page_title: Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star
section_title: Surviving aircraft
hierarchical_section_title: Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star / Surviving aircraft
caption_attribution_description: English: Lockheed Constellation on static display outside of the Combat Air Museum in Topeka, Kansas.
context_page_description: The Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star was an American Airborne early warning and control radar surveillance aircraft operational in the 1950s in both the United States Navy and United States Air Force.
  The military version of the Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation was used to serve as an airborne early warning system to supplement the Distant Early Warning Line, using 2 large radomes. It replaced the TBM-3W used by the USN. Some EC-121s were also used for Signal Intelligence gathering. The EC-121 was introduced in 1954 and phased out in 1978, although a single specially modified EW aircraft remained in USN service until 1982.
  The USN versions when initially procured were designated WV-1, WV-2, and WV-3. The USAF Warning Stars served during the Vietnam War both as electronic sensor monitors and as a forerunner to the Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS. USAF aircrews adopted its civil nickname, "Connie" as reference, USN aircrews used the nickname "Willie Victor".
context_section_description: EC-121T
  On Display
   
  AF Ser. No. 52-3418 – on display at the Combat Air Museum at Forbes Field (former Forbes AFB) in Topeka, Kansas. The aircraft was delivered to USAF in October 1954 as an RC-121D and redesignated an EC-121D in 1962. It was converted to an EC-121T, but the upper radome has been removed.
  AF Ser. No. 52-3425 – on display at the Peterson Air and Space Museum at Peterson AFB in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Previously assigned to the 966th AEWCS at McCoy AFB, Florida and then the 79th AEWCS at Homestead AFB, Florida. It was delivered to Peterson AFB in October 1978.
  AF Ser. No. 53-0548 – on display at the Yanks Air Museum in Chino, California. It was stored at Camarillo Airport (former Oxnard AFB) while the Yanks Air Museum was working to get it restored and to complete FAA paperwork for a ferry flight. The final maintenance efforts by Yanks Air Museum Restoration Director Frank Wright included a rebuild of engine #4 in early January 2012. 53-0548 departed Camarillo at 12:10PM on Saturday, 14 January 2012 for the 90-minute flight to Chino, where it will become a static display.
  AF Ser. No. 53-0552 – on display at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma.
  AF Ser. No. 53-0554 – on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum, adjacent to Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona.
  AF Ser. No. 53-0555 – on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. The College Eye EC-121D is fully restored and on display indoors. This aircraft was nicknamed "Triple Nickel" because of its serial number (53-555). On 24 October 1967, while operating over the Gulf of Tonkin, it guided a U.S. fighter by radar into position to destroy a North Vietnamese Air Force enemy fighter aircraft, a MiG-21. This was the first time a weapons controller aboard an airborne radar aircraft had ever directed a successful attack on an enemy aircraft. "Triple Nickel" was retired to the USAF Museum in 1971.
  In storage
  AF Ser. No. 52-3417 – in storage at the University of Montana – Helena College of Technology in Helena, Montana. The aircraft is the oldest surviving EC-121, and was delivered to the USAF as a RC-121D in September 1954, and upgraded to an EC-121T in 1970. It served with the Air Force Reserve at Homestead Air Force Base before being retired to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in March 1976. In the early 1980s, the university purchased the aircraft from the Air Force for $10,000 and it was ferried to the university in July 1981. In spring 2009, it was declared surplus by the university and offered to any museum interested in preserving it. The aircraft was eventually acquired by the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, and prepped for a ferry flight to Oregon.  However, after the museum's parent company Evergreen International Aviation went bankrupt, the aircraft was acquired by the Castle Air Museum at the former Castle AFB in Atwater, California, for restoration.
  EC-121K
  On Display
  BuNo 137890 – on display outside 552d Air Control Wing Headquarters, the home of E-3B/C AWACS operations for the USAF, at Tinker Air Force Base, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The aircraft is one of two Warning Stars displayed in the markings of as AF Serial Number 53-0552.
  BuNo 141297 – on display at the Museum of Aviation at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia. It was flown to the museum in 1987 for display.
  BuNo 141309 – on display as AF Serial Number 53-0552 at the Aerospace Museum of California at the former McClellan AFB, California. This is one of two Warning Stars painted as 53-0552.
  BuNo 141311 – awaiting restoration at the Yankee Air Museum, Belleville, MI.  Previously at Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum, Rantoul, Illinois.
  BuNo 143221 – on display at the National Naval Aviation Museum at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Pensacola, Florida. The aircraft was acquired in flyable condition in 1973 from Training Squadron 86 (VT-86) at NAS Glynco, Georgia pending the closure of NAS Glynco and the squadron's relocation to NAS Pensacola. It is currently on display at the Sherman Field flight line annex of the m
caption: N4257U (AF Ser No. 52-3418) on display Combat Air Museum Topeka, KS
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