Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star - Survivors

Survivors

  • EC-121T, AF Serial No. 52-3417 (N4257L) is located at University of Montana at its University of Montana-Helena College of Technology facility in Helena, Montana. The aircraft is the oldest surviving EC-121, and was delivered to the USAF as a RC-121D in September 1954, and upgraded to an EC-121T in 1970. It served with the Air Force Reserve at Homestead Air Force Base before being retired to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in March 1976. In the early 1980s, the university purchased the aircraft from the Air Force for $10,000 and it was ferried to the university in July 1981. In spring 2009, it was declared surplus by the university and offered to any museum interested in preserving it. The aircraft was eventually acquired by the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, but it is still in Helena pending completion of restoration for its ferry flight.
  • EC-121T, AF Serial No. 52-3418 (N4257U), c/n 4336, final registration N4257U is on display at the Combat Air Museum in Topeka, Kansas. The aircraft was delivered to USAF in October 1954 as an RC-121D and redesignated an EC-121D in 1962. It was converted to an EC-121T, but the upper radome has been removed.
  • EC-121T, AF Serial No. 52-3425, is on display at the Peterson Air and Space Museum at Peterson AFB in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Previously assigned to the 966th AEWCS at McCoy AFB, Florida and then the 79th AEWCS at Homestead AFB, Florida, it was the last operational EC-121 and was deployed by the 79th AEWCS to NAS Keflavik, Iceland. It was delivered to Peterson AFB in October 1978.
  • EC-121T, AF Serial No. 53-0548, is owned by Yanks Air Museum in Chino, California. It was stored at Camarillo Airport, while Yanks was working to get it restored and to complete FAA paperwork for a ferry flight. The final maintenance efforts by Yanks Restoration Director Frank Wright included a rebuild of engine #4 in early January, 2012. 53-0548 departed Camarillo at 12:10PM on Saturday, 14 January 2012 for the 90-minute flight to Chino, where it will become a static display.
  • EC-121K, Navy BuNo 141309 is displayed as AF Serial Number 53-0552 at the Aerospace Museum of California at the former McClellan AFB, California. (The actual 53-552 was flown to Tinker AFB in the late 1970s and put on static display for the 552nd Airborne Warning and Control Wing.)
  • EC-121T, AF Serial No. 53-0554, is on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum, adjacent to Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona.
  • EC-121D, AF Serial No. 53-0555 is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. The College Eye EC-121D is fully restored and on display indoors. This aircraft was nicknamed "Triple Nickel" because of its serial number (53-555). On 24 October 1967, while operating over the Gulf of Tonkin, it guided a U.S. fighter by radar into position to destroy an enemy fighter aircraft, a MiG-21. This was the first time a weapons controller aboard an airborne radar aircraft had ever directed a successful attack on an enemy aircraft. "Triple Nickel" was retired to the USAF Museum in 1971.
  • EC-121, 53-552, is on display at Tinker Air Force Base, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The aircraft is on static display outside 552d Air Control Wing Headquarters, the home of E-3B/C AWACS operations for the USAF.
  • EC-121K, Navy BuNo 141297, is on display at the Museum of Aviation at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia. It was flown to the museum in 1987 for display.
  • EC-121D, Navy BuNo 141311, is on display at the Chanute Aerospace Museum at the former Chanute AFB in Rantoul, Illinois.
  • EC-121K, Navy BuNo 143221, is on display at the National Naval Aviation Museum at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Pensacola, Florida. The aircraft was acquired in flyable condition in 1973 from Training Squadron 86 (VT-86) at NAS Glynco, Georgia. It is on display at the Sherman Field flight line annex of the museum.
  • EC-121T (N6937C) is on display at the Airline History Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.

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