Pictures

FAIRCHILD 24

A Gentleman’s Airplane

The Fairchild 24 always struck me as a gentleman’s airplane. A gentleman of the old school, that is, who favors stovepipe hats and windshields with flat panes and roll-down side windows of the same real safety glass set in honest-to-goodness doors with handles like a 1935 Plymouth.

In fact, the handles are off a 1935 Plymouth. So are the window cranks and a few other odds and ends, including the brake master cylinders. This merely adds to the piquancy and charm of the airplane, as do the hefty curved chrome control sticks (yes, real sticks), the big cast-aluminum rudder peals with the Fairchild flying horse and the built-in headwind of the landing gear, which has enough struts and stuff to build a couple of catamarans.

The Fairchild is an odd airplane. It flies easily, competently and with a minimum of fuss, producing climb rates and cruise speeds rather better than you would expect, and it descends with truly remarkable celerity—all in a fore–and-aft attitude that never varies more than about seven degrees from the horizontal, across the entire performance envelope.

But is was exuding charisma on busy airport ramps and little green fields all over this land. There is just something about the Fairchild that appeals.

Then, too, it was one of the first truly practical family airplanes for the private pilot. Today it remains one of the most practical, considering the investment.

Back when I was wheel-high to a Piper Cub, Smilin’ Jack used to fly a Fairchild 24 occasionally in the Sunday funnies, producing in me an instant sub-cerebral itch to fly one. The malady never abated. Cartoonist Zack Mosely always opted for the Warner radial in his comic-strip Fairchilds, but I’ve preferred the snooty Rangers from the first one I saw.

NC81208 has been around the Kansas City area for years. I took pictures from it once many summers past, but somehow I’d never flown it. At the time it belonged to the mayor of a nearby town and appeared decidedly scruffy. When it turned up again, it had been repainted in a lovely yellow and green factory scheme and looked so fetching. I immediately began a careful campaign to inveigle my way into the cockpit.

That is how I ended up on a very tight downwind leg to the Cameron, Missouri, airport one muggy day. I chopped power on the 200 Ranger just as the long nose passed abeam of the runway threshold, remarking , “I ought to be able to make the field from here with flaps.” I was a thousand feet in the air and close enough to have sailed a flat rock to the runway, but I had to add power to keep from sinking into a couple of trees on final approach. I kept the rpm up to about 1,500 until asphalt flicked beneath the struts. Then I chopped the throttle and held the airplane off.

It did not take long, the oil/oleo struts on the great, spreading undercarriage extend eight inches in flight, and we were still a surprising distance above the ground when those big 6.50 x 10-inch tires reached out and grabbed the pavement. There was a low rumble, the Fairchild settled rapidly and within 100 yards we were down to an indicated 25 mph, those monstrous tail feathers still holding the airplane straight down the runway. I reached forward, depressed the button atop the flap handle and popped them up, remarking, “This bird’s got good landings built in to it” The tread is 9 feet 3 inches, and the rudder is about the size of a garage door. Rudder and elevator are effective down to near zero airspeed, and if that’s not enough, prop clearance is so great you can brake with the tail in the air. Toe-operated hydraulic units on the pilot’s side only, the brakes are expander tube type.

The Ranger Fairchild gives a ponderous, galumphing impression totally unlike most light airplanes. It never seems to work very hard, yet it has more performance than it appears. It reminds me of a big, friendly Saint Bernard.

There are several reasons for this personality. Fist, the Fairchild is not a really “light”. It grosses 2,562 pounds, and with a wing area of 193.6 square feet, has a loading of 14.7 pounds per square foot. This, combined with 2 ½ degrees of dihedral, provides a stable, rocking-chair ride from the N-2 airfoil section. It will fly hands off even in moderate low-level summer turbulence.

Second, the Ranger is notably quiet, even with both side windows rolled down and the wind whipping through. The inverted in-line six has a distinctive growl that accompanies, rather than intrudes on, conversation or concentration.

There is one other thing: Until NASA developed the Lunar Lander, no other flying thing built in this country since the 1930’s carried such an assemblage of bare-faced struts and braces as the Fairchild.

Having said all that, it must be added that 208 will cruise a solid 120 mph at 22.5 inches of manifold pressure and 2,150 rpm, and climb at 750 fpm at full gross. A Fairchild is not a small airplane. It is, in fact, within a whisker of the size of a Cessna 180 and only 88 pounds lighter. It has nearly 20 square feet more wing area and stands an inch and a half higher. It is even more work to drag around a hangar or airport ramp.

The Warner powered 24s are “a couple hundred pounds lighter,” thus offer very nearly the same performance on a rated 145 hp that the Ranger did on 175. Book speed for the 175 hp 24R46 are a cruise of 118 mph, Vmax of 133, Vne of 185, Vs (clean) of 57, and a full-flap stall of 53 mph. Takeoff to clear 50 feet is listed at 1,000 feet, and landing over the same obstacle at 1,000. Range is 600 miles, ceiling 14,000 feet.

Getting in, it’s a long way up to the cabin floor, but once inside, all seats are comfortable and the position good. I’ve heard and read various slurs about the visibility out of a Fairchild 24, but I can see every bit as much—maybe more—sighting along the side of the Ranger’s cowling as I ever could trying to peek over the cowl of a Continental 230 in a Cessna 180.

Engine start is conventional, except that only one of the two independent fuel valves should be on at a time, to prevent air locks in the lines; and the use of the left magneto only until the engine starts. That’s because only the left one has the impulse. “You start it on the right, it kicks back; sometimes knocks starters off.” Expensive.

The Ranger was in beautiful shape, giving a mag drop of only about 30 rpm in run up, but the drop with carburetor heat was so scant as to raise doubts about the system’s efficiency. “You have to look close to see it.”

I reached up on the panel, spun the crank of the Beech Roby prop control as far clockwise as it would go, and opened the throttle. The Ranger’s quiet grumble became a baritone snarl, the airplane rolled about 100 feet and the tail came up. We broke ground in about 600 feet, indicating nearly 2,8000 rpm (well over redline) and 29 inches on the MP gauge.

We left the ground with the nose up a good 80 mph, pulled the powered back to 27.5 inches an got very busy on the Roby crank again, backing off the prop to 2700. (I know the book says the Ranger’s redline is 2450).

We leveled at 3,000 MSL, I tried a few stick displacements and found the airplane pretty well insists on flying straight and level unless disturbed. Trimming carefully, I cranked in 25 square and watched the airspeed build to 120 indicated. Backing of to 22.5 x 1250, the airspeed showed 115. Pulling off the power, I left the trim a cruise setting and hauled back on the long stick. Unlike modern airplanes, the elevator got very little heavier as the airspeed decayed, and the stall, clean (if that word applies to a Fairchild) came at 55 IAS. The break was very gentle and straightforward, and either power or relaxed back pressure had it flying again instantly with very little altitude loss. Held in the stall, it will porpoise up and down, with oscillations becoming progressively more rapid. Altitude loss is also rapid, about 1,200 –1,400 fpm.

Power on stalls come at 50 mph IAS carrying 1,500 rpm and 20 inches, and there was no tendency to drop a wing. Flaps, in any condition, make no noticeable change in stall characteristics except for a marked increase in airframe buffet with power and a break about 46 mph IAS. Back pressure in the stall is not excessive; probably around 15 pounds.

Mindful of what I’d just learned, I determined that: This airplane has a glide ratio of about 7:1 clean, at 80 mph. I therefore decided that I was going to make a full-stall, no-flap landing, well down the runway. I did indeed make such a landing, and it was a beauty. It was not well down the runway, despite what I’d thought was a very tight pattern. I was lucky to touch down 30 feet beyond the edge of the pavement.

Half flaps measurably improved this performance, providing extra lift and; apparently, very little extra drag. Full flaps produce a glide path much like that customarily demonstrated by such folks as Eviel Knievel or Joey Chitwood and his Auto Daredevils, but it had its good points. The airplane not only came down like a brick, it was a stable as one, too, while retaining plenty of lift for a neat flare at the end of the runway.

I rather regretted taxiing onto the ramp and shutting down, but I kept thinking of the Ranger’s thirst and the current price of avgas. Now where did I put my Stovepipe Hat?