Fairchild Aerial camera in action per Pop Photography ad the Summer of 1944
Toronto. Aerial cameras made many images for maps and other critical analysis functions. This camera was manufactured by a company founded in 1927 as the Fairchild Camera and Instrument company. After WW2, when transistors began to take on the functions of vacuum tubes, the company founded (1957) a division called Fairchild Semiconductor. This division became the major money maker for the firm.
The company was one of about 70 created by Sherman Fairchild, a one time holder of the largest number of IBM shares. His story itself makes interesting reading (I once flew in a Fairchild F27 aircraft). Fairchild aerial cameras were the best and most innovative cameras of that genre at the time.
My thanks to George Dunbar for sharing this advertisement for the Fairchild cameras used during WW2. The ad appears in the July, 1944 issue of Popular Photography magazine. You may recall that the late George Hunter first talked at one of our meetings (January 2003), bringing with him a well used aerial camera.
Note: The post title is a line from the December, 1926 song “Blue Skies” by Irving Berlin. The expression ‘Blue Skies’ means things are doing good and going well with no clouds in sight.
