Meet the C-2A Greyhound: the COD, by the numbers 86ef63b

Second aboard is the hardest-working airframe in the battle group — the Carrier Onboard Delivery bird, a C-2A Greyhound of VRC-30, the Providers: tail code RW, modex 30, answering to PROVIDER 30. Mail, parts, passengers — if it matters, the COD brings it. The card:

1. Powerplant: two Allison T56-A-425 turboprops, 4,600 shp apiece, swinging four-blade props — the same engines and wing as the E-2 Hawkeye, minus the rotodome.
2. The airframe: where the Hawkeye carries a radar, the Greyhound carries everything else — a fat cargo hold with an upswept tail and a rear loading ramp. The quad tail (centre fin, two outboards, ventral) is an E-2 hand-me-down.
3. Capacity: 10,000 lb of cargo or 39 passengers, launched and recovered from the boat like any fighter in the wing.
4. 1994 squadron: VRC-30 Providers, NAS North Island — the Pacific fleet’s only COD squadron that year (VRC-50 decommissioned in ’94), and Det 1’s first cruise ran June to December 1994 aboard Kitty Hawk. Period-perfect for our bay.
5. Dimensions: 56 ft 10 in long, 80 ft 7 in span — the biggest thing that traps aboard with us.
6. In the bay: PROVIDER 30 flies the same deck cycle as the bombers — watch a twin-prop COD catch the 3-wire and tell us the Navy isn’t a flying club. Printable STL on the store, ramp and all.