AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 11 / 75

Plate 11 of 75 · Second World War · Light communications and ferry-taxi monoplane

Fairchild Argus

Argus II, painted as ‘FS628’, the RAF Museum’s Fairchild Argus II (UC-61A Forwarder c/n 565, USAAF 43-14601, civil G-AIZE), built at Hagerstown in June 1943 and shipped to Britain, flown as a civil tourer from 1947 until its last flight in 1966 and restored by the Medway Aircraft Preservation Society before going on show at Cosford in 1999, with its 165 hp Warner Super Scarab radial, painted as an Argus II of South East Asia Command: olive khaki above with grey undersides, dark blue and light blue SEAC roundels on the fuselage and above the wings, a two-band SEAC fin flash, a black ‘FS628’ aft of the fuselage roundel and a black two-blade propeller with yellow tips, as it is displayed at RAF Museum Midlands.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as ‘FS628’, the RAF Museum’s Fairchild Argus II (UC-61A Forwarder c/n 565, USAAF 43-14601, civil G-AIZE), built at Hagerstown in June 1943 and shipped to Britain, flown as a civil tourer from 1947 until its last flight in 1966 and restored by the Medway Aircraft Preservation Society before going on show at Cosford in 1999, with its 165 hp Warner Super Scarab radial, painted as an Argus II of South East Asia Command: olive khaki above with grey undersides, dark blue and light blue SEAC roundels on the fuselage and above the wings, a two-band SEAC fin flash, a black ‘FS628’ aft of the fuselage roundel and a black two-blade propeller with yellow tips, as it is displayed at RAF Museum Midlands. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (909 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Argus II modelled here.

History

The Argus

The Fairchild 24 began as a two-seat cabin monoplane for private owners, built by Fairchild’s Kreider-Reisner division at Hagerstown, Maryland, and first flown in 1932. It had a strut-braced high wing, a welded steel-tube fuselage covered in fabric, a fixed undercarriage and a roomy, well-glazed cabin, and over the decade it grew into a four-seater offered with either a Warner Scarab radial or a Ranger inverted inline engine. The radial-engined version was the Model 24W. It was easy to fly, comfortable and reliable, and became one of the most popular American light aircraft of the 1930s.

When the United States entered the war, the Army Air Forces ordered the 24W as the UC-61 Forwarder, a light utility and communications aircraft, and the UC-61A added a radio and a 24-volt electrical system. Most went to Britain under Lend-Lease, where the RAF named them Argus: more than 500 Warner-engined Argus I and II aircraft, followed by 306 Ranger-engined Argus IIIs. The Argus II had a transparent panel in the cabin roof. Most were flown by the Air Transport Auxiliary as taxis: each day they carried ferry pilots, many of them women, out to factories and maintenance units to collect new and repaired aircraft, and brought them home again after delivery. Others served the RAF as communications aircraft in the Middle East, India and Burma.

Fairchild and, after the war, TEMCO built more than 2,200 Model 24s of all versions. When the war ended most of the Lend-Lease Argus aircraft went back to the Americans or were sold, and more than fifty were flown in Britain on the civil register as private tourers and air taxis. Several Fairchild 24s still fly. In Britain the RAF Museum displays “FS628” at Cosford, the Yorkshire Air Museum has Argus II FK338 and the Ulster Aviation Society has HB612.

This airframe

Argus II “FS628” (43-14601, G-AIZE)

FS628The airframe modelled

The Cosford Argus was built at Hagerstown in June 1943 as UC-61A c/n 565 and delivered to the US Army Air Forces as 43-14601. It was shipped to Britain at the end of June 1943 and probably served the US Eighth Air Force as a hack. In 1947 it was overhauled and civilianised at Elstree and registered G-AIZE, and over the next nineteen years several private owners flew it to France, Italy and Switzerland; it appeared briefly in the film The Glenn Miller Story. It made its last flight on 1 May 1966 and the RAF Museum bought it from its owner, Roy Mills, in 1973. From 1997 the Medway Aircraft Preservation Society at Rochester restored it over two years, rebuilding the cabin, and painted it in South East Asia Command markings as FS628, an Argus II delivered to the RAF in 1943–44 that served in the Far East. It has been displayed at Cosford since June 1999. The model shows it as displayed today: olive khaki above with grey undersides, dark blue and light blue SEAC roundels on the fuselage and above the wings, a two-band SEAC fin flash, a black “FS628” aft of the fuselage roundel and a black two-blade propeller with yellow tips.

See it at Royal Air Force Museum Midlands

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Argus in 4 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 75 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.