United States · 1925–
Fairchild
Fairchild was an American aircraft and aerospace manufacturer founded in 1924 by Sherman Fairchild and based in turn at Farmingdale, New York; Hagerstown, Maryland; and San Antonio, Texas. It began as the parent company for its founder's many aviation interests, which included engines, aerial cameras and a Canadian subsidiary at Longueuil, Quebec. Its first speciality was the aerial photography aircraft: the family that starts with the Fairchild FC-1 — the first American aeroplane with a fully enclosed cockpit and hydraulic landing gear — was designed to fly high and steadily enough for survey work. Then came the PT-19 Cornell trainers of the Second World War and a line of rear-loading military transports: the C-82 Packet, the C-119 Flying Boxcar and the C-123 Provider. The company grew by acquisition — Hiller in 1964, Republic in 1965, Swearingen after 1971 — and signed two of its best-known products: the Metroliner commuter turboprop and the A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft. After renaming itself Fairchild Industries in 1971 and Fairchild Dornier in 1996, it stopped building aircraft of its own; its assets passed in 2003 to M7 Aerospace, today a parts and support business.
History
Sherman Fairchild and the camera aircraft
Sherman Fairchild founded the Fairchild Aviation Corporation in 1924 at Farmingdale, on Long Island, as the head of a group of aviation businesses. The origin of its catalogue is unusual: dissatisfied with the aircraft available, which flew neither high enough nor steadily enough for his survey work, he commissioned an aeroplane built around the camera. The result was the FC-1, the first American aircraft with a fully enclosed cockpit and hydraulic landing gear, from which a whole series ran up to the Fairchild 71. The company widened its reach by buying the Caminez Engine Company in 1925, which became the Fairchild Engine Company, and in 1929 acquired a majority stake in the Kreider-Reisner Aircraft Company of Hagerstown, Maryland, the town to which it moved operations in 1931. In 1935 the U.S. government hired it to photograph the country and track soil erosion, and an FC-2 accompanied Richard E. Byrd on his Antarctic expedition.
Trainers and wartime transports
During the Second World War output concentrated on training and transport: the PT-19, PT-23 and PT-26 Cornell trainers, the twin-engined AT-21 Gunner gunnery trainer — built in a former rayon mill at Burlington, North Carolina — the C-82 Packet transport and large numbers of the Fairchild 24, used mainly by the Royal Air Force as the Argus and kept in civil production after the war. Fairchild ranked 73rd among United States corporations by the value of military production contracts in the conflict.
Boxcar, Provider and the subcontracting business
The C-82 led to the C-119 Flying Boxcar, able to carry cargo, troops, stretcher patients and mechanised equipment and to paradrop them; it first flew in November 1947 and by the end of production in 1955 more than 1,100 had been built, many later converted into water bombers. In 1949 the company turned the Chase XCG-20 glider into the C-123 Provider transport, in service from 1955. It bought the American Helicopter Company in 1954 and in 1956 acquired rights to the Fokker Friendship, of which it built 206 as the F-27 and FH-227. Those years also consolidated a highly profitable second line of business, aerospace subcontracting: B-52 fuselage sections and wing panels for Boeing and, later, F-4 Phantom II and F-14 Tomcat tails and Space Shuttle orbiter stabilisers.
From Fairchild Industries to the end of production
The purchase of Hiller Aircraft in 1964 created Fairchild Hiller, which built the FH-1100 helicopter until the division was sold back to Stanley Hiller in 1973; 1965 brought the acquisition of Republic Aviation. After the founder's death the group was reorganised in 1971 as Fairchild Industries, bought Swearingen and put the Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner into production, a commercially successful commuter turboprop that the U.S. military adopted as the C-26. That same year development of the A-10 Thunderbolt II began at Germantown, Maryland; it beat the Northrop YA-9 in the A-X competition and 716 were eventually delivered. There was no such luck with the T-46 jet trainer, rejected by the Air Force over performance problems, and aircraft production at Hagerstown stopped in 1984 after years devoted largely to control surfaces for the Boeing 747 and 757. The company took over Dornier's civil assets in 1996 and was renamed Fairchild Dornier, building the Dornier 328 from 1998 under DASA licence; in December 1999 it was bought by the German insurer Allianz and the investment group Clayton, Dubilier & Rice. In 2003 its assets were acquired by M7 Aerospace, which moved the business to San Antonio, and on 15 December 2010 M7 passed to the United States subsidiary of the Israeli firm Elbit Systems.
Catalog — Aircraft
- 1926
Fairchild FC-2 Sheet pending
Variants (11)
- FC-1
- FC-1A
- FC-2
- FC-2C
- FC-2L
- FC-2W
- FC-2W2
- Model 51
- Model 61
- UC-96
- XJQ-1
- 1934
Fairchild Super 71 Sheet pending
Variants (2)
- Super 71
- Super 71P
- 1935
Fairchild 91 Baby Clipper Sheet pending
Variants (3)
- Fairchild 91 Baby Clipper
- Fairchild 91B Jungle Clipper
- Fairchild LXF
- 1935
Fairchild 45 Sheet pending
Variants (4)
- 45
- 45-A
- JK-1
- UC-88
- 1935
Fairchild 82 Sheet pending
Variants (4)
- 34-42 Niska
- Model 82A
- Model 82B
- Model 82D
- 1939
Fairchild PT-19 Sheet pending
Variants (9)
- PT-19
- PT-19A
- PT-19B
- PT-23
- PT-23A
- PT-26
- PT-26A
- PT-26B
- XPT-23A
- 1944
Fairchild C-82 Packet Sheet pending
Variants (8)
- C-82A Packet
- C-82N
- EC-82A
- Steward-Davis Jet-Packet II
- Steward-Davis Skypallet
- Steward-Davis Skytruck I
- XC-82
- XC-82B
- 1946
Fairchild XNQ Sheet pending
Variants (1)
- XNQ-1
- 1947
Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar Sheet pending
Variants (18)
- C-119B
- C-119C
- C-119F
- C-119G
- C-119J
- C-119K
- C-119L
- EC-119J
- MC-119J
- R4Q-1
- R4Q-2
- RC-119
- Steward-Davis Jet-Pak C-119
- Steward-Davis Stolmaster
- XC-119A
- YC-119F
- YC-119H
- YC-119K
- 1949
Fairchild C-123 Provider Sheet pending
Variants (14)
- AC-123K/NC-123K
- C-123B
- C-123J
- C-123K
- C-123T
- Chase XC-123
- Chase XC-123A
- HC-123B
- Stroukoff YC-123D
- Stroukoff YC-123E
- UC-123B
- UC-123K
- VC-123K
- YC-123H
- 1950
Fairchild XC-120 Packplane Sheet pending
- 1958
Fairchild F-27 Sheet pending
Variants (9)
- F-27
- F-27A
- F-27B
- F-27J
- F-27M
- FH-227
- FH-227B
- FH-227D
- FH-227E
- 1969
Fairchild Metroliner
The Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner brought the regional market a pressurised 19-seat twin grown out of the Swearingen Merlin business aircraft. It flew on 26 August 1969, entered service in 1972, and its long, narrow fuselage became a familiar sight on feeder routes and freight runs.
- 1972
Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II
The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, universally known by its "Warthog" nickname, is a single-seat, subsonic, straight-wing, twin-turbofan attack aircraft that has served with the United States Air Force since 1977. The USAF's own fact sheet describes it as the first Air Force aircraft specially designed for close air support of ground forces. It grew out of an uncomfortable realisation: while post-war tactical design chased speed and nuclear delivery, close air support in Vietnam still rested on the Douglas A-1 Skyraider, of which the Air Force and Navy lost some 266 in action, mostly to small-arms fire. The programme that produced it was A-X (Attack Experimental), ordered on 8 September 1966 by USAF Chief of Staff General John P. McConnell. The definitive request for proposals of May 1970 required that the aircraft be designed around a 30 mm cannon and set a maximum speed of 740 km/h, an external load of 7,300 kg and a 460 km mission radius. On 18 December 1970 two finalists were chosen: the Northrop YA-9A and the Fairchild Republic YA-10A. The two YA-10 prototypes first flew on 10 May 1972 and, after the comparative fly-off, the USAF announced its selection on 18 January 1973; in 1974 the design still had to prove itself against the LTV A-7D Corsair II already in service. The fuselage was designed literally around its gun. General Electric's GAU-8/A Avenger is a hydraulically driven seven-barrel rotary cannon firing 30 × 173 mm ammunition; the complete weapon weighs 1,828 kg and the usual load is 1,174 rounds. Its rate of fire was eventually fixed at 3,900 rounds per minute. So that the barrel in the firing position lines up with the aircraft's centreline, the gun sits to port and the nose gear to starboard. The other governing criterion was survivability: 540 kg of titanium "bathtub" armour — plates 13 to 38 mm thick, almost 6 per cent of empty weight — doubly redundant hydraulics with manual reversion, and two TF34-GE-100 engines mounted high and aft, which cuts debris ingestion and screens the infrared signature behind the tailplanes. By 1984, 715 aircraft had been delivered, including two prototypes and six development airframes; another source in the same material puts the total run at 716. The only production version was the single-seat A-10A; from 1987 many airframes moved to the forward air control role as OA-10A, and a single experimental two-seater, the YA-10B Night/Adverse Weather converted from an A-10A, explored night and all-weather capability without finding a customer. Between 2005 and June 2011 the surviving 356 A-10s and OA-10s were modernised under the Precision Engagement programme and became A-10Cs: all-weather capability, a new fire-control computer, Link 16, Satcom, two multifunction displays and guided weapons. Its baptism of fire was the 1991 Gulf War, with 132 aircraft deployed: 8,100 sorties, a 95.7 per cent mission capable rate, 90 per cent of the AGM-65 Mavericks fired in the conflict and two Iraqi helicopters shot down with the cannon. It was also costly: four lost to surface-to-air missiles and eleven hit by anti-aircraft artillery, which from 15 February confined them to within 37 km of the southern border. Bosnia followed, then Allied Force over Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan from 2002, the 2003 invasion of Iraq — 311,597 rounds fired and one A-10 shot down near Baghdad — Libya in 2011 and the campaign against the Islamic State from 2014. On 7 April 2003 Captain Kim Campbell brought one home from Baghdad with an engine damaged and the hydraulics gone, nearly an hour in manual reversion. Since 2014 the aircraft has lived in permanent tension between the USAF, which judges it insufficiently survivable against modern air defences and wants the F-35A in its place, and Congress, which has repeatedly blocked its retirement: frozen "indefinitely" in January 2016, with partial divestments authorised in the 2023 and 2024 defence bills. In June 2025 the Air Force asked to retire the remaining 162 aircraft at a stroke; Congress stopped it again and required at least 103 to be kept. In April 2026 Air Force Secretary Troy Meink deferred retirement until at least 2030 amid the war with Iran, where A-10s flew from the first 24 hours and one was shot down on 3 April. Even so, the service has already ended training for new A-10 pilots and depot-level maintenance of the type.
- 1985
Fairchild T-46 Sheet pending
Variants (1)
- T-46A
- —
Fairchild 24 Sheet pending
Variants (34)
- F-24 C8
- F-24 C8A
- F-24 C8B
- F-24 C8C
- F-24 C8D
- F-24 C8E
- F-24 C8F
- F-24 G
- F-24 H
- F-24 J
- F-24 K
- F-24R40
- F-24R46
- F-24R9
- F-24W40
- F-24W41
- F-24W46
- F-24W9
- GK-1
- J2K-1
- J2K-2
- UC-61A Argus
- UC-61 Argus
- UC-61B
- UC-61C
- UC-61D
- UC-61E
- UC-61F
- UC-61G
- UC-61H
- UC-61J
- UC-61K Forwarder
- UC-86
- XUC-86A
- —
Fairchild AU-23 Peacemaker Sheet pending
Variants (1)
- AU-23A
- —
Fairchild AT-21 Gunner Sheet pending
Variants (5)
- AT-21
- XAT-13
- XAT-14
- XAT-14A
- XBQ-3
- —
Fairchild AC-119 Sheet pending
Variants (2)
- AC-119G Shadow
- AC-119K Stinger
- —
Fairchild 22 Sheet pending
Variants (8)
- C7
- C7A
- C7B
- C7D
- C7E
- C7F
- C7G
- XR2K-1
- —
Fairchild 71 Sheet pending
Variants (9)
- F-1A
- Fairchild 51/71
- Fairchild 71
- Fairchild 71A
- Fairchild 71C
- Fairchild 71-CM
- J2Q-1
- XC-8
- YF-1