DeHavilland Grumman CP-121 Tracker

I finish up what turned out to be a series of four articles on Conair's Firecats and their military history with this short piece about their military use in Canada and some pictures. Grumman first began building the Trackers in 1950 under a contract with the United States Navy. The Canadian version of Grumman's Tracker was built by DeHavilland first entering service in the Canadian Armed Forces in the mid 1950s for use in anti-submarine warfare. Known as the De Havilland Grumman CP-121 Tracker, these aircraft were in service in the Canadian Armed Forces through 1989.

A short history of the CP-121 Tracker may be found on this page from Canadian Wings. The Atlantic Canada Aviation Museum has a CP-121 Tracker, with a webpage devoted to their CP-121 Tracker and more history of the aircraft's use by the Canadian Military. 

Finally, I found some photographs of the CP-121 Tracker. I have yet to find any historic videos showing the CP-121 Tracker, if and when I do, I'll do a follow-up post. Here are the links to some photographs:

• Royal Canadian Air Force, pictures and a little more history
• Two pictures from Jetphotos dot net
• A photo on Airliners dot net

Prior articles in this series

• Monday, Jan 14, 2013 -- Conair Firecats in action
• Wednesday, Jan 16, 2013 -- Conair Firecat T564 to Museum
• Friday, Jan 18, 2013 -- Grumman Tracker

Grumman Tracker

Writing about the Conair's Firecats recently got me thinking about their military use. If I'm not mistaken, prior to their service as Firecats for Conair, these airplanes, known as DeHavilland Grumman S-2 Trackers, flew with the Canadian Military doing anti-submarine work. I believe that Grumman had an arrangement with DeHavilland to make the S-2 Tracker for the Canadian military.

I wanted to try to find some videos that I could embed for you showing a DeHavilland Grumman S-2 Tracker in her military configuration in active military service. I was not successful.

I did however, find a couple of videos of their cousins, the  Grumman S-2 Tracker while in service for the U.S. Navy. I believe that some of the Grumman S-2 Trackers were later rebuilt for use by CAL FIRE as tankers, see this CAL FIRE aviation program webpage for more information. 

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