Fairchild went on to complete the course in the Air Corps Engineer School at Wright Field in June 1929 and went to Santa Monica, California, as Air Corps representative to Douglas Aircraft Corporation. In June 1935 he graduated from the Air Corps Tactical School, along with strategic bombing advocates Haywood S. Hansell, Barney Giles, Vernon M. Guymon, Laurence S. Kuter, Lawson H. M. Sanderson and Hoyt S. Vandenberg, then became an Air Corps Tactical School instructor. He later attended the Army Industrial College, and the Army War College. He rose to director of air tactics and strategy in 1939.