United States government role in civil aviation

During the following year, the United States Congress took a step toward revitalizing American aviation by establishing the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), an organization dedicated to the science of flight.

Upon entering World War I in 1917, the United States government mobilized the nation's economy, with results that included an expansion of the small aviation manufacturing industry.

Before the end of the conflict, Congress voted funds for an innovative postal program that would serve as a model for commercial air operations.

A succession of accidents during the pre-war exhibition era (1910–16) and barnstorming decade of the 1920s gave way to early forms of federal regulation intended to instill public confidence in the safety of air transportation.

At the urging of the aviation industry, that believed the airplane could not reach its full commercial potential without federal action to improve and maintain safety standards,[citation needed] President Calvin Coolidge appointed a board to investigate the issue.

[12] The Act created an Aeronautic Branch assigned to the United States Department of Commerce, and vested that entity with regulatory powers to ensure a degree of civil air safety.

In fulfilling its civil aviation responsibilities, the Department of Commerce initially concentrated on functions such as safety rulemaking and the certification of pilots and aircraft.

[4] As commercial aviation grew, the Bureau encouraged airlines to establish three centers (Newark, New Jersey; Cleveland, Ohio; and Chicago, Illinois)[16] to provide air traffic control in airways.

[4] Pioneer air traffic controllers resorted to using maps, blackboards, and calculations to perform their new roles, making sure aircraft traveling along designated routes did not collide.

[18] The first head of this organization was William P. MacCracken, Jr. (first recipient of its pilot certification license),[4] whose approach to regulation included consultation and cooperation with industry.

[22] In 1928, having created one of the first wind tunnels years earlier, the organization's work with the latter produced a new type of engine cowling with much less drag than former designs.

[23] Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Aeronautics Branch cooperated with public works agencies on projects that represented an early form of federal aid to airports.

[38] On the eve of America's entry into the conflict, the agency began to take over operation of airport control towers,[39] a role that eventually became permanent.

[43] This included the establishment of semi-permanent colonies in remote, U.S.-owned territories, such as the Palmyra Atoll, where beginning in 1948, nearly 100 men, women, and children were sent to live and work.

Strangely, this community was dispersed in 1949, and while the exact reasons why are unclear, it was likely because the benefits of operating the facilities did not outweigh the cost of providing for the colony members.

The same year witnessed the transformation of NACA into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the wake of the Soviet Union's launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik.

Map of approximately the Northern Hemisphere from Japan & New Guinea (left edge) to middle of North Atlantic Ocean. The map shows yellow over the continental US and Bahamas, Alaska (and much of the Bering Sea), and a yellow circle around Bermuda. Most of the Northern Pacific is colored blue along with a small section in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, and the western half of the North Atlantic from roughly the latitude of Maine to the northern edge of the Leeward Islands (or Puerto Rico). — The FAA provides air traffic control services over US territory as well as over international waters where it has been delegated such authority by the ICAO . This map depicts overflight fee regions. Yellow ( *enroute* ) covers land territory, excluding Hawaii and some island territories but including most of the Bering Sea as well as Bermuda and the Bahamas (the former a British overseas territory and the latter a sovereign country, both where the FAA provides high-altitude ATC service). The blue regions are where the US provides *oceanic* ATC services over international waters (Hawaii, some US island territories, & some small, foreign island nations/territories where the US provides high-altitude ATC service are included in this region).