Grumman AF-2W Guardian AEW

[McColm]

I've been trying to find information about the Grumman Guardian AEW but keep running into a brick wall.
All I can find is the USNavy was eager to test it's new AN/APS-20 system on as many aerial platforms as possible to see which one might offer the best results. This resulted in AEW adaptions of the Grumman AF-2W Guardian,
Sikorsky HR2S-1W helicopter,
Lockheed P2V-5 Neptune and the Goodyear ZPG-2W & ZPG-3W airships.
It seems that the Guardian was overshadowed by the Grumman TBM-3W2 Avenger and the Douglas AD-4W Skyraider.
Any information would be grateful, I have a 1/72 ACE Grumman AF-2S Firefighter Guardian in the stash which I could use for the conversion.

[PR19_Kit]

Did you try Wikipedia?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_AF_Guardian

[sandiego89]

Steven, I think you are not using the AEW term properly. Sure many of the aircraft used variants of these radars, but really for the surface detection of ships and submarine periscopes. The Guardian was never what we would really call AEW. The version with the big belly radar was the detection part of the two part anti-submarine concept. It was soon replaced by the twin engine S-2 which could both detect and attack submarines.
Now some aircraft with these large 20 series domes could be considered AEW as they were intended to detect air and surface contacts, warn the fleet, provide vectors etc. this included what we would now call "AEW" versions of the Avenger, Skyraider, Gannet, Shackleton etc, but I would not put the Guardian in that same role. 

[AS.12]

Also when searching consider that AEW as a term dates from the mid-1960s.  Back in the 1940s / 50s the term used was 'radar picket'.

Aviation Week in June 1949 lists the four types of US Navy radar picket as:

Lockheed PO-1W
Grumman TBM
Grumman AF-1S
Douglas AD-3W

The AF-1S was redesignated as AF-2W Guardian, and other sources state that in addition to its ASW hunter role it indeed had a 'secondary' picket role.  Which as noted above make sense since it carried the same radar, it just had equipment optimised for ASW rather than air-to-air.