Grumman E-1 Tracer
The Grumman E-1 Tracer was the United States Navy's first purpose-built carrierborne airborne early warning aircraft. Developed through the C-1 Trader from the S-2 Tracker line, it carried a Hazeltine AN/APS-82 radar in a large fixed radome above its twin-tailed fuselage and flew with a crew of four. Its prototype flew in December 1956, and eighty-eight production aircraft, designated WF-2 and renamed E-1B in 1962, entered fleet service from 1960. Ordered as an interim type, the Tracer, known colloquially as the "Willy Fudd" and the "Stoof with a Roof", directed carrier fighters during the Vietnam War before the E-2 Hawkeye replaced it; the last examples left Navy service in 1977.
Why It Mattered
After the Second World War, carrier airborne early warning in the United States Navy was flown by attack aircraft rebuilt around a radar: Skyraider and Avenger variants carried the set, but neither had been designed for the work. The Grumman E-1 Tracer changed that. Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum, which displays a Tracer aboard USS Yorktown, describes it as the first purpose-built early warning aircraft in US Navy use, an aeroplane drawn from the outset around the radar it carried. Its four-man crew could stay airborne for up to seven hours, and the museum credits it with critical early warning and guidance support for the fleet. The Navy had chosen the type only as an interim measure, yet it remained the fleet's primary carrier-based airborne radar aircraft into the mid-1970s, and the last example did not leave service until November 1977.
Design Notes
Grumman began the work in 1955 as a company-funded project, modifying the S2F Tracker into an airborne radar platform. The design settled on the fuselage of the TF-1 Trader, itself a Tracker derivative, because that body was wider and gave more room for the electronic equipment. A converted Trader, designated XTF-1W and known within Grumman as the G-117, made the prototype's maiden flight on 17 December 1956. Above the fuselage sat the aeroplane's defining feature: a fixed, airfoil-shaped radome, 20 feet by 30 feet, housing the antenna of the Hazeltine AN/APS-82 radar. The APS-82's airborne moving target indication let its operators pick a flying aircraft out of the clutter returned by the sea's surface. The radome dictated the rest of the airframe: twin fins and rudders replaced the family's tall single fin, and the wings, blocked from folding upward, rotated and folded backwards towards the tail. Two Wright R-1820-82A radials of 1,525 horsepower each provided the power, and the crew of four paired two pilots with two radar operators.
Operational History
The first production WF-2 flew on 1 March 1958. Operational aircraft began arriving at active squadrons in early 1960, when the type entered service with the Atlantic Fleet, replacing the Douglas AD-5W Skyraider in the early warning role. The Navy's two early warning squadrons, VAW-11 and VAW-12, provided detachments for carriers of the Atlantic and Pacific fleets, and four aircraft were normally allocated to each carrier. In 1962 the WF-2 was redesignated the E-1B. During the early years of the Vietnam War, Tracers saw extensive service: they gave combat air patrol fighters their target vectors, controlled Alpha strikes over North Vietnam, and warned the attacking aircraft of any approaching MiGs. Replacement by the E-2 Hawkeye began in 1964, and the Hawkeye gradually took the role over. The drawdown was slow, however: by May 1973 only four Tracers were still in service. The last of the eighty-eight built left Navy service in November 1977, ending a career that had outlasted the type's interim billing by well over a decade.
Afterlife
The final four aircraft were ferried to the Davis-Monthan storage facility after their last cruise, and the E-1B was struck from the Navy's inventory by 1977. Five Tracers are preserved at museums across the United States. One is displayed aboard USS Yorktown at Patriots Point in South Carolina; it arrived at the museum in 1987, on loan from the National Naval Aviation Museum. Another stands at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona, wearing the markings of Airborne Early Warning Squadron 307 from 1974. Eleven further airframes are reported in storage at an aircraft surplus yard outside Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.