Grumman E-2B Hawkeye

Housing a powerful search radar antenna, the E-2's 24-foot diameter rotating dome made it unmistakable as the first aircraft designated for Airborne Early Warning. The E-2 conducted air, sea, and land surveillance and could control aircraft for tactical missions and carrier launch and recovery operations. Naval Air Test Center personnel tested the first generation E-2A in the 1962-1964 timeframe, but E-2As proved unreliable in service, so they were converted into E-2Bs in the early 1970s. E-2B reliability enhancements, including a new mission computer and improved avionics cooling, began an evolutionary improvement process that led to the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, fielded in 2013. The C-2 Greyhound cargo aircraft was also derived from the basic E-2 airframe. Bureau Number 152476 was built as an E-2A and accepted by the Navy on 3 February 1966, served with various fleet squadrons, and was converted to an E-2B in January 1971. As an E-2B, it served with the Naval Air Test Center's Service Test Division as well as several fleet squadrons. Its last flight in July 1985 returned it to NAS Patuxent River after logging 6,700 flight hours, 771 catapult launches, and 785 arrested landings, and it joined the PRNAM flight line in September 1986.

Maryland · United States