Fairchild Swearingen Metro

Updated: October 2026 – A narrow turboprop taxis past, its fuselage so long and thin that it almost looks like a pipe, and the engine noise cuts brightly through the air: you may well have a Fairchild Swearingen Metro in front of you. The 19-seater from Texas shaped the feeder business in North America, Australia and Europe too for decades and today flies mainly cargo. Here you will learn where the Metro comes from, how it relates to the Merlin, how to recognize it and where you can still get it in front of your lens.

What is the Fairchild Swearingen Metro?

The Metro is a twin-engine, pressurized turboprop for up to 19 passengers. That puts it exactly in the size class that in the US and many other countries can be operated as a commuter aircraft under comparatively lean regulations. In airline service two pilots sit in the cockpit; many operators had no cabin crew. That an aircraft of this size had a pressurized cabin at all was rather unusual when it was introduced – and one reason it could fly above the weather at higher altitudes.

Behind the type stands Ed Swearingen, an engineer and operator of a flight operation in San Antonio, Texas. He first converted Beechcraft models such as the Twin Bonanza and the Queen Air and developed his own business aircraft from them, the Merlin. Its prototype flew on April 13, 1965. From the Merlin experience, the much larger Metro for regional airlines emerged in the late 1960s: first flight on August 26, 1969.

Money for series production was initially lacking. Only when Fairchild took over about 90 percent of the company in late 1971 did production really get going. That is the origin of the double name under which the type is known to this day. Because Fairchild also took over Dornier in the mid-1990s, the Metro belongs indirectly to the same company history as the Dornier 328. After the insolvency of Fairchild Dornier, M7 Aerospace took over the facilities in San Antonio and support for the Metro fleet in 2003; M7 has belonged to the Israeli group Elbit Systems since December 2010.

The versions: from the Merlin to the Metro 23

The family is branched, and the designations tend to get mixed up. Roughly, there are two lines: the Merlin for business travelers and the Metro for airline and cargo use. The factory designations begin with SA26 (early Merlin), SA226 (Merlin III, Metro, Metro II) and SA227 (Metro III, Metro 23, Expediter, Merlin IV).

Version	Role	Features
Merlin II	Business travel	short fuselage, early examples with PT6A, later TPE331
Merlin III	Business travel	short fuselage, type code SW3
Metro / Metro II	Airline	long fuselage, developed into the Metro II in the mid-1970s
Metro III	Airline	certified 1980, higher takeoff weight, widely used
Expediter	Cargo	pure freighter version of the Metro III
Metro 23	Airline, cargo	last version, built to the US commuter regulation FAR Part 23
Merlin IV	Business travel	long Metro fuselage with business cabin
C-26	Military	military version of the Metro III and Metro 23

The Metro III brought a higher takeoff weight and improved performance in 1980 and became the bread-and-butter version. The Metro 23 followed in the early 1990s and meets the then-new commuter category of the US construction regulations; its maximum takeoff weight is about 7.3 tonnes. A stretched Metro 25 with more seats flew as a prototype in 1989 but did not go into series production.

Almost all versions are powered by Garrett TPE331 turboprops. Garrett later merged into AlliedSignal and finally into Honeywell Aerospace, which still supports the engine family today. Only the Merlin II prototype and the early production aircraft (Merlin IIA) flew with Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A engines.

How to recognize the Metro

The Metro has a silhouette you no longer forget after one or two sightings. Three features are enough for identification.

It is also worth looking at details: the passenger door at the front left is a fold-down door with a built-in staircase, freighters often have covered windows and a larger cargo door at the rear left. Some Metro 23s carry an additional baggage pod under the fuselage, which makes the silhouette somewhat more bulbous underneath. In the end, the registration confirms the version – how to read registrations is explained in the guide Understanding aircraft registrations.

The cabin: cramped, loud, efficient

What looks elegant from the outside is tight on the inside. The cabin is only about 1.45 meters high, and passengers walk hunched over to their seats. One row of single seats on each side of a narrow center aisle, no overhead bins, no galley. Carry-on baggage goes into the compartments in the nose and tail. There is no real door between cabin and cockpit – whoever sits at the front looks over the pilots’ shoulders.

For airlines something else counted: the Metro was fast, pressurized and comparatively cheap to operate. With a cruise speed of about 270 to 280 knots it was quicker than many competitors of its time. For cargo, the long, narrow fuselage is ideal – parcels, mail and bank documents stack well, and that is exactly where the Metro found its second life.

Metro, 1900D, Jetstream or Bandeirante?

In the 19-seater class there are several types that look similar from a distance. The finder helps narrow it down.

You will find more about the neighbors on the pages for the Beechcraft 1900D, the BAe Jetstream 31, the Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirante and the Dornier Do 228. If you are looking for Metros in cargo service, you often come across the Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia and the Saab 340, which are one class larger. A broad overview is given by the article Telling turboprops apart.

Where the Metro has flown

In the USA, the Metro was one of the most important commuter aircraft in the 1970s and ’80s. SkyWest Airlines operated the world’s largest Metro fleet at the time in 1984 with 26 aircraft and grew to 35 by 1991; by 1996 all had been replaced by Brasilias. Horizon Air flew Metro IIs and IIIs and retired the last ones in 1997. Air Wisconsin was also among the early operators.

In Europe, the Metro played an important role in building up small regional airlines. The Swiss Crossair took over its first two Metro IIs in 1979 and flew twelve Metro IIs and IIIs in total before larger types arrived. In Germany, Nürnberger Flugdienst (NFD) was among the well-known operators, along with a number of smaller companies. Luxair and the Spanish Swiftair also used the type. If you are looking for historic Metros, you will find them in photo archives for EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse or Nuremberg Airport.

Militarily, the family flies as the C-26 with the US armed forces, including in transport and measurement roles. The Air National Guard’s RC-26B reconnaissance version was retired in 2023. More C-26s went to Latin America and the Caribbean, such as to Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. The Swedish armed forces used Metro IIIs as the Tp 88, and Merlin IVs flew in South Africa, Argentina and Thailand, among others. How to classify such aircraft is shown in the guide Identifying military transports.

Where the Metro flies today

According to a stocktaking from July 2019, just under 200 Metros were in airline service at the time, the largest operators being Ameriflight, Perimeter Aviation and the Mexican Aeronaves TSM. This basic structure still holds in essence today, even if the numbers are falling:

Region	Chance of a hit	Why
USA	high	Ameriflight, based at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, flies about 30 Metroliners in cargo service according to current fleet overviews
Canada	high	Perimeter in Winnipeg uses a good 20 Metro IIs and IIIs for passengers, cargo and air ambulance flights
Australia	medium	The type was especially popular there, and many examples fly for small airline, charter and cargo operators
Mexico, Latin America	medium	Cargo operators and authorities, plus military C-26s
DACH region	very low	Ferry flights, rare cargo or special flights

How to follow such flights live is explained in the guide to flight tracking with ADS-B. The article Identifying freighters helps you classify cargo aircraft in general.

Spotting strategy: cargo flights and destinations

Metros today are mainly night workers. Many cargo operators fly parcel and mail connections early in the morning and late in the evening, and during the day the aircraft often sit on the apron. For you that means: check movements in a tracking service in advance, plan apron checks at regional airports and be equipped for shots in low light. Tips on this are in the guide Photographing aircraft at night and in the article Spotting at regional airports.

In the US, Dallas/Fort Worth is a good choice, where Ameriflight is based; a well-known starting point for spotters there is Founders’ Plaza. In Australia, when visiting Sydney you can plan Shep’s Mound – regional turboprops are part of the traffic picture there, but a Metro is never guaranteed. Whether your sighting in the DACH region is really as rare as it feels, you can judge with the guide Judging the rarity of a sighting.

Photo tips especially for the Metro

The Metro is slim and not particularly tall – that has consequences for framing and perspective.

You are best off calculating in advance when the light suits your spot – how that works is shown in the guide Planning the sun position for your photo spot. With the sun position planner in Planetrack, you see for every spot on the map when the sun is favorable.

Common lookalikes and how to rule them out

For distinguishing, it is also worth a look at the King Air 200, which often turns up in business travel where the Merlin used to fly.

Conclusion

The Fairchild Swearingen Metro is an aircraft with a clear profile: a long, slim tube with a pointed nose, cruciform tail and two screaming TPE331 turboprops. For passengers it was cramped, for airlines fast and economical – and for cargo operators it remains a reliable workhorse to this day. In North America and Australia it is still regularly on the move; in Central Europe it is now among the real rarities.