When Sherman Fairchild withdrew from The Aviation Corporation in 1931, he retained control of the subsidiary Kreider-Reisner Company of Hagerstown. Maryland, renamed Fairchild Aircraft Corporation in 1935. Kreider-Reisner's Model 24C three-seat touring aircraft, first introduced in 1933, remained in production, its versions including the Models 24C8-C, 24C8-E and 24C8-F. The four-seat 24J was introduced in 1937, and was built with both Ranger and Warner engines. The Ranger-engined version was superseded by the 24K in 1938. The main production variants, however, were the 24R and 24W, respectively Ranger- and Warner-powered, and produced from 1939.

The 24W-41, with a 165-hp (123-kW) Super Scarab, was developed for service with the US Army Air Corps as the UC-61 Forwarder but, of 163 built, only two were retained. The rest were supplied to the UK under Lend-Lease and were known as the Argus I. The type was adopted as the Air Transport Auxiliary's standard transport for the carriage of ferry pilots; the ATA also received a large number of Argus IIs which were equipped with new radios and had a 24-volt electrical system rather than the 12-volt system of the Mk I. Of the RAF allocation of 364 Argus IIs from the 512 UC-61As built to USAAC order, a number were used in India and the Middle East, as were many of the RAF Argus IIIs which comprised the entire USAAC order for 306 UC-61Ks, developed from the 24R with a 175-hp (130-kW) Ranger L-440-7 engine. Civil aircraft impressed by the USAAF in 1942 were allocated designations UC-61B to UC-61J, according to civil model number, while nine Model 24R-40s were impressed as the UC-86. Two of these were subsequently re-engined to become the XUC-86A and XUC-86B respectively.