This Day in FAA History: August 31st

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19270831: The Post Office Department turned over operation of its last air mail route, New York to Chicago, to National Air Transport (see November 15, 1926). Private operators under contract to the Post Office Department now conducted the entire service, a system that promoted the growth of the airline industry.
19330831: The first practical variable-pitch propeller, developed by Frank W. Caldwell of Hamilton Standard Propeller Company in 1930, was introduced into airline service, on a Curtiss Condor biplane. The new propeller improved the propulsive efficiency of modern aircraft with highly supercharged engines, giving them more thrust than a fixed-pitch propeller when taking off and permitting adjustment to a more efficient setting for flight at different altitudes and speeds.
19400831: a Pennsylvania-Central Airlines DC-3 crashed into a ridge near Lovettsville, Va., killing all 25 persons aboard, including Sen. Ernest Lundeen (Farmer-Laborite, Minn.). The Civil Aeronautics Board cited the probable cause as disabling of the crew by a severe lightning discharge near the aircraft. The crash ended an unprecedented 17 fatality-free months for U.S. domestic scheduled air carriers, who flew 1.4 billion passenger-miles during the period. (See December 31, 1970.)
19520831: CAA established a hemisphere headquarters for technical cooperation in the field of civil aviation in Panama City, Panama. This office acted as a pool of technical talent to assist Latin American countries participating in civil aviation development projects under the Point Four program, and supplemented the work of CAA missions in Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, and Honduras.
19530831: The first operational installation of a transmissometer, an electronic device for measuring visibility, was completed at Washington National Airport. The transmissometer was developed by the National Bureau of Standards, purchased and installed by the Weather Bureau, and used by CAA control tower operators to provide pilots with accurate information on visibility changes.
19570831: Congress appropriated $12.5 million for a second airport for Washington, D.C., to be built on a site to be recommended by President Eisenhower. (See December 1955 & January 16, 1958.)
19610831: FAA issued orders setting up an accelerated program to codify the agency’s safety rules. The purpose of the program was to replace an ungainly mass of regulatory material with one streamlined body of rules. Primary responsibility was assigned to a Director of Rules Codification reporting to the agency’s General Counsel. (See October 18, 1960, and December 31, 1964.)
19620831: FAA Administrator Halaby created the Office of Assistant Administrator for General Aviation Affairs to supersede the function of Special Assistant for General Aviation (see late March 1962). The mixed nature of the agency’s programs involving general aviation made their grouping in a line-ofauthority relationship under one office impractical; hence, the new office functioned as the focal point in matters concerning the general aviation field. The new office also had responsibility for congressional relations and for aviation education matters.
19650831: The world’s largest cargo plane, the Aero Spacelines B-377SG Super Guppy completed its maiden flight. A converted Boeing 377 Stratocruiser with a capacity of 49,790 cubic feet, the Super Guppy was under contract to NASA for use in hauling rockets and other space equipment.
19670831: President Johnson signed the Veteran’s Pension and Readjustment Act of 1967 (Public Law 90-77), which became fully effective October 1. The Act authorized the Veterans Administration to reimburse eligible veterans for 90 percent of the cost of flight training necessary for a recognized vocational objective. The legislation specified that: the eligible veteran must have a private pilot certificate (or have completed the required flight-training hours), with at least a second class medical certificate, and the flight school courses meet FAA standards and be approved both by FAA and the appropriate State agency.
19790831: An engineering model of a new generation of Airport Surface Detection Equipment (ASDE3) was delivered to FAA for testing and concept evaluation. (See July 5, 1977, and December 23, 1983.)
19830831: An American Airlines DC-9 Super 80 became the first scheduled jet airliner to arrive after 10:00 p.m. at Washington National Airport since the imposition of nightime noise limits (see December 6, 1981). The Super 80 landed without violating the limit of 85 decibels.
19860831: A Mexican DC-9 and a Piper PA-28 collided in clear sky over Cerritos, Calif. The Piper had inadvertently made an unauthorized entry into the Los Angeles Terminal Control Area (TCA), and its radar return was not observed by the controller providing service to the Mexican flight. The accident killed 82 persons–all 64 aboard the DC-9, all 3 aboard the Piper, and 15 on the ground. The National Transportation Safety Board later listed the probable cause as the limitations of the air traffic control system to provide collision protection, through both air traffic control procedures and automated redundancy.
The Cerritos accident was the first midair collision to occur within a TCA. On September 15, FAA Administrator Engen appointed a special task force to study actions to improve the TCAs. On October 27, the agency announced plans to implement the group’s 40 recommendations, including: a minimum 60-day license suspension for pilots violating TCA boundaries (see October 10, 1986); expanded requirements for altitude encoding transponders (see January 29, 1987); and action to simplify and standardize the design of TCAs (see January 12, 1989).
19880831: A Delta Airlines Boeing 727 crashed on takeoff at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, killing 13 of the 108 on board. The National Transportation Safety Board listed the probable cause of the accident as inadequate cockpit disciple resulting in an attempt to takeoff without the wing flaps and slats properly configured, and a failure in the warning takeoff system. As a contributory factors, the Board cited: Delta’s slow implementation of safety steps necessitated by the airline’s rapid growth; a lack of accountability in FAA’s inspection process; and insufficiently aggressive action by the agency to correct known deficiencies at Delta, which had been the subject of a special inspection in 1987 following a series of incidents. FAA’s response to the Board’s recommendations included certain actions concerning inspections, required modifications to the 727 takeoff warning system, and a variety of other measures.
19880831: FAA began a test and demonstration of the Precision Runway Monitor (PRM) at the Memphis airport, followed in May 1989 by a year-long test at the Raleigh-Durham airport. The radar greatly reduced the update rate of aircraft movements as depicted on an air traffic control screen. The demonstration proved successful, determining that the new radar, in conjunction with automated alarms and high-resolution color displays, helped controllers prevent or resolve aircraft conflicts in the airspace between closely spaced parallel and converging runways. On April 15, 1992, FAA announced award of a contract to the Bendix Division of Allied-Signal Aerospace Co. for five Precision Runway Monitoring radars. The following year, on July 20, 1993, FAA commissioned the first PRM in the United States at Raleigh/Durham.
19890831: FAA established the new pilot category of recreational pilot, requiring less training than a private pilot certificate. The agency intended the new category for pilots interested in flying basic, experimental, or homebuilt aircraft in close proximity to a home airport in which communication with air traffic control facilities was not required. At the same time, FAA established a required annual flight review for non-instrument-rated private pilots with less than 400 flight hours.
20070831: The Federal Labor Relations Authority (FRLA) issued its rulings on three unfair labor practice complaints filed by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) in April, July, and September 2006. The charges related to the negotiation and implementation of the contract. FRLA concluded that there was no merit to NATCA’s claims, FAA had bargained in good faith, and the agency’s implementation of the contract was lawful. (See April 3, 2006; December 2007.)
20140831: For the first time, FAA permitted an UAS/drone technology demonstration at a national air show at Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland, OH. The demonstration featured 10 drones, both fixed-wing and multi-rotors flying simultaneously. (See August 13, 2014; September 10, 2014.)
20150831: CSC announced FAA had awarded its team – including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and other strategic business partners – a contract to deliver cost-effective cloud services, data center consolidation, and cloud migration capabilities. The single-award indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract was valued at $108,992,884 with the potential to reach $1 billion over 10 years. Under the contract, CSC’s team would consolidate FAA data centers and migrate FAA data and systems to a hybrid cloud environment.
20160831: As part of the Obama Administration’s effort to normalize relations with Cuba, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx arrived in Cuba on the first scheduled flight to the island in over 50 years, on a JetBlue Airways flight from Fort Lauderdale to Santa Clara. (See February 16, 2016; October 25, 2019.)
20190831: Chattanooga, became the first American airport to be 100 percent solar powered. The $5 million dollar solar farm project took seven years to complete, and received funding from the FAA’s voluntary airport low emissions program.
20200831: FAA announced it had issued a Part 135 air carrier certificate to Amazon for its fleet of Prime Air drones and would allow Amazon to begin testing drone deliveries to customers on a limited basis. FAA had previously allowed UPS and Alphabet’s Wing to test drone deliveries.