Saw this 1939 Fairchild today- in immaculate condition. What a beauty. She has role up windows both sides. This plane was used in WW2 to drop bombs on subs in the Atlantic.

Her lines seem similar to the Spirit of Saint Louis. Man O Man, sure would like her in my hangar.

Gorgeous Model 24 with the Ranger engine. Years ago got to fly one with the Warner - the gull wings are distinctive and beautiful.

Wow.

Lot of love there.

Subaru got nothing on this owner.

How does she fly? Looks like she is pretty easy to handle.

They actually fly very nicely. The controls are well balanced and not heavy at all. Visibility is good and it has nice ground manners.

Like most planes of that era, it is slightly underpowered and not overly efficient. The ranger uses fuel and oil in the same quantities as a radial of the same HP.

I also found the seating somewhat uncomfortable after about an hour or so. The seats are pretty close to the floorboards like a piper. The roll down windows and sticks make up for much of that in coolness factor.

One of the guys at the hangar said that it had a 200hp engine—not bad for -1939

Lovely old airplane. Probably a 200 HP Ranger engine, too, instead of the original 175. All pushrods for the flight controls, so they were nice and smooth. This one, and the PT-19, 23, and 26 were the only airplanes I ever flew where if you made a really nice landing on grass, you could hear and feel the landing gear right at touchdown when the gear would first "rattle" on the fully extended shocks, then the rattle would go away as the shocks went to compression. Loved that sound.

(Now, tell me how I'm pretty sure of the HP?)

She is a classic beauty!
Ron

There are a couple of these around here that frequent summer fly-ins. Cool airplanes, I still can't quite wrap my brain around the upside down engine, and what the oil does.

Greg

Usually it leaks all over. My dad owned three PT's in his lifetime (19s and 26s, same engine), and he quietly said "There's NO EXCUSE for leaking oil." His never did.

I imagine it's similar to a Gipsy Major. The oil is scavenged and returned to an external tank. Here's a diagram of a Gipsy with a gravity drain to the oil tank. Mine had two scavenger pumps on the same shaft as the pressure pump to push the oil back to the tank.

The closest I have ever come to having a midair collision was with a Fairchild while departing Shelter Cove, California about 15 years ago. He went directly over the top of us, head on. About 20 or so feet, so close I saw the tread groves in the tires. He was one of a flight of two, the other was a Stinson I think. We were looking for traffic and made plenty of radio calls about our downwind departure route. The only call I heard them make was,"did you see that Bonanza we just past?"



Regards, Lew Gage

David H - but a Ranger could never possibly be as messy as a Gipsy Major! Thanks for that neat diagram....

Lovely old airplane. Probably a 200 HP Ranger engine, too, instead of the original 175. All pushrods for the flight controls, so they were nice and smooth. This one, and the PT-19, 23, and 26 were the only airplanes I ever flew where if you made a really nice landing on grass, you could hear and feel the landing gear right at touchdown when the gear would first "rattle" on the fully extended shocks, then the rattle would go away as the shocks went to compression. Loved that sound.

(Now, tell me how I'm pretty sure of the HP?)

NC 12120. 1937 Fairchild F-24H

Pardon the cellphone inversion