Guardian of Mesa

Air Classics, Jul 2003

Rare post-war USN aircraft to go on display in new CAF hangar

Towards the end of World War Two, the venerable Grumman TBM/TBF Avenger was coming close to the end of its operational life. The Navy wanted a new, lightened version of the Avenger to continue that craft's career as a torpedo bomber/ASW platform. Numerous designs were considered from Grumman but, in the end, an entirely new aircraft would emerge.

The end of the war slowed development a bit, but on 23 December 1946, the XTB3F-1 was test flown. A massive beast powered by a Wright R-3350-26 up front and a Westinghouse 24C turbojet in the rear (fitted but not operational), the aircraft underwent numerous changes before the Navy begin to consider that the role of the torpedo bomber might be obsolete.

The threat of Soviet submarines was very real and it was decided to concentrate and develop the Grumman design into two separate aircraft - one for hunting subs, the other for destroying them. This resulted in the AF-2S "killer" and the AF-2W "hunter." Both planes were named the Guardian and, oddly, powered by Pratt & Whitney R-2800s without boost jets. Several hundred were built and, for the time period, were effective but the plane's massive 60-ft wingspan made operations from smaller carriers difficult and the idea of using two aircraft to perform one mission was costly. Last flown by crews from the Oakland Naval Air Reserve in California, the Guardians were phased out of service in June 1957 - replaced by the much more effective Grumman S-2 Guardian.

The Navy had no further use for the Guardian and did not even bother to save one for preservation - all were put up for scrap but five (three AF-ZWs and two AF-2S) were saved by Aero Union of Chico, California, who wanted to convert the type to a fire bomber. Two the planes were successfully converted to fire bombers while the other three remained in the weeds at Chico for parts. With the ban on single-engine fire bombers the Guardians were phased out of service and stored but N3144G, with the start of the Warbird movement, was very nicely restored and put on the airshow circuit until donated to the Naval Aviation Museum in 1984. N9995Z (Tanker 21) went to the EAA in 1984 but was sold to Jimmy Leeward in 1987 and occasionally flown. N9994Z is on display at the Pima Air Museum while N3143G remains at Chico. This leaves N9993Z (BuNo 126731) which was donated to the Confederate Air Force in 1988. This Guardian is now with the Arizona Wing of the Commemorative Air Force who have just completed a massive 30,000-sq-ft display hangar at Falcon Field, Mesa, and it is hoped that the Guardian - looking distinctly weathered from the Arizona sun will be repainted and displayed as a curious Cold War survivor.