The E-2C Hawkeye

Three E-2C Hawkeye’s (made by Grumman) were delivered to the French Navy between 1989 and 2004, using 2 Allison T56 turbo-engines with a 4 bladed propeller. On this short cruise in December, the main targets were the first carrier landings and catapult take-off's, flown by the enhanced E-2C Hawkeye number 3 (BuNo 166417), which was fitted with the new 8-bladed propellers (the Hamilton Sundstrand NP2000) . Every day, the E-2 was scheduled for 3 missions and it was flown during these trials by (civil) testpilots of the NorthropGrumman company. All daily missions consisted of a thorough preparation and calibration, before each launch the aircraft would wait for 15 minutes before take-off. And after landing the aircraft would go directly to the catapult area for a subsequent launch.

Last update : 13-09-2008 11:14

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