"Alan Erskine" wrote in message
...
"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
m...
Alan Erskine wrote:

Oops. ;-) I meant, why wasn't there an S-1? Was it due to the 1960's
nomenclature change?


The first purpose-built ASW aircraft was the Grumman AF Guardian, it
preceded the S designation for such aircraft. The second purpose-built
ASW aircraft was the Grumman S2F Tracker. It was designated S2F because
it was the second ASW aircraft built for the Navy by Grumman. With the
Tri-Service designation system the S2F became the S-2. Why not S-1?
Probably just to keep things as simple as possible.

I think the AF was already out of service in the USN by the time the
designation system was changed; that might explain the abscense of the
"S-1". Thanks Steven.
The Grumman SF-1 was a version of the Grumman FF-1 fighter built in 1932-33.
It had a 2 man cockpit that was reconfigured to make it a scout plane (SF),
instead of a fighter (FF). After WW2, Grumman built the TB3F for ASW work.
They worked in pairs AF-2W (hunter) and AF-2S (killer) because the equipment
was too large and heavy for 1 aircraft. In 1953 they began replacing the AF
with the S2F (because there had already been an SF). In 1962 when DOD
started renumbering the aircraft to have a common number in all services,
the Navy aircraft stayed with the number the aircraft already had (P2V-5 and
P3V-1 became P-2E and P-3A). If two aircraft had the same number, one was
changed (F3D and F3H became F-10 and F-3; F4D and F4H became F-6 and F-4).