grummans2

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.

Grumman S-2E Trackers of VS-28 ‘Hukkers’ with tailcode AS of Carrier Anti-Submarine Air Group 52 (CVSG-52) from CVS-18 USS Wasp Side number 10 is BuNo 152367. After that are BuNo 149873. Then BuNo 151672. Circa 1967-1968. This webpage from a renowned website details aircraft assigned to the 1968 deployment of CVGS-52 and CVS-18 Wasp: www.gonavy.jp/CVSG-ASf.html www.gonavy.jp/CVSG52-AS1968.html CVSG-52 (AS) USS WASP (CVS-18) August 20, 1968 – December 19, 1968 (Med) S-2E 152367 AS-10. S-2E 149873 AS-17. S-2E 151672 AS-14.

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.