US Navy S-2E Tracker ready for launching from Bennington (CVS-20), 30 November 1967. Note the searchlight on the starboard wing.
Larger version
Its predecessor, the AF-2 Guardian[?], used two aircraft for ASW, one with the detection gear, and the other with the weapons. This was very inefficient, and the Navy wanted a design that carried both. The replacement aircraft was to carry radar, a magnetic anomaly detector (MAD), ECM, acoustic equipment, and a searchlight, and be able to be armed with bombs, mines, torpedos, and rockets.
Grumman's design (model G-89) was for a large high-wing monoplane with twin radial engines.
Both the two prototypes XS2F-1 and 15 production aircraft, S2F-1 were ordered at the same time, on 30 June 1950. First flight was 4 December 1952, and production aircraft entered service, with VS-26[?], in February 1954.
Followon versions included the WF Tracer and TF Trader, which became the E-1 Tracer[?] and C-1 Trader[?] in the rationalization of 1962.
Versions of the tracker were sold to various nations, including Canada, Australia, and Taiwan.
The Tracker was eventually superseded for military use by the S-3 Viking - the last Tracker squadron was disestablished in 1976 - but a number live on as firefighting aircraft[?].
Variants
- S-2A
- TS-2A - training version
- US-2A - utility conversion
- S-2B - addition of AQA-3 Jezebel[?] passive acoustic search
- US-2B - utility conversion
- S-2C - larger weapons bay, larger tail
- RS-2C - photo-reconnaissance
- US-2C - utility conversion
- S-2D - larger version
- S-2E
- S-2F
- CS2F-1 - Canada
- CS2F-2 - Canada, later CP-121
- S-2G
- S-2UP
- S-2T Turbo Tracker
- S-2AT - firefighter
- S-2ET
External links
- The S-2 Tracker Museum (http://www.s2tracker.com)
- Another site with good detail (http://home.planet.nl/~roden171)
- S-2 Tracker at Patuxent River Naval Air Museum (http://www.paxmuseum.com/s2/S2.htm)