Fairchild, Sherman Mills (1896–1971)

US inventor and businessman. His inventions include a flash camera, an aerial camera, the Fairchild Flight Analyser Camera, a radio compass, and wing flaps, hydraulic brakes, and retractable landing gear for aeroplanes. His numerous companies were grouped under Fairchild Industries.

Born in Oneonta, New York, he was an heir to the International Business Machines fortune. He invented the flash camera in 1916. This was soon followed by the invention of an aerial camera for the US War Department and, in 1920, he started his own company to manufacture it. He also founded an aerial survey company and became known as the ‘father of aerial mapping photography’. He founded an aeroplane factory and developed the first US planes to have enclosed cockpits, later designing the C-119 transport plane with its rear cargo doors. In 1953 he invented the Fairchild Flight Analyser Camera, the first to take non-distorted pictures of an object in a continuous sequence of action.