Helping the GA Community for Over 90 Years

By: Terry Kraus, FAA historian 

 Roger Waite, ATO CSA Service Center 

Did you know that the first federal air traffic facilities in the United States date 

back to August 20, 1920? On that day, the Post Office Department issued orders to 

establish the first air mail radio stations along the transcontinental air mail route. The 

2,612-mile route from New York to San Francisco had 17 primary landing fields, and 

each would have its own air mail radio station. These stations were the forerunners of 

today’s flight service stations. 

 Air mail radio station personnel 

provided an early flight following 

service, with the departure time and a 

coded flight plan teletyped to all 

stations along the route. As the pilot 

passed each station, he would report by 

radio or, if he had no radio, he would 

flash his lights or gun his engine and 

his new position would be relayed to the next station. The first station personnel reported 

aircraft arrivals and departures. They could only make point-to-point transmissions with 

other ground stations using Morse code over radiotelegraph. They later used a Morse 

code shortcut called Phillips Code. It is from Phillips Code that acronyms such as ETA 

(estimated time of arrival) and WILCO (will comply) originated. 

Although the first station operators had “state-of-the art equipment,” which 

included Navy spark transmitters, Army antennas, and 4-cylinder gas engine generators, 

Bellefonte, PA, air mail radio station 
they often found themselves housed in makeshift buildings, including an abandoned box 

car, a converted chicken coop, and a shed made from discarded crates once used for 

shipping DeHaviland aircraft. Since, initially, only two air mail flights came daily – one 

in the morning and the other in the evening – only one operator manned the station. He 

worked seven days a week for a typical salary of $1,200 per year. He received infrequent 

raises and, although he worked a lot of overtime, received no overtime pay. In addition to 

tracking flights, he provided weather information, sorted mail, maintained the equipment, 

and kept the runways clear. If a landing had to be made in the dark, he had to light the 

field by any means possible – automobile headlights, flares, bonfires, etc. And, during the 

day’s slow periods, the operator broadcast market reports for the Bureau of Markets and 

Crop Estimates of the Department of Agriculture. 

When the Department of 

Commerce became responsible for the 

transcontinental airway after passage 

of the Air Commerce Act of 1926 it 

assumed operation of the air mail radio 

stations, and renamed them airway 

radio stations. By 1927, the 

Department’s Lighthouse Service 

Airways Division, which had responsibility for the stations, employed 143 ground 

personnel, including 45 radio operators, 14 maintenance mechanics, and 84 caretakers. 

Because of a high demand for services, all stations from New York to Salt Lake City 

soon began providing 24-hours service, seven days a week with three operators. Stations 

1929, airway radio operators 
west of Salt Lake City provided 16-hour service with two operators (they also later went 

to 24-hour operations). Until 1935, all station employees had to wear uniforms while on 

duty. 

Life in the field under the 

Department gradually improved. The 

offices, called watch houses, for the most 

part, now consisted of prefabricated wood 

huts that housed one to four men, sparsely 

furnished. In remote areas, the stations 

included a residence for the station 

operator and even bachelor quarters for 

single workers. By mid-1933, 68 airway radio stations, about 200 miles apart, comprised 

the federal airways, supported by 13,000 miles of leased teletype circuits, serving 345 air 

carrier aircraft flying scheduled services on specific routes. 

With other airway facilities, the stations were transferred to the Civil Aeronautics 

Authority in 1938 and to the Civil Aeronautics Administration in 1940. The CAA 

redesignated them as airway communication stations in 1938. On May 1, 1939, the CAA 

completed a $7 million modernization and improvement program, begun in July 1937. 

The federal airway system now included 231 radio stations. By this time, the station 

operators could actively participate in the control of flight because of new air-to-ground 

capability. They provided up-to-date weather reports and helped lost pilots identify local 

landmarks to find their bearings. As the number of stations continued to grow and 

Maintenance technician Dusty Rhodes in his uniform 
equipment became more sophisticated the CAA began hiring maintenance technicians so 

the airways operation specialists could focus on their primary duties. 

As the United States prepared for and then entered World War II, the stations 

faced huge manpower shortages. During the war, the CAA trained approximately 4,000 

men and women at the regional training centers to work at the airway communications 

stations. Alaska, in particular, needed communications specialists as the CAA built a 

large number of stations throughout the territory to aid in the war effort. Volunteers from 

stations throughout the continental U.S. volunteered for six month tours in Alaska. Since 

most of the new stations were in remote locations, the Alaska Region trained about 100 

husband/wife teams during the war to encourage families to move to the region. 

On March 1, 1960, the Federal Aviation Agency (created by the Federal Aviation 

Act of 1958), gave the air traffic communications stations new names – flight service 

stations and international flight service stations. By the early 1960s, the Agency operated 

297 flight service stations. FAA worked to continually update the stations as new 

technologies became available. For example, FAA commissioned a new program in the 

summer of 1978, under the name En Route Flight Advisory Service (EFAS). This service 

provided en route pilots with current weather information. Flight Service Station 

specialists trained in the collection and dissemination of aviation weather data manned 

the EWAS units, which were linked by direct telephone line with the nearest National 

Weather Service forecast office. 

In February 1972, following a nationwide election, the National Association of 

Air Traffic Specialists (NAATS) received Department of Labor certification as the 

national exclusive representative for all flight service station specialists, approximately 
3,000 employees. Four months later, on June 1, 1972, FAA and NAATS concluded an 

agencywide collective bargaining agreement, the first such contract between FAA and a 

national labor organization. 

By the mid-1970s, with the advent of new 

automation technologies, FAA began planning to decrease 

the number of flight service stations using what was then 

the latest computer technology. FAA estimated that if the 

system remained unchanged, up to 11,500 specialists 

would be needed to operate it by 1995, as opposed to only 

4,500 in 1978. In April 1980, FAA Administrator 

Langhorne Bond announced plans to consolidate flight 

service operations into 61 automated stations. Although linked by telephone lines to 

computers at the air route traffic control centers, these sites would be housed in new 

buildings at airports with general aviation activity. FAA commissioned its first automated 

flight service station (AFSS) at Denver in November 1982. By the end of fiscal year 

1995, FAA had consolidated its flight service stations into 61 AFSSs, 31 auxiliary 

stations (primarily in Alaska), and one remaining conventional station. 

As part of its modernization program, in 

August 1997, FAA awarded Harris Corporation 

a contract to replace the system that flight 

service specialists used to provide information 

to pilots. The operational and supportability 

implementation system (OASIS) would provide 

Tucson flight service station 

Millville automated flight service station
integrated weather briefing and flight planning capabilities for preflight weather briefings 

and inflight updates. FAA commissioned the first system on July 1, 2002, at the AFSS in 

Anderson, SC, and planned to complete the program over the next ten years. 

As the modernization program progressed, a series of government mandates 

resulted in the flight service program’s largest organizational change. In May 2003, the 

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a significant revision to Circular A-76, 

which, at its core tenant, said government functions should be performed in the most 

efficient and cost effective way regardless of whether it was with government employees 

or contractor personnel. Federal departments and agencies were to examine their 

programs to determine if any would be more cost effective as a contract operation. 

After careful review, FAA formally announced in December 2003 that its 

automated flight service stations met the criteria for competitive sourcing and that it 

would conduct a competition under OMB's Circular A-76 guidelines. The competition 

would be limited to services provided by 58 AFSSs in the contiguous U.S., Hawaii, and 

Puerto Rico. The FAA would continue operating facilities in Alaska as part of its new Air 

Traffic Organization. The agency planned to award a contract by early 2005. 

FAA received five competing service providers, including the incumbent government 

organization, and on February 1, 2005, announced the selection of a team headed by 

Lockheed Martin to take over services provided currently by the agency’s automated 

flight service stations. The total evaluated cost of the five-year contract, with five 

additional option years, was $1.9 billion and represented estimated savings of $2.2 billion 

over the next ten years. Lockheed Martin assumed operation of the flight service stations 

on October 4, 2005. By the time FAA had awarded Lockheed a three-year contract 
extension in September 2010, Lockheed had consolidated the automated flight service 

stations into three hubs and three satellite facilities. 

FAA continues to operate three 

automated flight service stations in 

Fairbanks, Juneau, and Kenai, Alaska, as 

well as 14 satellite field facility flight 

service stations across the state. Flight 

service specialists at these stations are 

helping to prepare the national airspace 

system for the introduction of the FAA’s 

Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). They are working with Alaska’s 

general aviation pilots to integrate new satellite technologies, such as automatic 

dependent broadcast – surveillance, into the system to improve safety. FAA’s Capstone 

program in Alaska took ADS-B from proof-of-concept to reality. Now that technology is 

the cornerstone for the NextGen system. By 2020, the year that NextGen takes a big step 

forward in increasing safety and efficiency throughout the U.S. national aerospace 

system, the FAA will also be celebrating 100 years of government service to aviation. 

The Alaskan flight service stations continue supporting this vital modernization. Flight 

service has come a long way from its humble beginnings on August 20, 1920, to laying 

the groundwork for the NextGen system. 

Kotzebue satellite flight service station