THE MAKING OF FAIRCHILD F-24R

� Photo by Casey de Bree
The F-24R fuselage arriving on J.D. Perrizo's trailer on February 21, 2004. (L to R) Barry Roberts, Steve McCartney, Alan Gaynor, and Marc Russell.

The Arrival of Our Fairchild F-24R

"Some years ago the Southern California Wing decided to purchase a Fairchild F-24R aircraft. It was in many pieces and the Wing was not in a position to start restoration of the aircraft at that time, so the bits and pieces were placed in storage. Then last year we were approached by Roy Trillia from Berkeley,CA, who also had a Fairchild F-24R which he had been restoring since 1994, about donating his aircraft to the Southern California Wing. We asked Wing member and Oakland resident Bill Montague to take a look at the Fairchild in neighboring Berkeley and he reported that Roy had done an excellent restoration, with the fuselage being almost entirely restored, the vertical and horizontal tail surfaces being fully restored and recovered, and the aircraft's Ranger engine had been overhauled.

The Wing Staff saw Roy's Fairchild as giving us a big leg up on the restoration of our Fairchild and voted to accept the aircraft last year. Things never happen all that quickly in a volunteer organization. After several iterations of "I thought you were handling the paperwork. Not me, I thought YOU were going to handle the paperwork," the paperwork was finally prepared and signed and the F-24 was ours.

Bill Montague took on the job of arranging the move of the F-24R from Oakland/Berkeley to Camarillo. He enlisted the aid of a friend, J.D. Perrizo, who owns an 18-foot flat-bed trailer. J.D. made two trips from Oakland to Camarillo, the first on February 21 and the second on March 13. He managed to get all of the pieces to us and we had an absolutely magnificent F-24R46 fuselage and associated parts and pieces in our maintenance hangar. Many thanks to Roy Trillia for donating the aircraft to us, and also to Bill Montague and J.D. Perrizo for getting it to Camarillo.

Incidentally, the CAF High Sky Wing in Midland, TX operates a Fairchild F-24R, and it was named "Best Liaison Aircraft" at Airsho 2003. There are a number of pictures of the aircraft on their website : www.highskywing.org
Click on the "Aircraft" link to see them. Their aircraft is in the paint scheme of a U.S. Coast Guard J2K, the U.S. Navy designation for the Fairchild F-24R. The U.S. military designation for the aircraft was UC-61, known as the Forwarder, most of which were F-24W variants, so designated because of the Warner radial engine employed by that model. The F-24R designation indicated the engine was a Ranger inverted in-line.

Sherman Fairchild withdrew from The Aviation Corporation in 1931, but retained control of the subsidiary Kreider-Reisner Company of Hagerstown, MD, which he renamed Fairchild Aircraft Corporation in 1935. The F-24's lineage goes back to the 1933 Kreider-Reisner three-seat Model 24C. The four-seat Model 24J was introduced in 1937 and was built with both Ranger and Warner engines. The Ranger-powered variant became the 24K in 1938, and 1939 saw the 24R and 24W variants powered by Ranger and Warner engines, respectively. The Ranger engine was manufactured by the Fairchild Aircraft Corporation.

As you can see from the photos above and below, the F-24's fuselage is of welded steel tube construction and makes extensive use of wooden formers and stringers. The wings and tail surfaces are also made of wood. A fuel tank is located in each wing root. The fuselage structure is very pretty to look at with all of it's woodwork."

� Text by Casey de Bree, from Flight Line, April, 2004.

� Photo by Casey de Bree
(L to R) Barry Roberts, Jeff Whitesell, Marc Russell and Alan Gaynor unload the F-24R46 fuselage from the trailer on a cold and wet Feb. 21, 2004 evening.

� Photo by Dave Flood
Bob Albee, Crew Chief of the Fairchild F-24R Restoration Project, working on a wing structure.

� Photo by Dave Flood
Norm Swagler, a retiree of Grumman Corp., putting his expertise to good use on the Fairchild F-24R's wing.

� Photo by Dave Flood 081006
Looking inside the cockpit of the Fairchild F-24R.

� Photo by Dave Flood 081006
Looking up at the left wing - now attached to the fuselage. The crew is working on attaching flap fixtures to the wing.

� Photo by Dave Flood 081006
Here is the Ranger L-440-3 inverted inline engine, capable of producing 200 hp.

� Photo by Dave Flood 081006
Here's Norm, adjusting the trailing edge of the right wing to accomodate the fixtures on which to attach the flap.

*****************************************

Fairchild F-24R Restoration Crew

Robert Albee (Chief)

Norman Swagler
Al Smith
Jim Price
Jim Hinckley
Dave Sica
Gil Brice
George Sands

*****************************************

Sponsorship of Fairchild F-24R46

If you would like to become a proud sponsor of our Fairchild F-24R46, please contact:

Col. Robert Albee, Crew Chief
Commemorative Air Force, SoCAWing
455 Aviation Drive
Camarillo, CA 93010

'Phone: (805) 482-0064.

Your donation will be tax deductible, and will be greatly appreciated and recognized.

Thanks to you, we can "Keep 'Em Flying!"

p.s. Why don't you come in to our Restoration Hangar and see the crew working on the F-24R? Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. is when you'll find them there.