Right now the E-2C seems to be the only viable carrier-borne fixed wing aircraft, but seeing as Brazille needs an AEW platform, has anyone concidered the S-2 Tracker airframe? Argentina has a few modified with turboprops. Could they be modified with, maybe the ARGUS system? Anyone know if any S-2s are left at Davis Monthan? Maybe the E-1 Tracer airframe? I hear India is looking at the E-2C……could the put the Rolls Royce engines from the C-130J on it?
By: Ja Worsley - 30th March 2005 at 12:50
Well all things considering, could the E-1’s be reborn? I mean technology is so far advanced these days that Transistors and vacuume tubes that they used would be replaced buy solid state electrical circutry right?
Yeah bring back the Willy Fudds!
By: Wanshan - 18th March 2005 at 10:42
Re-engining your Trackers doesn’t mean they are reborn. The Taiwanese S-2T aren’t really flying the tiles of the roof, you know…
Airframes age, I know. So what else is new?
ps. sorry about that terrible disabled hotlink (removed)
By: F-18 Hamburger - 18th March 2005 at 01:53
no problem, just get some of these from the bone yard
take off the dish and place a beam on top, keep flying em and hope that the bone yard has more spare aircraft for engines until the day a Carrier Borne AN-225 AWACS aircraft is developed and will work on carriers like Sao Paulo! 🙂
By: Arthur - 17th March 2005 at 14:56
Re-engining your Trackers doesn’t mean they are reborn. The Taiwanese S-2T aren’t really flying the tiles of the roof, you know…
By: Arabella-Cox - 17th March 2005 at 11:33
Hotlinking is posting an image that is on someone elses serves. These someone elses have installed a script that detects and avoids this.
By: hawkdriver05 - 17th March 2005 at 00:08
Interesting…..but what is “hot linking” and why is it disabled?
By: F-18 Hamburger - 16th March 2005 at 21:15
hotlinking disabled 😮
By: Wanshan - 16th March 2005 at 19:38
Maintaining the old Wright Cyclones is becoming increasingly difficult, and so “Turbo Tracker” conversions are becoming popular. The engines of choice are the Garrett TPE331 or the Pratt & Whitney Canada (PWC) PT6A turboprop, both typically rated at 1,227 kW (1,645 SHP), and conversions have been performed by a number of companies:
Retrofitting the S-2 with new turboprop engines had the effect of increasing the payload, economy and airspeed. In addition, these new powerplants have the capability of reversing upon landing to slow the aircraft safely at short airstrips and can also provide air conditioning in the cabin.
Brazil planned to perform a turbo upgrade on their Trackers, working with IMP of Halifax, Nova Scotia, to upgrade an initial machine as a prototype using Pratt & Whitney Canada (PWC) PT6A engines rather than the Garrett TPE331 use e.g. by Argentina on its Trackers.
The upgrade was not regarded as satisfactory, the turboprops lacking adequate performance to get the aircraft back up into the air after a “bolter” on carrier deck landing, and the program was cancelled. The Brazilian Trackers were then retired, one being donated to the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) museum in Rio de Janiero, and the others were mothballed. Although the Trackers were operated off the Brazilian Navy carrier MINAS GERAIS (named after a Brazilian state), they were flown and maintained by FAB crews.
However, the Brazilian Navy has considered pulling them out of storage and converting them to an AEW configuration, using a compact radar like the Brazilian Searchwater 2000 that could fit into the original Tracker belly radome.
By: Arabella-Cox - 16th March 2005 at 19:05
This idea has come up before and I think it is a good one. The problem is Brazil paying for it.
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March 13, 2005 at 10:22 pm