This Day in FAA History: September 18th

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19280918: The Graf Zeppelin, the most successful rigid airship ever built, first flew. By the time it was retired in 1937, this craft had flown more than a million miles, spent 16,000 hours in the air, and carried 13,100 passengers.
19650918: FAA required distance-measuring equipment on turbine-engine aircraft and pressurized piston-engine aircraft when operated by foreign air carriers within the contiguous United States after December 31, 1966. The agency required other foreign air carrier aircraft having a maximum certificated takeoff weight of more than 12,500 pounds to have this equipment after December 31, 1967. All foreign civil aircraft not engaged in air carrier operations were required to have this equipment after December 31, 1966, when flying at or above 24,000 feet. (See July 1, 1963.)
19740918: Transportation Secretary Claude S. Brinegar announced the Ford Administration’s decision not to ask Congress to subsidize the nation’s financially troubled flag carriers, Pan American and Trans World Airlines. Instead, the Administration continued to pursue an “action plan” to assist the two airlines through a variety of means that did not involve subsidy or new legislation. Congress, however, passed the International Air Transportation Fair Competitive Practices Act of 1974. As signed on January 3, 1975, this law included provisions designed to raise overseas mail rates, require Federal agencies to use U.S. flag carriers whenever possible, and control rebates by shippers and ticket agents. The law mandated negotiations aimed at protecting U.S. flag carriers from discriminatory landing fees and airport charges, and directed the Secretary of Transportation to impose retaliatory fees against the airlines of nations that failed to respond. (See February 15, 1980)
19850918: DOT issued a rule prohibiting deceptive airline code-sharing. The rule required airlines sharing the same two-letter designator code to notify passengers of the arrangement and identify the airline actually providing the transportation.
19960918: FAA announced that it and NASA were testing a new Automated Performance Measuring System (APMS) to convert digital data from Flight Data Recorders directly into easily understood safety information. FAA/industry joint work on Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA) programs had demonstrated the need for such a system to assist FAA, airlines, and flight crews in improving safety and efficiency. (See December 6, 1996.)
20050918: Tropical Storm Rita formed over the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean and moved toward the Florida Keys. September 20, the tropical storm was recategorized as a hurricane, and FAA closed the air traffic control tower at the airport in Key West, Florida. September 22, FAA reopened the air traffic control tower in Key West. September 24, Hurricane Rita made landfall between Sabine Pass, Texas, and Johnsons Bayou, Louisiana, as a category 3 hurricane. The storm surge caused extensive damage along the Louisiana and extreme southeastern Texas coasts and completely destroyed some coastal communities. The Lake Charles Regional Airport in Louisiana and Beaumont-Port Arthur Airport in Texas closed because of damage. FAA instituted a temporary flight restriction along the Texas and Louisiana coast area to support relief and recovery operations. September 26, FAA opened its air traffic control tower at Beaumont- Port Arthur Airport in Texas for visual flight operations only. FAA resumed visual flight operations at the Lake Charles Regional Airport tower in Louisiana, and reopened the Terminal Radar Approach Control facility at the airport.
20070918: FAA dedicated the new air traffic control tower at Washington Dulles International Airport. The new facility, which had become operational about two months before, supplanted a tower that had been in service since the airport opened in 1962.
20120918: FAA issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that, if adopted, would mandate more stringent noise certification standards for helicopters certificated in the United States. The rule would apply to new helicopter type designs and for supplemental type certificates for those new type designs. Helicopters type certificated under the new standard would be designated as a Stage 3 helicopter. The new standards would harmonize U.S. standards with those of ICAO. The public had until November 19, 2012, to comment on the proposed rule. (See June 29, 2012; December 4, 2012; March 4, 2014.)
20130918: Richard Stockton College of New Jersey announced the college’s board had authorized a three-year agreement making the aviation research park being planned near FAA’s William J. Hughes Technical Center an auxiliary organization of the college. The move was made in part due to a FAA request that the park, a registered nonprofit organization, find a stable development partner for the project first announced eight years ago. Long known as the NextGen Aviation Research and Technology Park, the college eliminated “NextGen” from the park’s name, instead calling it the Stockton Aviation Research and Technology Park. (See October 19, 2009.)
20130918: FAA’s national enterprise management center moved into its new building in Salt Lake City. FAA established two such centers two decades ago in Atlanta and Salt Lake City to house redundant operations systems that that collect and distribute weather data and flight plans, manage telecommunications, and host the network security gateways for external stakeholders and international users. FAA completed a new Atlanta facility in January 2011.
20180918: In dual order extensions, the FAA continued restrictions dating to its 1968 High-Density Rule (HDR) that limited arrivals and departures at the New York’s LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International airports during peak demand periods to reduce congestion. With the phase-out of the HDR in 2007, the FAA ordered temporary limits at LGA and JFK that periodically had been extended, most recently in 2016 at both airports.
20180918: FAA extended the prohibition against certain flight operations in the Pyongyang Flight Information Region (SFAR 79) to September 18, 2020, because of the hazardous situation created by North Korean military capabilities and activities. (See September 8, 2020.)
20200918: FAA announced its policy for approving drone designs as a special class of aircraft. The policy statement confirmed a notice the agency released in February. The earlier notice informed the public of its plan to treat drones as a special class of aircraft under its Part 21.17 regulation for very light airplanes when assessing if the design of a model complies with airworthiness standards. With the new policy, the FAA began issuing type certificates, or design approvals, for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) under a Part 21.17(b) process. The agency said it could still tailor design approvals for some drones, where appropriate, using airworthiness criteria from other categories of airplanes and helicopters under Part 21.17(a).