ATC History

Which came first: the chicken or the Federal Egg Administration? Impossible to say. Physics teaches us that when Bernoulli found lift, his nemesis, Newton, said there must be an opposing reaction. So, when the Wright brothers flew, government pondered how to keep them from impacting all those other aeronauts. Little happened because of Newtons Law of Administrative Inertia: An agency at rest remains at rest until acted upon by an un-ignorable force. …

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Thursday, July 13, 2017 at 12:00 AM ET

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Key Takeaways:

The U.S. air traffic control (ATC) system evolved reactively and incrementally, driven by private sector innovation, increasing air traffic volumes, and, most significantly, a series of catastrophic mid-air collisions.
Early rudimentary control methods, such as flags and radio, rapidly progressed through the introduction of radar, computer systems, and sophisticated non-radar separation techniques to manage growing complexity, especially with the advent of the Jet Age.
Major incidents, including the 1956 Grand Canyon collision and subsequent crashes, directly prompted the establishment of the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) and mandated crucial safety regulations and infrastructure investments.
The system has faced continuous challenges, notably the 1981 PATCO strike which necessitated a major system rebuild, and has since moved towards advanced navigation technologies like GPS, while still contending with recurring debates over privatization.

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Which came first: the chicken or the Federal Egg Administration? Impossible to say. Physics teaches us that when Bernoulli found lift, his nemesis, Newton, said there must be an opposing reaction. So, when the Wright brothers flew, government pondered how to keep them from impacting all those other aeronauts. Little happened because of Newton’s Law of Administrative Inertia: An agency at rest remains at rest until acted upon by an un-ignorable force.

The growth of air traffic control (ATC) followed a predictable path: Innovation (private sector), befuddlement (government), punctuated by periodic disasters, followed by outcry and government reaction. Repeat. Today’s National Airspace System (NAS) and its ATC components are the outgrowth of screw-ups, miscalculations and clever winging it.