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#1800

Grumman E-2 Hawkeye

🇺🇸 United States ·first flew 1960· airborne early warning and control

Grumman E-2 Hawkeye, photo 1 of 10
1/10 Marcin Zieliński· CC BY 2.5

what is it?

The Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye is an American all-weather, carrier-capable, tactical airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft. This twin-turboprop aircraft was designed and developed during the late 1950s and early 1960s by the Grumman Aircraft Company for the United States Navy as a replacement for the earlier, piston-engined E-1 Tracer, which was rapidly becoming obsolete. The aircraft's performance has been upgraded with the E-2B and E-2C versions, where most of the changes were made to the radar and radio communications due to advances in electronic integrated circuits and other electronics.

How to recognise it: 2 turboprops · 24.6 m wingspan

base stats

  • speed 648 km/htop speed
  • range 2,708 kmwithout refuelling
  • size 26.1 tmax take-off weight
  • built 200made in total

Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).

fun facts

  • First flew 66 years ago, in 1960.
  • Top speed is 5.0× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
  • Wingspan of 24.6 m: about 5 cars parked nose to tail.
  • Fully loaded it can weigh as much as 4 African elephants (~6 t each).
  • Range of 2,708 km: 15× Amsterdam to Brussels.
  • Can fly 1.2× higher than Mount Everest (8,849 m).

turboprop: A jet-style turbine turning a propeller: efficient on short hops.

spec sheet

first flight
1960-10-21
introduced
1964
status
still flying
number built
200
role
airborne early warning and control
origin
🇺🇸 United States
makers
Northrop Grumman Corporation, Grumman
engines
2× Allison/Rolls-Royce T56-A-427 (E-2C), T56-A-427A (E-2D)
crew
5
length
17.6 m
wingspan
24.6 m
height
5.6 m
max take-off weight
26.1 t
top speed
648 km/h
cruise speed
474 km/h
range
2,708 km
ceiling
10,577 m
wings
monoplane

Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.

family

Sources: Wikidata Q223372, Wikipedia: Grumman E-2 Hawkeye (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.

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