Lt. Cmdr. Alex “Phrog” Vogel and the Navy’s last C-2A Greyhound closed out the aircraft’s career with a final carrier landing at the end of June, ending the mission for the Navy’s carrier delivery airplane. The aircraft is now set for a final flight to the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida, while Fleet Logistics Support Squadron VRC-40 prepares a sundown ceremony on Thursday.
Cmdr. Paul “PETA” Ingram, the last commanding officer of Fleet Logistics Support Squadron VRC-40, said the aircraft community is tiny: less than 1% of naval aviators have flown the C-2, and between 1,000 and 1,500 pilots have done so since the aircraft’s first flight in 1960. That narrow pipeline helps explain why the retirement is more than a tail number change; it ends a specialized cockpit culture built around a single mission.
VRC-40 and the last carrier mission
The Navy will now conduct its carrier delivery mission with the CMV-22, taking over the role long handled by the C-2A Greyhound. VRC-40 is the last active C-2 squadron, so the aircraft’s retirement also closes the book on the last remaining unit built around it.
Ingram described how those overseas missions worked: small detachments of two aircraft and about 50 personnel, led by a lieutenant commander, operating independently overseas. “I don’t think there’s anywhere else in the conventional military where so much is on such a junior group,” he said.
San Diego to Japan in 2022
Vogel’s 2022 flight from San Diego to Japan shows how demanding the mission could be. He flew a 60-year-old C-2A Greyhound on that trip, and the leg from the tip of Alaska’s Aleutian Island chain to Misawa, Japan could not be completed without carrying additional fuel onboard. “It’s a little bit of a nail-biting experience to make sure that your fuel transfers properly and that your engines are running properly,” Vogel said.
That flight also left little room for error. Three pilots shared the workload, and the diversion option for part of the trip was Russia for the flight to Japan.
The C-2 cockpit
Ingram called the plane a “dinosaur,” but he also emphasized why it held on so long: “It’s a bit of a bear to fly, but at the same time … there’s no computers between you and the air, so it’s kind of unique in modern aviation to still be flying something that does that,” he said. He added, “It gives you just a sense of kind of pounding the air into submission.”
The final flight before the end of the month will move the last C-2 to Pensacola, where the aircraft’s next stop is its museum home and the end of an era for the small community that flew it.
