May 5, 2017 Update:  Eleven more airframes have added to the collection at UAC's Grumman Storage Yard.  All came from a sale in Australia.  The new airframes added are:  152800, 152805, 152809, 162811, 162816, 152837, 153566, 153576, 163578, 153598, and 153604.

As of September 2016, the following airframes were reported already at the Tucson storage yard:  152816, 153566, 153598, 153604. 

One of the most important components to come of the Trackers are the landing gear, as can be seen in the photo above.  Information indicates that 153598 and 153804 have already had their landing gears removed, or were purchased without them.

This will bring the Tracker count at the UAC Tucson Yard up to 91 airframes.

Thank you to Steve Williamson for providing the above information.

On May 24, 2010 I had the unique one time and one time only opportunity for a non United Aeronautical Corporation (UAC) employee to get inside its Grumman Tracker Storage Yard next to Davis-Monthan AFB and AMARC in Tucson, AZ and photograph all of the airframes located there. United Aeronautical Corp. is the Northrop-Grumman licensee on all of the models and variations of the S2, C-1 an E-1B Aircraft. Not only do they provide certified spares from their aircraft, as an ISO and FAA certified facility, they also produce all of the spares for these aircrafts. They have Northrop-Grumman's complete data packages, and they even manufacture and supply the landing gear systems.

It should be noted that UAC is the largest provider of spare parts for the Grumman S-2 aircraft that is still 60 years after being developed still in use with several counties as a military aircraft along with being used an air tanker in the US, Canada and France.  All of the airframes are parked in neat rows throughout the yard in order to facilitate the removal of parts for use on active aircraft.  Any parts that have been removed and stored outside are in organized rows like the airframes and the facility is neat and clean.  You will notice that almost all of the airframes are missing wheels and struts, as they have been the most required items.  At this point UAC is actually beginning to manufacture wheels to keep the S-2s flying.  Rudders and nose cones have also been items in demand as one looks at the photos.  This was a great opportunity for me to get into the yard and record these great aircraft and I want to thank UAC management for allowing this rare photo shoot.

For the Tracker enthusiast this is the Mother Lode.  There were (80) Tracker, (11) Tracer and (3) Trader airframes on site.  As the photos show I got to photograph them as they last served with the US Navy.  Most of the photos have a nose on shot and a tail shot, unless it was at the end of the row where I had enough room for the full side view photograph.  Many of the tail numbers are still plainly visible along with the Navy Bureau Number under the horizontal stabilizer facilitating aircraft identification.  In other cases where the tail was removed or a Bureau Number had been painted over I had to use Photoshop magnification or contrast techniques to look through the paint to identify the number.  In some cases the AMARC number was all I had from which I could also the use a data base to determine the Bureau Number.  There a groups of consecutively numbered aircraft, the largest being 147871-147880.