the grumman c-2 greyhound is a twin-engine high-wing cargo aircraft designed to carry
supplies mail and passenger to and from aircraft carriers of the united states navy its primary
mission is carrier onboard delivery the aircraft provides critical logistics
support to carrier strike groups the aircraft is mainly used to transport high priority cargo
mail and passengers between carriers and shore bases and can also deliver cargo such
as jet engines and special stores one of the oldest aircraft used by the us navy on board
its aircraft carriers will begin to be replaced soon the c-2a greyhound turboprop manufactured
by northrop grumman in the 1960s will leave the scene by 2024 for the cmv 22b to enter service
despite the little-known acronym it is a variant of transporting personnel and cargo on the v-22
osprey tilt rotor from bell and boeing the first of 48 aircraft ordered was delivered by the two
manufacturers on monday in armarello texas the cmv-22b brings expanded capabilities not only to
the carrier-on-board delivery mission but to the high-end fight said u.s navy captain diwan chaney
commodore fleet logistics multi-mission wing we are anxious to get it to the fleet and show off
its immense capability and agile flexibility after flying for the first time in december
the cmv 22b will now be allocated at naval air station north island in san diego and naval air
station norfolk to speed up training members of the us navy trained with the us marine corps which
have operated the osprey since 2007. in addition to being able to take off and land vertically
osprey can also carry six thousand pounds over a distance of one thousand 1150 miles according
to bell and boeing it is the only on-board aircraft capable of taking engine components
from the f-35c fighter directly to the flight deck hawkeye's brother the c2 greyhound was introduced
in the navy in 1966 to replace the c1 trader a variant of the well-known anti-submarine aircraft
s2 tracker designed by grumman the c2 was an adaptation of the e-2 hawkeye radar aircraft
with a wider fuselage to accommodate passengers or 10 000 pounds of cargo in 1986 the u.s navy
placed a new order for the turboprop but with improvements in avionics and airframe and named
c2ar grumman delivered 39 units by 1990 that replaced the original c2as and expanded the
aircraft's fleet in the mid 2000s 36 greyhound aircraft underwent a life extension program
in addition to receiving a glass cockpit the most visible modification however was the adaptation
of a set of propellers with eight blades the reform made it possible for the c2a r to fly
until 2027 but the navy decided to accelerate its replacement with osprey over the next four years
the c2 greyhound carrier onboard delivery pilot the navy's relatively tiny c2 greyhound community
and carrier onboard delivery cod mission was in the news last week for tragic reasons
a greyhound flying out of okinawa to the uss ronald reagan went down near the carrier which was
operating hundreds of miles from land amazingly eight of the eleven souls aboard survived and
are in fine condition but sadly three didn't make it including one of the aircraft's pilots
they were declared lost at sea after many hours of searching by u.s navy and japanese navy assets
the fact is that the c2 has a pretty impressive safety record although according to one pilot who
flew it in the 1980s before the type was upgraded significantly it was anything but unreliable
and its critical mission lacked support as well as appreciation for the navy
we only had two prop aircraft that routinely landed on the carrier at the time
the c2 greyhound and e2 hawkeye both were absurdly expensive to operate and unsuitable for initial
training of nuggets in the carrier environment so they dusted off some t28c models from the boneyard
at davis mothan afb and gave them a fresh coat of paint we qualified on the carrier in them and were
last people to ever do single engine radials on a us carrier it was fairly useless training for us
as the radial single engine approach to landing on the carrier is a cut pass versus fly onto the deck
pass and we didn't do catapult shots we did deck runs for takeoff however it did carrier qualify
us but they would enlighten us later on at the rag replacement air group on the proper way to do it
i received my orders out of corpus christi to vr 24 to fly the super cod out of signella sicily
via the rag rvaw120 who flew e2s well if i ever had any ambitions to have a career in the navy
it ended there there was no career path for a carrier on board delivery pilot
this was immediately apparent when we got to the rag and were greeted with oh
another cod puke we did our training in e2c models since the te2as were permanently unserviceable
at least for the 11 months i was at the rag trusting cod the e2 was an unusual aircraft
to fly aside from its unusual looks it was unstable in two axes that made it a handful
to fly and a joy to land on the carrier little did we know the c2 was unstable in all axes
so much so that the prototype killed the two grumman test pilots during spin testing this
led to a big warning in the laptop's manual do not enter a spin as if i was going to try it out for
fun one day with a load of cargo the c2's mission was very diverse and very critical to the navy
which wasn't reflected in how we were supported the priority for logistical support is a hierarchy
much like this pointy number one is fighters then attack then anti-submarine warfare asw
then electronic warfare ew then space aliens and pawn slime and finally oh yeah the c2 guys we had
the same engine finally as the e2 but we had 650 less horsepower per side and operated 4 000 pounds
heavier so we had a non-standard bastard stepchild engine that gave us no end of problems the navy
needs the c2 to actually fight a war we had two critical missions supply engines for the carrier's
air wing as replacements and carry nukes back to the boat when they wanted to have nukes on them
during war fighting aircrafts ate engines with foreign object debris fod being the biggest
problem apparently flying through the debris cloud caused by your attack on a ground target or the
randomly disintegrating aircraft you're fighting against doesn't do much good for a jet engine we
would be tasked to deliver two to four engines a day during combat to keep the air wing operational
then there was the other mission critical parts the general stuff
from landing gear to rotor blades we also had the capability to carry liquid oxygen
lox at 300 gallons a shot this was a comical mission for us and we then connected its
vent on an overboard vent we had to wear parachutes when we flew with it on board
why who knows if it failed in flight i suspect our first warning would have been
the large explosion hurling aircraft bits and pieces of us in different directions
you