Against the Wind - National Air Traffic Controllers Association

16
Against the Wind
* Controllers refer to operational errors, which
involve loss of required separation between
aircraft, as “deals.”
1980
20
Oct.
National Archives
Big Blue: The prototype of the IBM 9020 computer, which provided real-time flight
data information on radarscopes, was installed at Jacksonville Center in 1967.
“You had one or two ‘deals’ on almost every
single watch,” Leyden recalls. * For the most part,
managers and pilots looked the other way.
Shortly before Leyden arrived at the center,
BOAC (now British Airways) began flying the de
Havilland Comet between London and New York in
October 1958. Days later, Pan American World Airways
inaugurated Boeing 707 service across the Atlantic
to Paris. In December, National Airlines started
operating the Douglas DC-8 between New York and
Miami. The commercial jet age had dawned.
Yet Leyden and his brethren dwelled in the
Dark Ages of air traffic control. The system was
stagnating from two decades of neglect, largely
Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan writes to PATCO President
Robert Poli, stating that, if elected, he will work to ensure
adequate staffing and new equipment for controllers.
23
Oct.
due to inadequate congressional funding
and bureaucratic infighting within
the Commerce Department, which had
governed the former Civil Aeronautics
Administration.
Many changes loomed, however,
spurred in part by two highly publicized
midair collisions, over the Grand Canyon
in 1956 and New York City in 1960.
On the heels of the first accident,
Democratic Senators Mike Monroney from
Oklahoma and Warren Magnuson from
Washington spent two years shepherding
a bill through Congress to create the
Federal Aviation Agency, predecessor to
today’s FAA. The new organization, run by a Cabinetlevel
administrator, opened its doors in late 1958. It was
charged with taking over development and operation of
the air traffic control system from the CAA, regulating
aviation safety, and promoting air travel.
The New York collision helped to expedite
equipment modernization. Shortly after his inauguration
in 1961, President Kennedy issued an executive
order that led to a task force called Project Beacon.
Based on nearly a year of study, the panel echoed
controller sentiment for upgrading radar equipment
so that all flights nationwide could be monitored continuously
from takeoff to landing.
At the time, vast chunks of U.S. airspace re-
PATCO’s Executive Board publicly endorses Reagan and charges
that President Jimmy Carter is ignoring serious safety problems
that are jeopardizing the nation’s ATC system.