Grumman S-2 TRACKER

The S-2 Tracker antisubmarine aircraft was the first to be able to perform tracking and attack missions independently. Until this moment, the ASW missions were carried out by pairs of Grumman Guardian or Douglas Skyrider aircrafts, one of them carrying the detection systems and other carrying the armament, but in 1950 the project was started to unify both tasks in a single aircraft. The design of the Grumman G-89 was selected and specific equipment was installed such as an AN/APS-38 search radar in a retractable ventral radome, sonobuoys and an AN/ASQ-8 retractable magnetic anomaly detection (MAD) boom in the tail. The crew consisted of two pilots, MAD operator and radar operator and the aircraft could carry more than 2 tons of weapons on an internal bay and six underwings hardpoints. The S-2A entered service in 1954 and since then 755 S-2A Tracker were built. These first series would be followed by the S-2C, S-2D and S-2E modernized variants. In addition, over 100 CS2F-1s were manufactured under license by De Havilland Canada, making a total of 1,300 S-2 Tracker.

S-2 TRACKER gallery and more info