Most of the April design activity has been around the Fairchild FC 2 from 1928. There will be more on that later. This is just an opportunity to briefly talk about Mr. Sherman Fairchild (1896 – 1971) and where he fits into the picture and for Fairchild aircraft, pictures were very much what it was all about!
Sherman’s father, George Winthrop Fairchild, was a newspaper businessman, investor and a six-term Republican U.S. Representative from New York. George was a pioneer in the time recording industry. In 1911 George Fairchild became president of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording company, later becoming chairman. In 1924, the year of George’s death, C-T-R was renamed as IBM. Sherman would inherit his father’s IBM stock remaining IBM’s largest individual shareholder until his death.
An inventive, intelligent youth, Sherman spent some of his early years in the C-T-R workshops. He attended Harvard University inventing a synchronised camera shutter and flash. He also contracted tuberculosis that saw him briefly shift to Arizona for the climate. Rejected for health reasons from the military Fairchild became a pioneer in the field of aerial photography and mapping. The camera he developed featured a shutter that was inside the lens. This reduced the image distortion caused by slow camera speeds conflicting with the motion of the aircraft. His innovations would establish aerial photography with Fairchild cameras as the industry standard.
Unlike the majority of aviation manufacturers, Fairchild’s access to finance and contracts meant that he could typically pursue his interests by establishing a company with the purpose of making what was desired.
Thus, on finding a lack of suitable aircraft for his photographic purposes, Fairchild established the Fairchild Aircraft Manufacturing Company to create such an aircraft. Following a prototype, the Fairchild FC 2 (soon after designated the Fairchild 71) became one the best-selling light aircraft in the late 1920’s. The early Fairchild’s aircraft performed superb service as reliable bush planes and as among the first passenger carriers of America’s fledging airlines.
Fairchild’s interests were varied. He enjoyed architecture and cooking. He was a jazz enthusiast and patron of Jazz musicians with his own recording studio built into his NY apartment. In 1931 he established Fairchild Recording Corporation that created studio recording equipment and amplifiers.
Perhaps Fairchild’s greatest impact, certainly as an investor, did not occur until 1957. In that year he was approached by a Robert Noyce, a representative of a group of eight engineers who were defecting from a company and the man who had teamed them up with the purpose of setting up a new company. In Silicon Valley lore this group would later be known as the ‘Traitorous eight’ and would be seminal in the establishment of California’s transistor and circuit manufacturing industry aka Silicon Valley. Fairchild was impressed by Robert Noyce’s futurist pitch and so the Fairchild Semiconductor division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument was started with the intention of making silicon as the substrate in transistors rather than from germanium. The following year, one of the ‘eight, Jean Hoerni created the planar process meaning that transistors could be made easier, cheaper, and with much higher performance. Immediately all other transistor processes were obsolete and then, in 1960 they managed to build a circuit with four transistors on a single wafer of silicon. Fairchild Semiconductor had created the world’s first silicon integrated circuit.
Which really brings us to today where the silicon chip is the basis of our way of life, including the minor art of the design of paper airplanes but maybe in the case of the Fairchild aircraft models currently being designed, a connection worth noting.
Our plan includes the creation of the Fairchild FC 2w and variants, the Fairchild 41 and the Fairchild 100 ‘Pilgrim’ in 1/48 scale. The Fairchild ‘Stars and Stripes’ had been started in 1/72 scale about six years back (see attachment) so what we are talking about is very much ‘back-to-the-drawing-board’ kind of approach where we can improve of our earlier, unreleased Fairchilds.
Sherman’s father, George Winthrop Fairchild, was a newspaper businessman, investor and a six-term Republican U.S. Representative from New York. George was a pioneer in the time recording industry. In 1911 George Fairchild became president of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording company, later becoming chairman. In 1924, the year of George’s death, C-T-R was renamed as IBM. Sherman would inherit his father’s IBM stock remaining IBM’s largest individual shareholder until his death.
An inventive, intelligent youth, Sherman spent some of his early years in the C-T-R workshops. He attended Harvard University inventing a synchronised camera shutter and flash. He also contracted tuberculosis that saw him briefly shift to Arizona for the climate. Rejected for health reasons from the military Fairchild became a pioneer in the field of aerial photography and mapping. The camera he developed featured a shutter that was inside the lens. This reduced the image distortion caused by slow camera speeds conflicting with the motion of the aircraft. His innovations would establish aerial photography with Fairchild cameras as the industry standard.
Unlike the majority of aviation manufacturers, Fairchild’s access to finance and contracts meant that he could typically pursue his interests by establishing a company with the purpose of making what was desired.
Thus, on finding a lack of suitable aircraft for his photographic purposes, Fairchild established the Fairchild Aircraft Manufacturing Company to create such an aircraft. Following a prototype, the Fairchild FC 2 (soon after designated the Fairchild 71) became one the best-selling light aircraft in the late 1920’s. The early Fairchild’s aircraft performed superb service as reliable bush planes and as among the first passenger carriers of America’s fledging airlines.
Fairchild’s interests were varied. He enjoyed architecture and cooking. He was a jazz enthusiast and patron of Jazz musicians with his own recording studio built into his NY apartment. In 1931 he established Fairchild Recording Corporation that created studio recording equipment and amplifiers.
Perhaps Fairchild’s greatest impact, certainly as an investor, did not occur until 1957. In that year he was approached by a Robert Noyce, a representative of a group of eight engineers who were defecting from a company and the man who had teamed them up with the purpose of setting up a new company. In Silicon Valley lore this group would later be known as the ‘Traitorous eight’ and would be seminal in the establishment of California’s transistor and circuit manufacturing industry aka Silicon Valley. Fairchild was impressed by Robert Noyce’s futurist pitch and so the Fairchild Semiconductor division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument was started with the intention of making silicon as the substrate in transistors rather than from germanium. The following year, one of the ‘eight, Jean Hoerni created the planar process meaning that transistors could be made easier, cheaper, and with much higher performance. Immediately all other transistor processes were obsolete and then, in 1960 they managed to build a circuit with four transistors on a single wafer of silicon. Fairchild Semiconductor had created the world’s first silicon integrated circuit.
Which really brings us to today where the silicon chip is the basis of our way of life, including the minor art of the design of paper airplanes but maybe in the case of the Fairchild aircraft models currently being designed, a connection worth noting.
Our plan includes the creation of the Fairchild FC 2w and variants, the Fairchild 41 and the Fairchild 100 ‘Pilgrim’ in 1/48 scale. The Fairchild ‘Stars and Stripes’ had been started in 1/72 scale about six years back (see attachment) so what we are talking about is very much ‘back-to-the-drawing-board’ kind of approach where we can improve of our earlier, unreleased Fairchilds.
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