June 3 (UPI) — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Tuesday the Federal Aviation Administration is searching for “top innovators” to lead the rebuilding of the nation’s “antiquated” air traffic control system.
Duffy said the FAA will host two industry days next week in Washington, D.C., and another in New Jersey to meet with companies that could spearhead the building of the next air traffic control system.
“We have an antiquated air traffic control system that is showing its age,” Duffy said. “In order to implement President Trump’s and my plan for a brand new system, we need the technical expertise and management experience from the best innovators in the world.”
“In the ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ there is $12.5 billion to start this project. A big deal,” Duffy told reporters Tuesday. “I believe the Senate’s going to provide more dollars for us also? We’ll see what they do … This has to happen fast.”
“The failures of the past is that the FAA has gotten small tranches of money, not full funding,” Duffy added. “We need full funding. We need the money up front so we can contract out and build this brand new system across the country.”
The FAA is planning to replace the core infrastructure of the system to include radar, software, hardware and telecommunications networks to make sure towers have the technology needed to “reduce outages, improve efficiency and reinforce safety.”
The proposed plan would replace fiber, wireless and satellite technologies at more than 4,600 sites and install 25,000 new radios and 475 new voice switches. And it would replace 618 radar systems that have exceeded their lifespan.
The FAA’s new system also calls for six new air traffic control centers, none of which have been built in the last 60 years.
“It is critical the United States acts now to invest and modernize a National Airspace System that supports the future and moves beyond the 1960s,” the FAA’s air traffic control system report said.
Plans to overhaul the nation’s air traffic control system were announced by the Trump administration in February. At this point, there is no timeline or price for the project.
The FAA said that information will come when the best company provides “innovative ideas and new technologies” to help execute and manage the massive reinvention.
“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for a new, world-class air traffic system,” said FAA acting administrator Chris Rocheleau. “We need world-class innovators to step up and tell us the best way to build it.”
The ninth launch of Elon Musk’s futuristic SpaceX Starship comes after two previous space rockets blew up.
Billionaire Elon Musk’s commercial space flight company, SpaceX, lost control of its ninth Starship test flight 30 minutes after the uncrewed rocket vehicle was launched into space from Texas, the Reuters news agency reports.
The Starship then re-entered the atmosphere earlier than planned on Wednesday after an onboard leak triggered uncontrollable spinning in space, according to Reuters.
The test flight flew beyond the point of past failures, before losing control, Reuters added.
In a post on social media, SpaceX said the Starship experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly”.
“With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multiplanetary,” the company added.
Musk has spent billions of dollars on Starship’s development. The South African-born billionaire claims the initiative is part of his commercial space flight company’s plan to colonise the planet Mars.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) diverted several flights and briefly halted departures at four Florida airports, including Miami International Airport, as debris from that failed flight fell in the area.
At the top of a hill in a sprawling Santa Clarita industrial park in the shadow of Magic Mountain’s roller coasters, a significant chapter in the history of motorsports was written.
But the story isn’t finished yet.
From the outside, the building is nothing special. Behind its walls, however, Honda Racing Corporation has designed, tested and built the engines that have won 14 of the last 21 IndyCar championships and all five IndyCar races this season. In Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, a race Honda has won 15 times since 2004, four of the top six starters will have Honda engines, including two-time winner Takuma Sato, who qualified second.
It’s a level of dominance unmatched in IndyCar history — in a series Honda probably helped save.
A technician works on an engine at Honda Racing Corporation. All of Honda’s engines for North American racing series are built in Santa Clarita.
(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)
Amid the open-wheel civil war between Championship Auto Racing Teams and the Indy Racing League, Honda was prepared to walk away. Robert Clarke, who started Honda Performance Development (before it was renamed HRC in 2024) and made it a cutting-edge research and development facility, convinced American Honda president Koichi Amemiya to supply engines to IRL teams in 2003 after Honda left CART in 2002.
“It just was not Honda’s image of what a race car should be. That’s why Honda initially didn’t want to be involved,” Clarke said. “In my discussion with the president it was ‘OK, we developed all these skills and know-how. Are we just going to give that up and just walk away?’ That’s crazy.
”We invested literally billions of dollars. And we’ve seen the success.”
Chevrolet and Toyota eventually did quit, leaving Honda as the only IndyCar engine manufacturer for six seasons. Amemiya then doubled down, funding Honda’s move to its 123,000-square-foot home while expanding its workforce to 250 from an original staff of fewer than 10.
Honda hasn’t looked in the rearview mirror since.
Clarke, 75, left Honda in 2008 though he’s still something of an executive emeritus, one who wears the brand on his sleeve and often refers to the company with the collective pronoun “we.”
Robert Clarke, left, speaks to IndyCar driver Dario Franchitti at Mid-Ohio Race Course in July 2007.
(Jay LaPrete / Associated Press)
He was 10 when his father took him to his first race to watch a friend run in an amateur open-wheel event. When young Robert was invited into the garage and allowed to work on the car “I was hooked,” he said. “My bedroom walls were covered with pictures of Formula One cars and all kinds of racing.”
He took the long road to Honda racing, though, studying architecture and art/industrial design in college, then teaching for five years at Notre Dame. His first job at Honda was in the motorcycle accessory and product planning departments but when the company announced it was going to enter open-wheel racing, Clarke volunteered and he was soon tasked with building the program from the ground up.
That was in 1993. By the time Clarke left Honda 15 years later, the company’s place as a major force in IndyCar racing was secure and Honda’s two-story hilltop headquarters became his legacy.
The focus of work in the building now is mainly on supporting Honda teams in IndyCar and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. As such, it has become a one-stop shop for racing teams, housing comprehensive engine research and development operations; prototype and production parts manufacturing; engine preparation and rebuilding; a material analysis facilities; more than a half-dozen engine dynamometer test cells; a machine shop; electronics lab; parts center; multiple conference rooms; and administrative offices.
A view of the machine shop at the at the Honda Racing Corporation in Santa Clarita.
(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)
Next year it will provide support for Honda’s effort to supply Formula One engines to Aston Martin.
Mostly the building is a maze of quiet office space where engineers sketch out their designs on computer screens, well-lit assembly bays where mechanics assemble the prototypes, and the noisy high-tech dyno rooms where those prototypes are tested. Every stage of a racing engine, from conception and construction to being shipped to the track, is managed at the facility.
“We develop the technology quickly,” said David Salters, the British-born engineer who heads HRC. “We try them. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t work and you try again. The point of having a racing facility inside your company is you can be agile. You can try stuff. You can train the people.
“The people are the most important thing of all this.”
The whole process is more NASA than NASCAR in that there’s not a speck of grease or oil on the bright, white vinyl flooring and everybody’s hands are clean.
David Salters, president of Honda Racing Corporation.
(Michael L. Levitt / LAT Images via American Honda Motor Co.)
“This is a world-class facility. It needs to be clinical and professional in the processes and systems we have here,” said Salters, who was head of engine development for the Ferrari F1 team and held a similar position at Mercedes-Benz before joining Honda a decade ago.
“It’s like an operating theater. We’re basically dealing with engines or electrical systems, which are like jewelry. They cannot tolerate dirt or anything like that. Everything has to be spotless and clean and well-organized. This is aerospace.”
And when the engines don’t work, they’re brought back to HRC and the engineering process is repeated in reverse in search of flaws. As for why they’re doing all that in a sleepy bedroom community better known for its paved bike paths and rustic hiking trails than for its motorsports history, that’s easy: Location, location, location.
Clarke originally expected to recruit engineers from Indianapolis and Charlotte, N.C., the heartland of American racing, while Honda insisted on keeping its operations near its corporate offices in Torrance. Clarke feared dropping people from the Midwest and South into L.A.’s traffic-clogged sprawl would be such a culture shock, he’d lose his best engineers.
So he chose Santa Clarita, which was isolated enough to not feel like L.A., but close enough to Torrance to be accessible. And the building came with an “Only in L.A.” feature: It shares a driveway with the studio where the popular TV series “NCIS” is filmed.
“Every so often a helicopter will land in the car park and we’re all told we can’t go outside in case we get swept away,” Salters said with a chuckle. “There was some ‘Star Trek’ thing where they decided our foyer could be useful. So for a few weeks we had a movie set in our foyer; we rented it out.
“You’ve got to look at business opportunities.”
Adi Susilo, chief engineer of powertrain at Honda Racing Corporation, looks over large monitors before the start of the 12 Hours of Sebring in March.
(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)
It’s early on a chilly Saturday in March and HRC’s headquarters is mostly empty save for one corner on the building’s second floor where nearly a dozen people, some wearing headphones, have gathered behind computer screens facing six giant TV monitors.
A continent away, in central Florida, more than 50 cars are lined up for the 12 hours of Sebring. Each driver with a Honda engine has an engineer monitoring their car’s performance.
Before the pandemic, engineers would travel and work with race teams on site. But for the last four years the engineers have been working mostly at HRC, monitoring in-car telemetry that provides real-time information about everything from engine status and tire pressure to suspension behavior.
“Data is king,” said Adi Susilo, one of the HRC engineers. “Humans make mistakes. Data rarely does.”
F1 teams have monitored telemetry remotely for years, but it didn’t become common in IndyCar racing until 2023. Now it’s a vital part of every major racing series, including NASCAR.
Powertrain chief engineer Adi Susilo looks at a full-size mock up of an IMSA prototype at Honda Racing Corporation.
(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)
Engineers work out of what looks like a college classroom, only quieter. When the sound of a disembodied voice does cackle out of a headphone, it sounds like NASA Mission Control, the tone flat and unemotional, the conversation short and to the point.
“It’s better for solving problems,” said Susilo about working away from the track. “If there’s a problem, you just walk downstairs and talk to the guy who built the engine.”
That won’t be the case Sunday. For the Indy 500, Susilo said it’s all hands on deck, so most of Honda’s race-day engineers are in Indianapolis where the telemetry will be broadcast to their work stations in trailers at the track.
“A few of the IndyCar races are run that way,” he said, “but the 500 is almost always run that way just because everyone’s out here for the event. We’re also testing a new, hopefully more robust, telemetry streaming as it’s much harder to make sure we get 15 car’s worth of data.”
At first, the idea of having engineers looming electronically over the timing stand was a hard sell. Trusting someone with clean fingernails watching the race on monitors thousands of miles away wasn’t easy for some crew chiefs.
“What happens for people like me is that you have to erase the old-school way of thinking,” said Mike Hull, a former mechanic and driver who is now the managing director for Chip Ganassi Racing and chief strategist for driver Scott Dixon, a six-time IndyCar champion. “You’re electronically shoulder to shoulder with them.
“If you don’t listen to what somebody has to say, it stifles free thinking. Free thinking sends you down a path that you may not have originally been on, but makes you stronger at what you’re doing.”
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1.Race engines being assembled at Honda Racing Corporation.2.A technician in the HRC machine shop works on an engine.3.Engineers monitor data during the 12 Hours of Sebring in March.4.A engineer monitors telemetry remotely from HRC headquarters.(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)
Dixon, the 2008 Indy 500 champion who will start Sunday’s race in the second row, agrees. Which is he why he’s made several trips to HRC to personally thank the engineers who design his engines and those who help direct his races.
“You always feel like there’s a big group behind you,” he said. “You just don’t get to see all them in one place but you know the machine is there, working pretty hard.”
One drawback, Dixon said, is you have to be careful what you say on the radio during races because you never know who’s listening.
“Twenty people at home, just on the team side, will be listening just on that one car,” he said. “So the communication is very wide open. You definitely have to watch your Ps and Qs.”
Two years later race teams have grown so comfortable with people looking over their shoulders, the engineers have become as much a part of the team as the cars. So when a nearby wildfire forced the evacuation of the building, Honda rented rooms at a nearby hotel, set up their TVs, computer monitors and a coffee machine in a conference room and worked from there.
“We’re pretty blind without it. The race teams are pretty competitive,” Susilo said. “They feel that instinct still does work. But it’s more data-driven.”
Honda powertain engineer Jake Marthaler monitors data during the 12 Hours of Sebring in March.
(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)
Given the investment, the pressure can be intense.
“Every two weeks we want to have the latest development. We want to have made progress,” Salters said. “Every two weeks you have a deadline and the deadline does not move. It’s not like they’re going to say ‘OK, we’ll just delay the race a week.’ The flag drops, you’ve got to be ready.
“It’s sort of an engineering sport isn’t it? It’s like a true sport; the best team will win.”
If the IndyCar-Honda marriage has mostly been good for both sides, it has recently hit a rocky patch.
Honda’s supply contract with IndyCar ends next year and the company hasn’t hid its distaste over the cheating scandals that have recently tarnished the series. Last week Team Penske drivers Josef Newgarden, the two-time defending Indy 500 champion, and Will Power were forced to the back of the field for the start of Sunday’s race after illegally modified parts were found on their cars. Team Penske, which uses Chevrolet engines, was also caught cheating at the beginning of the 2024 season.
On Wednesday, the team fired three of its top racing executives. IndyCar, which is owned by Roger Penske (also the owner of Team Penske) said it is exploring the creation of an independent governing body absent of Penske employees.
Scott Dixon drives into the first turn during practice for the Indianapolis 500 on Friday.
(Michael Conroy / Associated Press)
That may not be enough to restore trust in the series. Honda, which supplies engines to 13 full-season IndyCar entries and three Indy 500-only cars, has declined to comment on the rules violations, but confirmed its continued participation in the series beyond 2026 may depend on Penske’s ability to separate himself from policing the series he owns and also competes in.
Honda said in a written statement Thursday that it has many concerns, among them “the relatively high overall cost to participate as an engine supplier” and “the potential (perceived or real) conflict of interest which may exist” with Penske’s ownership of the racing series, three of the cars competing in the series and his “significant stake” in Ilmor Engineering, which designs and manufactures engines for Chevrolet, Honda’s biggest competitor.
“Honda continues to have ongoing negotiations with IndyCar’s management and technical teams regarding our future as an engine supplier for the series,” said Chuck Chayefsky, manager of Honda & Acura Motorsports.
Whatever road Honda takes with IndyCar, it’s unlikely to change most of the day-to-day work at HRC, which is heavily involved with IMSA and will soon be working on F1 power-unit development.
So while the cars may change, the racing will never stop.
The car Ryan Hunter-Reay drove to victory for Andretti Autosport in the 2014 Indianapolis 500 sits on display at Honda Racing Corporation in Santa Clarita.
(Robert Hanashiro / For the Times)
“Thirty years ago our sole purpose in life was to look after racing in North America for Honda and Acura,” Salters said before last week’s events in Indianapolis. “Last year we changed that. We’re now part of a global racing organization. That’s another opportunity for associates here.”
“The automotive world, it’s pivoting,” he continued. “We are trying some new stuff. We’ll see how it goes.”
One chapter has been written. But the story isn’t finished.
Four months after the San Bernardino mass shooting, state lawmakers on Tuesday gave initial approval to five gun control bills, including measures that would outlaw assault rifles with detachable magazines, ban possession of clips holding more than 10 rounds and require homemade guns to be registered with the state.
The bills approved by the state Senate Public Safety Committee were introduced in response to the December shooting in San Bernardino that left 14 people dead and 22 others wounded at the hands of two terrorists.
One of the measures the panel sent toward the Senate floor would outlaw assault rifles with easily detachable bullet magazines like one of the weapons used in the mass shooting in San Bernardino.
The bill prohibits the sale of semiautomatic, centerfire rifles with a “bullet button,” a recessed button that, when pressed, allows removal of the magazine. Those who already own them must register them with the state as assault rifles.
Democratic state Sens. Isadore Hall of Compton and Steve Glazer of Orinda introduced the measure, SB 880, in response to the discovery of a gun with a bullet button that was in the possession of the San Bernardino terrorists.
“These weapons of war don’t belong in our communities,” Glazer told the Senate panel before it approved the measure he coauthored with Hall.
Hall said there is an urgent need to close a loophole in the law that bans assault weapons.
“For years, gun owners have been able to circumvent California’s assault weapons law by using a small tool to quickly eject and reload an ammunition magazine,” Hall said.
The measure is opposed by gun owner rights groups including the National Rifle Assn., according to its lobbyist, Ed Worley.
“We continue to oppose banning guns for citizens who have no criminal background,” Worley told the panel. “People should be able to own any kind of gun they want to own in the United States of America.”
The Senate panel also approved a bill by Sen. Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) that would ban the possession of ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds, closing a loophole in a law that already prohibits their manufacture and sale in California.
Hancock noted that four large-capacity magazines were found among the weapons of the two shooters in San Bernardino. Since 1980, 435 people have been killed in 50 mass shootings involving large-capacity magazines, some of which can hold 100 rounds of ammunition, she said.
The magazines have already been banned in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
“By banning these weapons statewide we would be taking a step to preventing future mass shootings and creating safer communities in California,” Hancock told the Senate panel.
Republican Sen. Jeff Stone voted against the bill.
“Today we want to make criminals out of law-abiding citizens who have been collecting guns,” Stone said.
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FOR THE RECORD
April 20, 11:35 a.m.: An earlier version of this story mistakenly attributed a quote to Sen. John Moorlach. The statement was from Sen. Jeff Stone.
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The measure was also opposed by others including Worley and Sam Paredes, the executive director of Gun Owners of California, who said millions of large-capacity clips are already in the hands of Californians.
“Here we are trying to confiscate people’s property,” Worley told the panel.
Paredes said many law enforcement officers are given large-capacity magazines.
“That is what they may need to protect themselves,” Paredes said. “Why should it be any different for a law-abiding citizen?”
The Senate committee also approved a bill that would allow the state to collect information on those who buy ammunition for firearms. An earlier law that would have required bullet purchasers to provide identification and a thumbprint was struck down by a court in 2010 on the grounds that its definition of handgun ammunition was vague.
That case is on appeal to the state Supreme Court.
The new bill by Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De León (D-Los Angeles), SB 1235, would clarify that the previous law applies to all ammunition, including bullets for long guns and handguns as well as shotgun shells, which he hopes will address the lower court’s concerns.
The panel also approved a bill requiring those who build guns at home to register them with the state, get a serial number and undergo a criminal background check.
“These firearms are called ‘ghost guns’ because they are built at home … with no serial numbers or background checks involved,” De León told the panel before it approved the bill on a 5-3 party-line vote. “These are weapons that have the ability to kill or maim a human being.”
Hundreds of ghost guns have been seized in California, and they have been used in major crimes, including a mass shooting in 2013. The measure is backed by the California Police Chiefs Assn.
“Gun-smithing has become easier than putting together Ikea furniture because of the 3-D printer,” said Chief Jennifer G. Tejada of the Emeryville Police Department. “This bill will decrease the number of untraceable firearms in California.”
The measure is opposed by groups including the NRA and Gun Owners of California.
“We’re going to take hobbyists who enjoy making guns and we’re going to make them criminals,” Worley said.
The panel also approved measures that would require firearms owners to report lost or stolen guns to authorities within five days and another to create a gun violence prevention research center at a University of California system campus.
Meanwhile, a bill that would have required all gun sales to be videotaped failed to pass an Assembly committee on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON — The head of the U.S. Space Force is moving ahead with plans to pull talent from Air National Guard units to help build up the still new-military service — but several governors remain opposed and argue it tramples on their rights to retain control over their state units.
Overall, the plan would affect only 578 service members across six states and the Air National Guard headquarters and augment the Space Force without creating a separate Space Force National Guard — something the service has said would not be efficient because it would be so small.
“We are actively pursuing where do we want our part-time workforce? What type of work do they do?” the head of Space Force, Gen. Chance Saltzman, said Thursday at a Politico conference.
The transferred service members would be a part-time force like they are now, just serving under the Space Force instead of their state units.
But space missions are some of the most lucrative across the military and private sectors, and the states that lose space mission service member billets are potentially losing highly valuable part-time workforce members if they have to move away to transfer to the Space Force.
Last month, the National Governors Assn. said the transfers violate their right to retain control over their state units.
“We urge that any transfers cease immediately and that there be direct and open engagement with governors,” the association said in April. The group was not immediately available to comment on Space Force’s plan.
“There’s a lot of concern in the National Guard about these individuals who are highly skilled that want to be in the Guard being transferred out,” Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin said at an Air Force manpower hearing this week.
Congress directed the transfers in its 2025 defense bill. But the contention between the states and the Space Force has meant the service hasn’t so far been able to approach individual members about transferring in.
According to the legislation, each National Guard will get the option to either stay with their units — and get retrained in another specialty — or join the Space Force. Those who do transfer would be allowed to remain in their home state to perform their mission for at least the next 10 years, according to the 2025 legislation.
The affected personnel include 33 from Alaska, 126 from California, 119 from Colorado, 75 from Florida, 130 from Hawaii, 69 from Ohio and 26 from Air National Guard headquarters
