grumman

S-2D Tracker 147868 ‘U.S NAVAL TEST PILOT SCHOOL’ on outer engine nacelle. NAS Patuxent River, Maryland. Grumman S2F-3 (S-2D) Tracker BuNo 147868 01 Mar 1960 - NATC RDT&E Patuxent 29 Dec 1960 - NAF RDT&E - NAF China Lake, CA 26 Oct 1963 - NARTU Quonset 1967-68: NTPS. Converted to US-2D. 1971: NATC as 868. 7/12/1973: Struck off charge at NARF Quonset Point, Rhode Island. 11/1976: Assumed to have been put into storage at the Military Aircraft Storage and Disposal Center (MASDC) Arizona. Exact fate unknown, no MASDC/AMARC record - probably sold on to a local salvage company and scrapped.

Grumman S-2E Tracker 149261 VS-38 ‘Red Griffins’. Side number 31 tailcode NT of Carrier Anti-Submarine Air Group 59 (CVGS-59) Assigned to CVS-20 USS Bennington with its wooden surfaced deck. Circa 1964. Grumman S2F-3S (S-2E) Tracker BuNo 149261 1963-1964: VS-38 ‘Red Griffins’ as NT-31. CVGS-59. ……………………………? 1970: RAW-77 as 7L-156. NARTU Los Alamitos, California. June 26, 1970: Put into storage at MASDC Arizona. PCN: 1S227. April 9, 1984: Release for preparation and sale to the Turkish Navy. 1985: Readied for flight to NAS Jacksonville FL, then later - was one of nine barged around the inland waterways to the Northrop Grumman facility at Saint Augustine Airport, Florida. However - became one of eight declared unfit for trans-Atlantic flight to Turkey and decommissioned in the subsequent years. Bought privately with eight other Trackers - as a commercial spare parts source – stripped and stored in a one acre compound off Highway One very near Saint Augustine Airport, Florida. By May 2011: After open air storage and abandonment since May 1986 in moist tropical conditions with foliage allowed to grow all around them, with the eight others, it was finally unceremoniously demolished and salvaged.

Grumman TS-2A Tracker BuNo 136514. Civilian Registration N403DF. Operated for California Division of Forestry as air tanker number 71. Flown under contract by Hemet Valley Flying Services CA. Stored until 1973 when converted to tanker by HVFS with CDF prototype tank design. Retired to Hemet by 1987, stripped for parts and scrapped by 1987.