Original Item. Only One Available. The Grumman E-1 Tracer (WF prior to 1962) was the first purpose-built airborne early warning aircraft used by the United States Navy. It was a derivative of the Grumman C-1 Trader and entered service in 1960. It was replaced by the more modern Grumman E-2 Hawkeye by the mid-1960s-1970s.

This is a fantastic 1960s era factory model of the WF-2 Tracer aircraft. It features the signature large radome, which gave the aircraft the nickname “Stoof with a Roof”. The propellors still move and the aircraft is a bit loose to the stand though it is still solid. There is some paint and decal loss, but for its age the model is in great shape. It measures roughly 13 x 20 ½ x 8 ½”.

An outstanding model, ready for display.

Following World War II, modified attack aircraft, including the AD-3W Skyraider and TBM-3W Avengers, filled the airborne early warning role. In 1951, the US Navy, seeking a replacement for the TBM-3W, asked Grumman and Vought for new AEW aircraft based on their competing designs for a carrier-based anti-submarine aircraft, the Grumman XS2F Tracker and the Vought XS2U. Grumman's design, Design 95, which was designated XWF-1 under the 1922 United States Navy aircraft designation system, used the same fuselage and wings as the XS2F, with an AN/APS-20 radar mounted on a pylon over the forward fuselage. The arrangement was chosen to not require changes to the Tracker's wing folding design. Two prototypes were ordered, but the project was cancelled late in 1952.

In 1955, engineers at Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation began studies on how to accommodate a new radar being developed by Hazeltine (which became the AN/APS-82) aboard a carried-based aircraft, and concluded that a design based on the Tracker would be the best option. When, later that year, the US Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) developed requirements for a new AEW aircraft, Grumman proposed a development of the Tracker, and began detailed work on the project.

The E-1 was designated WF under the 1922 United States Navy aircraft designation system; the designation earned it the nickname "Willy Fudd". The Tracer was derived from the C-1 Trader, itself a derivative of the S-2 Tracker carrier-based antisubmarine aircraft, known as S2F under the old system, nicknamed "Stoof", leading to the WF/E-1, with its distinctive radome, being known as "Stoof with a Roof." The E-1 featured folding wings of a very particular design for compact storage aboard aircraft carriers; unlike the S-2 and C-1 in which the wings folded upwards, the radome atop the fuselage required the E-1's designers to re-adopt an updated version of the Grumman-patented "Sto-Wing" folding wing system, pioneered on their earlier Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat piston-engined fighter of the early-WWII period, to fold its wings aftwards along the sides of the fuselage.

Its prototype made its first flight on December 17, 1956. Just over fourteen months later the first WF-2 (E-1B) Tracer made its maiden flight.