Fairchild Metroliner Fairchild C-26A

The C-26 never received an official name from the US armed forces: it is known by the same nickname as its civil counterpart. The Air Force bought eleven C-26As based on the SA227-AC Metro III, two of which were later transferred to the Venezuelan Air Force. The role was what you would expect of a pressurised nineteen-seat regional: liaison, rapid movement of personnel and freight to remote airfields, and support to Air National Guard units.

The interesting branch came later. A Metro III, c/n AC-614, was modified as the Multi Mission Surveillance Aircraft with a Lockheed phased-array radar in a long pod under the fuselage. Several of that aircraft's solutions passed to the C-26s redesignated RC-26B, flown by the Air National Guard in various states and used mainly for reconnaissance support to federal agencies: coast guard, customs and border protection in the war on drugs, and the federal emergency agency after natural disasters. The belly pod was eventually replaced by a sensor turret on the underside.

Published C-26A data gives two crew, up to twenty-two passengers, 6,400 kg maximum take-off weight, 533 km/h maximum speed, 3,750 km range and 9,500 m ceiling. Then came the C-26B — military equivalent of the SA227-BC and the Metro 23, with thirty-seven for the Air Force — the Navy's C-26Ds, the EC-26D and RC-26D range-support aircraft at Barking Sands, and the C-26E upgrade with Proline 21 avionics on eleven airframes. In January 2023 the Air Force retired its RC-26Bs.