He began his education at Rightsell Elementary School in Little Rock and then progressed to East Side Junior High. He spent one year at Little Rock High School before attending Sewanee Military Academy in Sewanee, Tennessee, where he graduated in 1934. Fred then attended the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School of Business.

While at the University of Pennsylvania, Fred was a founding member of The Flying Club and served as vice president of the organization. The purpose of the group was to further interest in flying. It was around that time that Fred Darragh actually experienced his first airplane flight. He hitched a ride with a pilot who was ferrying a plane six miles, and in mid-flight, they ran out of gas.

Fred Darragh’s interest in flying was initially sparked when he was ten years old and heard Charles Lindbergh speak in Little Rock in 1928. He was fascinated by the dashing young man and the stories of his flying machine.

After college, Fred returned to Little Rock and entered the Civilian Pilot Training (C.P.T.) program in 1939, where he received his primary, secondary, and cross-country training, as well as his instrument rating. The C.P.T. was formed to train civilian pilots in anticipation of the war in Europe. This training was conducted by Little Rock aviation pioneers at Central Flying Service.

In 1941, Fred went to Houston, Texas, where he was part of a class of ten in the Civil Aeronautics Authority (C.A.A.). The C.A.A. was an experimental program formed by the U.S. government to prepare for the anticipated need for war pilots. Fred flew the Lockheed 12A, the C-47, and its civilian counterpart, the DC-3. Fred was reassigned to West Palm Beach, Florida, so quickly that he had to find someone to drive his car back to Little Rock.

In June 1942, Fred and eight of the original ten men with whom he had entered the C.A.A. were assigned to India. They got as far as the Gold Coast when they were recalled because Allied intelligence believed German General Rommel, who was in North Africa, was about to invade Cairo, Egypt. In August 1942, Fred again departed for India to fly "The Hump." He was assigned to Chabua Air Force Base in India. He flew the C-47 for the Air Transport Command as a member of the 10th Air Force. He flew from India to China, carrying supplies to the Chiang Kai-shek forces in the Kunming area. He flew 35 missions transporting supplies into China, evacuating refugees from China and Burma, and ferrying troops from China to India for training. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and an Air Medal. In 1988, he was presented a pair of wings by the Chinese Air Force for his service to their country.

In December 1943, Fred returned to the United States and was assigned to the Air Transport Command Ferrying Division in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was promoted to Captain. He was later placed in charge of flight training, where he remained until the end of World War II. He was promoted to Major in 1944. After the war, he was discharged at Scott Field in East Saint Louis. To keep his flying skills sharp, Fred was a member of the Air Force Reserves for a period of time after the war.

Fred Darragh’s civilian flying career began in the early 1950s when he obtained his first airplane from Claude Holbert at Central Flying Service. In those days, Fred had not yet met J.B. Hunt and, therefore, could not afford to buy the Beechcraft Bonanza that he wanted. So, Claude Holbert arranged a lease-purchase plan at a rate of $500 per month. Fred kept that first airplane for three years and nine months, then sold it for a profit. As the years passed, Fred owned and flew a Bonanza F and a Bonanza G.

In 1960, he purchased a Cessna 310B. It was in that aircraft that Fred flew around the world alone in 1962. For the around-the-world trip, the plane had to be modified with additional fuel tanks, radios, and navigation aids. He departed Little Rock with the first stop in San Francisco, then to Hawaii, Canton Island, Tonga Island, Fiji, New Caledonia, Sydney, Singapore, Cambodia, Bangkok, Calcutta, New Delhi, Tehran, Istanbul, Italy, Zurich, Spain, Lisbon, the Azores, Newfoundland, and back to the coast of Maine in the United States. In true Darragh style, Fred worked in a few days of R&R.

In 1963, Fred was awarded Pilot of the Year by the National Pilots Association. The award was presented in Tucson, Arizona, by the Director of the Federal Aviation Agency, Najeeb Halaby.

Fred was a Commissioner for the Little Rock Airport Commission from 1965 to 1968 and served as Treasurer for the Commission.