Cities From the Sky

Sherman Fairchild, the photographer who transformed aviation

  • By Rebecca Maksel
  • AirSpaceMag.com, January 12, 2009
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Courtesy Princeton Architectural Press


San Francisco, as photographed by Fairchild Aerial Surveys on April 11, 1931. Two years later, the company built the largest aerial camera in the world. “With ten separate lenses and weighing 300 pounds,” writes Campanella, “the immense ‘aerial eye’ operated at an altitude of 23,000 feet and took a photograph measuring 23 inches on a side, covering 225 square miles in a single exposure.”


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Comments (1)

Re Fairchild's Cabin airplanes; don't forget his futuristic "Flying Yachet", radial engined pusher anphibians of the mid-twenties.My father,Harold Kantner,FAI#65,designed for Sherman and made photos of every thing under construction. These photo are available to anyone doing a historical article on the subject.

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