Special Hobby 48194 AF-3S Guardian "MAD Boom"

The Grumman AF-3 S Guardian was an American in-flight anti-submarine (ZOP) aircraft from the Cold War period. The drive was provided by a single engine Pratt and Whitney R-2800-48W with 2400 hp . The length of the aircraft was approximately 13.2 meters with a wingspan of approximately 18.5 meters. The Grumman AF-3 S Guardian in its essence was an evolutionary development of the AF-2 Guardian, which was commissioned by the US Navy. In the mid-1940s, the latter aimed to obtain the first ZOP on-board aircraft in its history. However, the ambitious assumption turned out to be not very successful in implementation, because the AF-2 Guardian turned out to be very difficult to pilot and highly emergency. Moreover, the AF-2 machines had to operate in pairs: one plane carried the equipment tracking the submarine (the so-called "guppy" or "hunter"), and the other plane carried depth charges and torpedoes (the so-called "scrapper" or "killer"). The development version of the hunter was the AF-3 S Guardian, which entered service in 1952 and was equipped with a magnetic anomaly detector (MAD for short). In total, only about 40 Grumman AF-3 S Guardian aircraft were built. However, the service of all AF-2 / AF-3 machines came to an end very quickly, as they were withdrawn from the line by 1955.