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100 Years ATC Update

1922-2022 AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL

IFATCA

100 YEARS OF ATC: AN UPDATE

zby Philippe Domogala, Chairman IFATCA 100 Years ATC Task Force

The preparations for the celebrations of the 100 years of ATC in 2022 continue, but they may need to be revised due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

Unfortunately, we have had to revisit our plans for celebrating during IFATCA's 2022 Annual Conference in light of the global pandemic. We will review what is possible, depending on how our industry is recovering by then and on what sponsorship options become available.

But other activities are ongoing, including a commemorative book that we have started compiling. We are coordinating with aviation museums worldwide, to plan for an ATC exhibition in 2022. And we are looking at a website with dedicated stories and podcasts, videos, etc. We are also trying to convince the postal authorities in a few countries to issue commemorative stamps in 2022 to celebrate ATC. Unfortunately, Australia, which has a long-standing tradition of publishing beautiful stamps for collections has just commemorated the 100 years of Australia Civil Aviation with two stamps this year. Since the 2022 event is not strongly connected to the national history of Australia, they declined our request. The postal services in Switzerland and Singapore are still looking at our suggestion, but if you think your country's post could be interested, please let us know.

For the IFATCA commemorative book, if you have photos and documents on how ATC started in your country, please contact us. We are still looking for documents and photos. The book will detail how ATC began, with all the major milestones from the 1920s, up to how the future may look like. There will also be lots of small stories and anecdotes that make our job so interesting. To give you a teaser, see the box on the fist strip machine in the USA in 1936. We plan to finish the book this year, and publication will be in early 2022, well before the 2022 Annual Conference where it will be distributed. y

Photo: Australia Post

z Photo: The Australian 100 years civil aviation stamp. Our website is still under construction. but will evolve in the months to come, you can visit it at:

https://www.atc100years.org.

To contact us, use following email for the chairman of the IFATCA 100 years task force email:

philippe.domogala@ifatca.org