page_title: Grumman S-2 Tracker
section_title: Sensors and armament
hierarchical_section_title: Grumman S-2 Tracker / Design and development / Sensors and armament
caption_attribution_description: The catapult officer is giving the "launch" signal to a Grumman S-2D Tracker of Reserve Carrier Anti-Submarine Air Group 51 (RCVSG-51) on the port catapult of the U.S. Navy training carrier USS Lexington (CVS-16) on 22 January 1963.
context_page_description: The Grumman S-2 Tracker was the first purpose-built, single airframe anti-submarine warfare aircraft to enter service with the United States Navy. Designed and initially built by Grumman, the Tracker was of conventional design — propeller-driven with twin radial engines, a high wing that could be folded for storage on aircraft carriers, and tricycle undercarriage. The type was exported to a number of navies around the world. Introduced in 1952, the Tracker and its E-1 Tracer derivative saw service in the U.S. Navy until the mid-1970s, and its C-1 Trader derivative until the mid-1980s, with a few aircraft remaining in service with other air arms into the 21st century. Argentina and Brazil are the last countries to still use the Tracker.
context_section_description: The Tracker had an internal torpedo bay capable of carrying two lightweight aerial torpedoes or one nuclear depth charge.  There were six underwing hard points for rocket pods and conventional depth charges or up to four additional torpedoes.  A ventrally-mounted retractable radome for AN/APS-38 radar and a Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD) AN/ASQ-8 mounted on an extendable rear mounted boom were also fitted.  Early model Trackers had an Electronic Support Measures (ESM) pod mounted dorsally just aft of the front seat overhead hatches and were also fitted with a smoke particle detector or "sniffer" for detecting exhaust particles from diesel-electric submarines running on snorkel.  Later S-2s had the sniffer removed and had the ESM antennae moved to four rounded extensions on the wingtips. A 70-million-candlepower searchlight was mounted on the starboard wing. The engine nacelles carried JEZEBEL sonobuoys in the rear (16 in early marks, 32 in the S-2E/G).  Early Trackers also carried 60 explosive charges, dispensed ventrally from the rear of the fuselage and used to create sound pulses for semi-active sonar (JULIE) with the AN/AQA-3 and later AQA-4 detection sets, whereas the introduction of active sonobuoys (pingers) and AN/AQA-7 with the S-2G conversion saw these removed. Smoke dispensers were mounted on the port ventral surface of the nacelles in groups of three each.
caption: U.S. Navy S-2 Tracker on the port catapult of USS Lexington ready for take-off, 22 January 1963
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