Blue Angels salute ‘Delivery Dog’ on its retirement from 60 years of service

The “Delivery Dog” has flown its last ship-to-shore errands, retiring last week after a flyby salute from the Navy’s Blue Angels at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida.

The Northrop Grumman C-2A Greyhound has served as the main COD — “Carrier Onboard Delivery” — plane for the past 60 years, making it one of the longest-serving U.S. military aircraft.

The C-2 brought carriers the mail, VIPs, extra parts and supplies, slowly curving out of the sky before plopping down onto the deck and coming to a jerking halt on an arresting cable.

The C-2 would often quickly load back up with departing crew, sometimes including sick or injured sailors bound for medical treatment ashore, and outbound mail. The Greyhound would line up on the steam catapult, its twin NP2000 eight-blade propellers whirling into a blur, before it was slung back out over the sea and toward land.

For many personnel and visitors, the trap landing and catapult take-off would be the closest thing they’d experience to the takeoffs and landings usually reserved for generations of F-14 Tomcats, F/A-18 Hornet and F-35C Lightning II crews.

Other planes served as COD. After World War II, the Navy used the TBM-3R Avenger, a torpedo bomber converted into a logistics plane. The small C-1 Trader was familiar to crews during the Vietnam War. The S-3 Viking played the role for a period during the Cold War, as well.

But the C-2A Greyhound was the main plane for the job, nicknamed “the Delivery Dog” or just “Dog” for its canine namesake.

The C-2A could deliver a payload of up to 10,000 pounds, enough to haul a spare jet engine for fighter aircraft from shore to ship when needed. It could transport passengers, cargo, litters for medical patients and gear or humanitarian evacuation missions.

“The C-2A’s open-ramp flight capability allows airdrop of supplies and personnel from a carrier-launched aircraft,” the Navy said in a statement marking its retirement. “This, plus its folding wings and an onboard auxiliary power unit for engine starting and ground power self-sufficiency in remote areas, provides an operational versatility found in no other cargo aircraft.”

On June 25, the Greyhound made its last flight from a carrier, departing USS Nimitz as part of Fleet Exercise 250. The July 30 flight at Pensacola, flanked by six Blue Angels F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, was a ceremonial salute.

The role of bringing supplies and people from shore to carriers will be performed in the future by Navy CVM-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft.