Piedmont Airlines Fairchild F-27  N2701R                       (c/n  8)

                                          

                                               The above is a manufacturer's photograph of Piedmont's first F-27 taking off from Hagerstown in
                                               October, 1958.   Fairchild had acquired a licence to build the Fokker F.27 and put the airliner into
                                               production at the same time as the parent Dutch company    In the event, the first deliveries of Fair-
                                               child's model were in service before Fokker's own Friendships   Piedmont Airlines purchased a
                                               modest fleet of these Rolls-Royce Dart powered turbo-props as 'DC-3 replacements' and operated
                                               them on their eastern  U.S. seaboard routes emanating out of Raleigh, North Carolina.  N2701R was
                                               flown for a decade and then sold to Air Manila in 1968 as PI-C873.   It had only been in service a
                                               couple of months when it was written off in a hard landing at Davao in May of 1968.