recommended IFR aircraft be equipped with a transponder which would electronically provide the aircraft's identity and altitude to the controller.
Control of aircraft in the terminal airspace requires that each aircraft be precisely identified by position, altitude and speed. Prior to automation, the controller identified each "blip" on his radar display by extensive radio communications with the pilot. Not only was this time consuming; it was also arduous and inefficient as the controller either relied on his memory or wrote all this data on paper or plastic strips ("shrimp boats") which were then placed on the radar display adjacent to its associated blip. As the aircraft and its corresponding blip moved on the radar display, the controller then physically moved the associated shrimp boat.
ARTS was conceived to eliminate these manual chores and reduce the amount of radio communications required to establish aircraft identity. Continuous positive aircraft 1dent1ty, ground speed and altitude would now be obtained via the transponder and computer and shown in code (alphanumerics) directly on the radar display. As a result, the controller would be free to effectively serve more aircraft than before. Safety hazards inherent in the old system would also be overcome. The FAA completed a system implementation plan in June 1962 and work was then begun on the development of a workable automated air traffic control system for use in high volume terminal areas. The first installation (ARTS-I), at Atlanta, served as an operational test system. Later, an automated terminal system (ARTS I-A) was installed in a common IFR room established to provide airports in the New York City area with radar control capability.
Originally, the FAA planned to use the same type of terminal automated air traffic control equipment as that being developed for the enroute centers. However, the requirements for terminal operations are significantly different than those for enroute centers. For instance, terminal controllers are primarily interested in the actual position and identity of each aircraft. Enroute controllers, though, are concerned more with the reconciliation of planned position to the actual position. Another difference, due to greater concentration of aircraft in the terminal airspace, is that a higher radar antenna rotation rate is required in the terminal areas. Also, obtaining physical space for the installation of automation equipment presented more of a problem at the terminals than it did at the enroute centers.
In February, 1969, the FAA awarded a contract to the Univac Federal Systems Division of Sperry Rand Corporation for development, production and installation of an automated radar terminal system (ARTS-III). The ARTS III consists of three subsystems: (1) a data acquisition subsystem; (2) a data processing subsystem; and (3) a data entry and display subsystem.
The data acquisition subsystem receives beacon video and control signals from which it detects beacon replies, generates range and azimuth data, and transmits reply messages to the data processing subsystem. The latter performs target detection, tracking, processing of flight data, transfer of control, controller message processing, and display processing consisting of "formatting" display data and refreshing the data entry and display subsystem. This last subsystem displays the analog representation of both the radar and beacon video, displays the alphanumeric data, and transmits controller-entered keyboard data to the data processing subsystem.
nivac, the prime contractor, is producing the data processing subsystem and computer software. The data acquisition subsystem is built by the Burroughs Corporation and the data entry and display subsystem by Texas Instruments Incorporated, as Univac subcontractors.
Sixty-four (64) of these systems will be installed throughout the country. As the demand for service increases at each airport and & more functions are required, these systems can be expanded modularly. The first system was delivered on December 22, 1970. Since then an additional 62 have been delivered (as of February 1, 1973) and current proections are that the last system will be tested and in use by late-1973.