Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index US Navy S-2E Tracker ready for launching from Bennington (CVS-20), 30 November 1967. Note the searchlight on the starboard wing. The Grumman S-2 Tracker was the first US Navy anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft designed specifically for the purpose. 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 The Tracker was eventually superseded for military use by the S-3 Viking - the last Tracker squadron was disestablished in 1976 - but a number live on as firefighting aircraft.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 Another site with good detail S-2 Tracker at Patuxent River Naval Air Museum This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.