Fairchild Metroliner SA226-TC Metro

The Metro was not drawn on a blank sheet but shaped by an administrative rule. Ed Swearingen had built his career modifying other people's twins — Beechcraft Twin Bonanzas and Queen Airs turned into Excaliburs, and from there into the pressurised Merlin — and the next step was obvious: stretch the Merlin III into an airliner. The fuselage was good for twenty-two seats, but FAA rules required a flight attendant above nineteen passengers, and no regional carrier wanted that cost. The aircraft was optimised for nineteen, with barely a metre and a half of cabin headroom.

Prototype construction began in 1968 and first flight came on 26 August 1969, but Swearingen Aircraft was financially exhausted by precisely that effort. Late in 1971 Fairchild — already marketing the Metro and building its wings and nacelles — bought ninety per cent of the company, renamed Swearingen Aviation Corporation, and only then was there capital to put the aircraft into real production.

The first two Metros went in 1972 to the Société Minière de Bakwanga in Kinshasa, and the first airline to operate them was Commuter Airlines in January 1973, followed shortly by Air Wisconsin. About twenty were built before the model gave way to the Metro II in 1974. Curiously, in those early years the executive Merlin IVA sold roughly twice as well as the airliner it was derived from.