This Day in FAA History: December 7th

Full FAA Chronology at this link.
19261207: The Aeronautics Branch made its first official airworthiness inspection of an American aircraft when Inspector Ralph Lockwood tested a Stinson Detroiter before its delivery to Canadian Air Express.
19261207: The first airway light beacon erected by the Aeronautics Branch began operation. The beacon was located 15 miles northeast of Moline, Ill., on the Chicago-Dallas air mail route. By June 30, 1927, there were 4,121 miles of lighted airways, including 2,041 miles on the transcontinental airway that had been previously lighted by the Post Office Department. (See April 1973.)
19331207: Regulatory amendments effective this date included a provision that persons under 21 years of age were required to obtain the consent of parents or guardians before receiving any type of pilot license (see May 1, 1967). The amendments also created a new amateur pilot license requiring only 25 hours of solo flying time, compared to 50 hours then needed for a private license. The new grade, which was subsequently discontinued, was intended for personal and pleasure flying.
19411207: The Japanese attacked Hawaii and the Philippines. The following day the U.S. Congress declared a state of war with Japan. On December 11, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.
19411207: CAA commissioned the Boston air route traffic control center on this date, followed by the Jacksonville center on December 15. (See December 18, 1941.)
19421207: CAA’s Civilian Pilot Training Program became the CAA War Training Service, a redesignation that recognized changes in progress for some time to gear the program more closely to the needs of the armed services (see December 12, 1941). Beginning July 1, 1942, and lasting until the following December 15, training under the program was given only to members of the inactive reserve of either the Army Air Forces or the Naval Reserve. On December 15, 1942, the Navy placed its trainees under the program on active duty. The Army took this step in the summer of 1943. In all, some 300,000 pilots were trained in the War Training Service phase of the program, which lasted until June 30, 1944, for the Army and until August 4, 1944, for the Navy.
19441207: The International Civil Aviation Conference met in Chicago, attended by representatives of 52 countries. The conference agreed upon the Convention on International Civil Aviation, known as the Chicago Convention. Rejecting the “blue skies” doctrine and reaffirming the principle of national sovereignty in airspace, this agreement laid the groundwork for the first truly global organization for civil aviation–the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization (PICAO)–and created machinery to assure uniform standards and practices for flight safety and operations. (See June 6, 1945)
19481207: The American Federation of Labor chartered the Flight Engineers International Association (FEIA), comprised largely of flight engineers with backgrounds in mechanics. Flight engineers had originally sought to join the Air Line Pilots Association, but had been rebuffed by the pilots. Eventually, FEIA representated flight engineers at eight major U.S. airlines.
19591207: FAA began a stepped-up safety inspection program of all scheduled air carrier flight operations and training programs, placing its safety inspectors on a round-the-clock schedule. The concentrated 30-day program was prompted by a rash of accidents and was intended to underscore FAA’s intensified commitment to air safety.
19671207: FAA decommissioned the Wake Island air traffic control center and transferred its air traffic control functions to the Honolulu ARTCC.
19821207: FAA announced the creation of a Rotorcraft Program Office to oversee the agency’s activities affecting helicopters. The agency formally established the new office, which reported directly to the Associate Administrator for Aviation Standards, on April 28, 1983. (See October 31, 1986.)
19871207: A Pacific Southwest BAe 146 jet crashed near Paso Robles, Calif., killing all 43 on board. Gunfire was heard on the cockpit recorder, and the authorities later determined that a vengeful former employee caused the crash. On December 21, FAA ordered all airlines operating at U.S. airports to screen all their employees entering secure areas with the same metal detectors and baggage x-ray equipment used for passengers.
19991207: Department of Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater hosted the Aviation in the 21st Century–Beyond Open Skies “ministerial” in the same hotel where, fifty-five years before, the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation produced recommendations for practices and procedures that had thereafter guided world aviation. This new ministerial, attended by more than 900 persons from ninety-three nations, explored challenges and opportunities in the aviation system of the 21st century. On the last day of the conference, Slater announced FAA would require airlines to conduct safety assessments of their foreign airline partners. U.S. agencies, would not, however, directly assess the safety of any foreign airline, even if U.S. passengers were flying that carrier on a code-share ticket. (See August 5, 1999.)
20001207: President Clinton announced three actions to reduce airline delays and improve air travel for America: the release of an executive order directing FAA to create a performance-based organization to focus solely on efficient operation of the air traffic control system; the appointment of a group of business and labor leaders from outside of the aviation industry to serve as a board of directors for this new organization; and a review of impediments to congestion pricing at airports. The president also called on Congress to reform the way air traffic control services were financed. (See April 23, 2000; June 10, 2003.)
20051207: FAA announced it had completed deployment of a new mission-critical communications gateway that processed radar and flight data in all 20 en route air traffic control centers. Called the En Route Communications Gateway (ECG), the system consolidated all gateway functions into a single system. It provided the foundation to support new communications sources and new radar/surveillance sources, such as ADS-B. The design of the new system also allowed for easy integration with FAA’s En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) program, a key element in the agency’s overall air traffic modernization effort. The ECG replaced the Peripheral Adapter Module Replacement Item (PAMRI), using modern communications protocols and modular, scalable hardware components. PAMRI was a single point of failure in the en route air traffic control infrastructure. The first ECG went operational in Seattle in 2003. The final site to go operational was Miami in October 2005. (See June 11, 2001.)
20101207: FAA awarded a contract to Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc., to provide up to $271 million in design-build services for at least the next five years. Jacobs would work with the FAA’s en route facilities program, which oversees the management of the nation’s 21 air traffic control centers. Specifically, the company would provide strategic facilities planning, cost estimates, construction support, hazardous material abatement, and related services.
20131207: A consumer group, concerned the American Airlines and US Airways merger would lead to increased fares and fewer choices for fliers, filed for an emergency stay to block the merger in a federal appeals court in New York. When the court denied the stay, the group appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg declined to hear the stay request. (See November 12, 2013; December 9, 2013.)
20171207: FAA released a test version of a federal pilot records database, which provided airlines federal information on potential pilot hires. This allowed airlines to check the qualifications and backgrounds of pilots before they were hired. The database will eventually expand to include airline and state driving records. (See March 30, 2020.)
20211207: Sikorsky announced FAA had completed certification of the S-70M Black Hawk helicopter by issuing it a Restricted Category Special Airworthiness Certificate. Sikorsky expected FAA certification, and the establishment of a pilot type rating, to broaden the market for the military-designed helicopter by allowing civil and commercial operators in the United States to purchase new Black Hawk aircraft direct from the factory. Sikorsky received a type certificate for the S-70M aircraft from the FAA in February 2019.
20211207: FAA issued airworthiness directives requiring operators of helicopters and passenger-carrying airplanes to prohibit certain operations requiring radio altimeter (RadAlt) data when in the presence of 5G wireless transmissions. AD 2021-23 12, which applied to transport- and commuter-category airplanes, and AD 2021-23-13, which covered all helicopters equipped with RadAlts, were “prompted by a determination that radio altimeters cannot be relied upon to perform their intended function if they experience interference from wireless broadband operations in the 3.7-3.98 GHz frequency band,” the agency stated. (See November 4, 2021.)