NASA's Very First Aircraft

By ANN Correspondent Kevin O'Brien

Many aviation buffs know that NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, started as the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). I bet you knew that.

But did you know what NACA's first plane was? Or that it is still flying today? Read on, space cadets, and you'll learn what I just did. The really cool thing is that Greg Herrick, the man that had the plane restored, didn't learn about it's NACA history until his restoration was done!

To begin at the beginning, let's set the Wayback Machine for 1926. In that year, a fellow named Sherman Fairchild had a growing aerial photography and survey business, but he didn't have a good airplane for the job. His decision would be rational to any EAA member: he decided to design and build his own. His plane had some pretty rare characteristics for the day: great stability and load-carrying capacity, a roomy cabin and excellent visability. It went through a couple of iterations, before coming to the attention of NACA. In the meantime its fame had spread far beyond Fairchild's photographic and survey work. Admiral Byrd used one for Antarctic exploration... and left it behind. When the next expedition came, five years later, he thawed it out.

NACA had started with a few dollars slipped into the Navy budget between the submarines and battleships somewhere, and in its first shaky years it subsisted on airplanes bummed from the armed services, but by 1928 they were ready for their first one, and they wanted stability, lots of visibility, and load-carrying capacity for conducting experiments. Requirements similar to the ones for which Sherman Fairchild designed his plane, now called the FC-2W2, led them to Fairchild and FC-2W2 #531, completed November 9, 1928, wound up in NACA's possession.

NACA used the machine for aerodynamic and icing tests, among many others.

When NACA was finished with it, in 1936, they removed its P&W Wasp engine, and the Department of the Interior picked the 600-hour Fairchild up for the Park Service. For the first time, it acquired a N number, 13934, which it still bears. It served in Manteo, North Carolina, and was flown by legendary NC pilot Dave Driskill to and among the barrier islands of the Outer Banks. After six years and another 700 or so hours, the plane moved again to Winslow, Arizona, to serve the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the Navajo Reservation there.

At the end of WWII the sudden availability of thousands of wartime liaison and transport aircraft made the prewar Fairchild look dowdy and elderly. It was sold for #300 and passes through a slew of private operators, being wrecked, rebuilt, metalized and suffering all kinds of indignities.

When Greg Herrick's Yellowstone Aviation Inc. acquired N 13934 in 1996, he determined that the plane could probably have been flown if it could have been started. He didn't try, but committed to a complete, stripped-to-frame restoration instead. The metal skin was removed and replaced with correct fabric; the wooden wings were restored to like-new condition.

At the time, nothing was known about the planes NACA history, but its significant Outer Banks period was known, so the Fairchild is restored to its appearance in the late 1930s as flown by Dave Driskill.

Herrick enjoys flying the vintage machine. It took part in the National Air Tour last year, and he brought it to Oshkosh this year, where its National Park Service livery won it a place in the federal building.

One feature of the Fairchild FC monoplanes was a wing-folding system roughly resembling that of the modern GlaStar. A single steel pin links the wooden spar to the tubular carrythrough. A cleverly designed handle allows the pin to be easily locked and unlocked. Most pilots who observed the mechanism were amazed how light it looked. It couldn't possibly hold the plane together!

Herrick has no such worries. After all, the plane will celebrate its 76th birthday this November, and it spent many of those years flying. In fact, the pin and the mechanisms it joins are plenty strong enough for safety; people are just used to seeing extremely overbuilt mechanisms on ground-bound articles.

The Fairchild is surprisingly modern for its age, with excellent visibility and load-hauling ability, but it has the unmistakeable look of a classic monoplane. Oh, if only it could speak, the stories it could tell!

FMI: www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/_Evolution_of_Technology/NACA/Tech1.htm