The Fairchild FC series of aircraft was a highly successful design for a light, single-engine, high-wing utility monoplane intended for a somewhat unusual mission: aerial photography and surveying.
Sherman M. Fairchild had developed the first practical aerial camera specifically for his aerial surveying business. Designated the K-3B, it became the standard for U.S. military, government, and commercial use. The camera required a stable platform, with adequate space and openings to cover vertical and lateral viewing angles. Believing offers from aircraft manufacturers to be exorbitant, he decided to build his own plane. He purchased a facility at Farmingdale, Long Island, and had designers Norman McQueen and Alexander Klemin draw up the plans. Fairchild also included requirements to carry passengers and mail and serve as an advertising vehicle.
Their aircraft, designated FC, included the FC-1 prototype and its conversion to the FC-1A with a higher-powered engine to prove the concept. The follow-on FC-2, with approximately 180 built in a number of variants, was the definitive design.
The prototype FC-1 first flew on 14 June 1926, and it soon became obvious that the installed 90-horsepower Curtiss OX-5 engine was inadequate for the requirements. A significantly more powerful 200-horsepower Wright J-4 was installed, and the aircraft was redesignated FC-1A. Work then began on an improved version with even more power, the FC-2 with the 220-horsepower Wright J-5.
This design also had increased internal volume, aided by using four longerons instead of three as in the prototype. It also allowed a choice of engines and landing gear—wheels, skis, or floats. A feature of all the FCs was their folding wings. They were hinged close to the fuselage such that they could be folded parallel to the fuselage, allowing great ease in shipment. Various redesignations followed depending on the chosen power plant: FC-2C for the 170- to 180-horsepower Curtiss Challenger, FC-2L for the 200-horsepower Canadian Armstrong Siddeley Lynx, and FC-2W for the 410-horsepower Pratt & Whitney Wasp. At the request of Canadian bush pilots, the FC-2W also mounted a six-foot-longer wing.
During this period, the U.S. Navy was evaluating a number of commercial off-the-shelf aircraft for its use. In April 1928, it purchased one FC-2 (BuNo A-7978) with a Wright J-5 engine and designated it XJQ-1. Its engine later was replaced by a 450-horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-1340, and the plane was redesignated XJQ-2. Even later, it again was redesignated, to XRQ-1. A one-off evaluation project, the aircraft had a brief and not very notable career. A month after its acquisition, a crash “demolished” its left wing. After “refurbishment” at the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia, it suffered another crash in April 1929, which again severely damaged the left wing. Repairs were judged to be too expensive, and the plane was stricken on 31 August 1929 after exactly one year of service.
A different FC that never served with the Navy, never had a bureau number, and never wore national insignia did have a solid Navy connection and still exists among the nation’s aviation icons.
After his transatlantic flight from New York to France in the Fokker trimotor America in June 1927, Navy Commander Richard E. Byrd decided to mount the first Byrd Antarctic Expedition over the course of 1928–30 for scientific research and to be the first to fly over the South Pole. Three of the expedition’s aircraft would reach the southernmost continent. A large Ford 4-AT-B Trimotor (Registration NX4542) named Floyd Bennett was to make the historic South Pole flight. A smaller second aircraft, a single-engine Fokker Super Universal (NC4453), was named The Virginia. The smallest aircraft to land in Antarctica was a Fairchild FC-2W2 (NX8006) single-engine monoplane. This was chosen as the primary photographic platform and general-purpose aircraft for the expedition. A fourth, even smaller, aircraft, a General Airplanes Corporation Model 102A Aristocrat monoplane (NC7511), remained at Dunedin, New Zealand.
The Byrd FC-2W2 was one of 31 built. It featured an elongated fuselage to allow for six rather than five passengers and greater payload than the FC-2W. While the Fairchild could not make the epochal flight over the South Pole—it had neither the required range nor carrying capacity—it provided significant service to the expedition. Thousands of photographs of unexplored territory were taken from its cabin.
The plane, which had received Aircraft Type Certificate #61 in June 1928, was pulled off the production line to receive specific modifications Byrd required. The cockpit was changed to accommodate a pilot, navigator, and radio operator. It carried an additional 72-gallon fuel tank, drift meter and other instruments, survival gear, and the all-important cameras. The aileron area was increased for better control. Further, its landing gear was lengthened and fitted with skis, and additional 40-gallon fuel tanks were added in each wing. The plane was delivered on 9 August 1928 and christened Stars and Stripes. George R. Hann, who in 1926 had refinanced the Fairchild Aviation Corporation, paid for the aircraft and cameras.
The Fairchild and the two larger aircraft were flown to New York for testing and then flown to Naval Air Station Norfolk, Virginia, where they and the smallest aircraft were disassembled, crated, and loaded aboard the 17,000-ton Norwegian whaler C. A. Larsen on 12 September. The ship departed on the 20th, with the expedition reaching the edge of the Ross Ice Barrier on Christmas Day. Days later, the explorers began setting up their base, Little America, just in from the Bay of Wales. Stars and Stripes was the first plane ashore on Antarctica and made its first flight from there on 15 January 1929. An accompanying reporter wrote:
A few icicles had gathered on the ailerons, a suggestion of what may menace flying in this country of ice. As [Marine Captain Alton] Parker wagged the control, they broke off and tinkled down to the hard-packed surface. He opened the motor wide and shook the tail to help free the skis, which were frozen to the surface, where they had rested so long. A few blows with a sledge by a mechanic and they broke loose.
Ten days later, Stars and Stripes added a historical footnote with the longest distance aircraft-to-ground two-way telegraphic connection. The plane was circling at 2,000 feet over Little America when its radio operator had continuous contact with both San Francisco and New York City. Two days later, the Fairchild made its first significant flight; during its five hours, Byrd discovered 14 mountains and an island. On 19 February, he discovered a new land that he claimed for the United States and named Marie Byrd Land after his wife. So far, the plane had allowed him to explore and chart some 40,000 square miles “never before seen by human eye.”
Throughout the Antarctic summers of 1929 and 1930, the Fairchild flew mapping and general reconnaissance expeditions. Bernt Balchen flew it on several rescue missions, including one on 21 March 1929 to pick up Byrd and two others who had previously rescued Balchen and two scientists. The latter trio had been hit by a storm with winds reaching 88 miles per hour. They attempted to tie down and bury their Fokker, but the winds ripped it from its shelter and blew it more than a half mile, completely destroying The Virginia. Byrd flew to their rescue on board Stars and Stripes, which made two flights to retrieve the stranded explorers and their gear. Byrd and two others had remained behind as the second flight took off. More storms blew in, thus prompting Balchen’s rescue flight once they abated.
Later, the Fairchild was buried, wings folded, in a “snow hangar” when Byrd ended what would be his first Antarctica expedition in January 1930. He returned in December 1933 and located Stars and Stripes. It was restored to flying condition a year later. The Fairchild flew only short reconnaissance flights before Byrd’s second expedition returned to the United States in early 1935. The aircraft had accumulated 187 hours’ flying time—146 during the first expedition and 41 during the second—in the demanding Antarctic environment. Unfortunately, its handlers were not as kind to the aircraft, and they severely damaged the fuselage during loading for the trip home.
The veteran Antarctic aircraft was sold to Alton H. Walker, a Kansas City, Missouri, flying service operator, on 8 August 1935. Walker immediately had it extensively refurbished at the Fairchild Hagerstown, Maryland, factory. He proposed to circumnavigate the globe in it over a two-year period, but ended up taking it on a barnstorming tour of the United States. He charged 50 cents per person for a ride and logged 304 hours in the process. On 11 June 1937, he sold the plane to Fairchild Aerial Surveys (FAS) of Los Angeles, where it reverted to its original purpose, aerial photography. It logged another 1,534 hours of flight time until its retirement in July 1942. It then was cannibalized for other Fairchild aircraft.
FAS sold the remains of Stars and Stripes to agricultural aviation pioneer Charles “Red” Jensen in California in 1954, but three years later, Fairchild Aircraft in Hagerstown purchased the disassembled aircraft. After evaluating the assemblies, the company decided not to restore it. Fairchild donated the remains to the National Air Museum, the present-day National Air and Space Museum (NASM). Two decades later, just a few miles from the original Fairchild factory on Long Island, the Cradle of Aviation Museum began restoring the plane with documented original and replacement parts. After the 1982–89 project, the NASM loaned Stars and Stripes to the Virginia Aviation Museum at Richmond International Airport until 2016. It is now displayed at the NASM’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C.
