File:AF-2S VS-25 NMNA.jpg

Summary

A Grumman AF-2S Guardian of the Museum of Naval Aviation painted in the colours of antisubmarine aquadron VS-25 pictured in flight.

Officil NMNA description: "Accepted by the U.S. Navy 6 July 1950, the museum's AF-2S entered squadron service with Experimental and Development Squadron (VX) 1 at Naval Air Station (NAS) Key West, Florida, where it served as a flight test aircraft until February 1952. Between 1952 and 1956, it flew with various Naval Air Reserve Units at NAS Jacksonville, Florida, NAS Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, and NAS South Weymouth, Massachusetts. Stricken from the Navy inventory at the naval storage facility at Litchfield Park, Arizona, on 17 December 1956, the aircraft was eventually sold in 1958 to Clayton Curtis of Frontier Airways. At the time of sale, it had accumulated 1469 hours of flight time. Subsequently acquired by Aero Union Corporation of Reading, California, in 1962, the aircraft served as an aerial tanker fighting forest fires until 1978, at which time it began flying on the exhibition circuit. Fully restored, it was acquired by the museum in 1980. As the seventh AF-2S version of the Guardian built by Grumman, the aircraft was one of the earliest in service and, at the time of its acquisition, it was the only flying example of its kind. Painted in the markings of Antisubmarine Squadron (VS) 25, one of the first squadrons to operate the AF, the aircraft resides in the west wing of the museum. The "30" painted on the cowling is not historically accurate but instead stems from the aircraft's days as a fire fighter. At that it had the radio call sign "Red 30.""

Licensing

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