Fairchild Camera and Instrument

Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation was a company founded by Sherman Fairchild. It was based on the East Coast of the United States, and provided research and development for flash photography equipment. The technology was primarily used for DOD spy satellites. The firm was known for its manufacture of semiconductors.

Fairchild Camera and Instrument was incorporated in Delaware in 1927 as the Fairchild Aviation Corporation (also see Fairchild Aircraft), which comprised seven aircraft businesses that were the outgrowth of Fairchild Aerial Camera Corporation, which was incorporated in 1920. The merger made Fairchild Aviation the second-largest manufacturer of commercial airplanes and the fourth-largest aviation organization in the United States.

Fairchild Aerial Camera manufactured aerial cameras for military and commercial aerial mapping that were used in Russia, Poland, and throughout South America. They were the official cameras of the United States Army and Navy Air Services.

In 1944 Fairchild changed the company name from Fairchild Aviation to Fairchild Camera and Instrument Company. Its product portfolio expanded during World War II from aerial photography equipment to include machine gun cameras, x-ray cameras, radar cameras, gun synchronizers, and radio compasses.

After the war, military sales still represented a large portion of Fairchild's revenue. The company won a U.S. Air Force contract for the C-82 Packet cargo and troop-carrying airplanes and spare parts. The company then began to develop products for the commercial sector such as manufacturing x-ray equipment. In 1948, the company introduced the Fairchild Lithotype for the newspaper and publishing industry. It was described as “a revolutionary machine that types standard printers' type in a great variety of faces and sizes.”

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