FAA History Lesson -- July 26 (08)

It’s been a a while since I had a two-for-one. I know we’ve been through a year of FAA history already, but there is so much more.

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

”Jul 26, 1951: The three U.S. armed services agreed to the establishment of Project Lincoln, a study of the air defense program by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (See Apr 10, 1953.) “

Have you ever heard of Lincoln Laboratory ? No ? How about “voice of the internet.” Some egghead had to figure all that out. These were the ones that did it. The lab “also contributes to worldwide communications and civil air traffic control.“ This sentence from Wikipedia really ought to catch your attention;

“A feature of the relationship between Lincoln Lab and MIT is that intellectual property generated at Lincoln is owned by MIT and managed by the MIT Technology Licensing Office (TLO).“

By the way, MIT/Lincoln Laboratory is still involved in air traffic control.

Take Two

”Jul 26, 1988: FAA announced it had awarded IBM a $3.55 billion contract to develop, deploy, and service the Advanced Automation System (AAS). The announcement ended almost four years of competition between IBM and Hughes Aircraft Corp. (See Jul 26, 1985, and Oct 1, 1991.) “

You might think you’ve read that here at Get the Flick before. Actually, you read the 1983 version which included this;

”The new installations were designated the "Host" Computer Systems (HCSs) because of their ability to run the existing 9020 software package with minimum modifications. “

It’s the software package that makes it all go. That’s where most of the $3.55 billion dollars of the Advanced Automation System disappeared down the proverbial rat hole.

To learn more about the current attempt at a new software package , run over to The FAA Follies. You can skip over the first part (if you like) and scan down to the bold header An ERAM update.

Don Brown
July 26, 2008