{"id":65995,"date":"2026-07-03T17:08:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T15:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=65995"},"modified":"2026-07-09T23:36:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T21:36:23","slug":"the-c-2-greyhound-naval-airplanes-farewell-to-us-aircraft-carriers-after-60-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2026\/07\/03\/the-c-2-greyhound-naval-airplanes-farewell-to-us-aircraft-carriers-after-60-years\/","title":{"rendered":"The C-2 Greyhound naval airplane's farewell to US aircraft carriers after 60 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Recently, the United States Navy ended its carrier operations with one of its oldest aircraft.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2025\/07\/22\/a-visit-to-rota-spain-by-c-2ar-greyhound-planes-from-the-carrier-uss-gerald-r-ford\/\">A visit to Rota, Spain, by C-2A(R) Greyhound planes from the carrier USS Gerald R. Ford<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2019\/09\/09\/the-meaning-of-the-different-colors-of-the-flight-personnel-on-warships\/\">The meaning of the different colors of the flight personnel on warships<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p>On June 25, the oldest of the active U.S. aircraft carriers, <strong>the USS Nimitz (CVN-68), hosted the final landing and launch of a Grumman C-2 Greyhound logistics transport aircraft<\/strong>. The honor went to two aircraft from Fleet Logistics Support Squadron 40 (VRC-40) \"Rawhides,\" a unit created on July 1, 1960, and based at NAVSTA Norfolk, Virginia. <strong>You can see a video of those final Greyhound carrier operations here<\/strong>, with footage released by the U.S. Navy:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Despedida al C-2 Greyhound en los portaaviones de EEUU\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iC7GX2WQY5c?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The VRC-40 \"Rawhides\" is the only squadron of its class still active in the US Navy.<\/strong> Two other units of that class (the VRC-30 and VRC-50) have been converted into Fleet Logistics Multimission (VRM) Squadrons and currently fly the <strong>CMV-22B Osprey tiltrotor, which has been replacing the Greyhound<\/strong> in the US Navy since 2020.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55372044121_dcf897cb39_o.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55372044121_c5c0131d67_z.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>The C-2 Greyhound made its first flight on November 18, 1964<\/strong>, entering service in 1966 with the VRC-50 \"Foo Dogs\" squadron. <strong>The Greyhound replaced the Grumman C-1 Trader<\/strong> as the fleet's logistics transport aircraft, surpassing its payload capacity (4,500 kg versus 3,856 kg) and adding the advantage of a rear ramp.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55372450150_734cf906f7_o.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55372450150_69fbb9bc98_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>For 60 years, the US Navy has been the sole operator of the C-2<\/strong>, with 17 units of the initial C-2A version, which were replaced in 1985 by 39 new C-2A(R) aircraft.<\/strong> <strong>The C-2 Greyhound is a derivative of the Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft<\/strong>, which made its first flight on October 21, 1960, and entered service in 1964. <strong>The Hawkeye continues in service in the US, the Republic of China, Egypt, France, Japan, and Mexico<\/strong>, and so far no other aircraft has emerged capable of assuming its role as a carrier-based AEW aircraft.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55371099097_14be4de952_o.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55371099097_f82bddb7ac_z.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dvidshub.net\/image\/9775405\/nimitz-welcomes-2nd-fleet-commander-during-fleetex-250\" target=\"_blank\">The photos you can see here were published by the United States Navy<\/a> on June 26 and show <strong>the last landing of a C-2 on an aircraft carrier, specifically the C-2A(R) 40 (serial number 162159) and the last launch by the C-2A(R) 52 (162157)<\/strong>. Although it does not appear in this series of images, apparently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cvw19752015\/posts\/c-2a-buno-16215940-makes-the-last-ever-greyhound-catapult-launchmade-yesterday-a\/1649268893867974\/\" target=\"_blank\">both were accompanied by the C-2A(R) on the 47th (162149)<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>---<\/p>\n<p><small>Images and video: U.S. Navy.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently, the United States Navy ended its carrier operations with one of its oldest aircraft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19534,11545],"tags":[24874,27356,6177,319,17319],"class_list":["post-65995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defense-portada-eng","category-navy","tag-fleet-logistics-support-squadron-40-vrc-40-rawhides","tag-fleet-logistics-support-squadron-40-vrc-50-foo-dogs","tag-grumman-c-2-greyhound","tag-us-navy","tag-uss-nimitz"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-29 06:20:14","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65995\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}