FAA History Lesson -- June 21

From the FAA Historical Chronology, 1926-1996...

”Jun 21, 1995: FAA and Australia’s Qantas Airlines completed the first in a series of operational trials of a satellite-based communication, navigation, and surveillance system. Known as the Future Air Navigation System (FANS), the system was designed to improve communication between controllers and pilots on oceanic and remote flights. Other events related to oceanic aviation in 1995 included FAA’s Jul 26 announcement that the first component of the prototype Oceanic Data Link (ODL) system was operational at the Oakland Air Route Traffic Control Center. Single sector air-to-ground communications using ODL became operational at Oakland in October. On Sep 22, meanwhile, FAA announced the award of a contract to Hughes Aircraft Company to develop the Advanced Oceanic Automation System (AOAS) to upgrade and automate the agency’s oceanic air traffic control systems. (See Dec 14, 1989.) “

Hughes Aircraft Company was bought by General Motors in 1985, split up and sold off in pieces.

Just for perspective...in 1995 Microsoft released Windows 95. eBay was founded. Hotmail was started.

Don Brown
June 21, 2007