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| EC-121 Warning Star (Navy) |
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Length: 14 3/16
Wingspan: 15 5/8
Scale: 1/92
Includes desk stand.
The Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star was a United States Navy/United States Air Force airborne early warning radar surveillance aircraft. A military version of the Lockheed Constellation, it was designed to serve as an airborne early warning system to supplement the Distant Early Warning Line, using two large radomes, a vertical dome above and a horizontal one below the fuselage. EC-121's were also used for intelligence gathering (SIGINT).
It was introduced in 1954 and retired from service in 1978, although a single specially-modified EW aircraft remained in service with the U.S. Navy until 1982. The US Navy versions when initially procured were designated WV-1 (PO-1W), WV-2, and WV-3. Warning Stars of the U.S. Air Force served during the Vietnam War as both electronic sensor monitors and as a forerunner to the E-3 Sentry AWACS. U.S. Air Force aircrews adopted the civil nickname, "Connie" (diminutive of Constellation) as reference, while naval aircrews used the term "Willie Victor".
Since 1943 the Lockheed Constellation had been in USAAF service as the C-69. The use of the Constellation by the US Navy for patrol and airborne early warning duties was first investigated in 1949, when the Navy acquired two Lockheed L-749s. First flown on 9 June 1949, the PO-1W carried large, long-range radars in massive radomes above and below the fuselage. As the radomes produced considerable more side area, the fins of the PO-1W had to be increased. After the PO-1W, which was redesignated WV-1 in 1952, had proved that it was possible to operate large radars on aircraft, the US Navy ordered the WV-2 based on the L-1049 Super Constellation. The WV-1s were later transferred to the Federal Aviation Agency in 1958-59.
The WV-2/EC-121D was initially fitted with a dorsal AN/APS-45 height finder radar and a ventral AN/APS-20 air search radar. These radars were later upgraded to AN/APS-103 and AN/APS-95 radars, although not simultaneously. The crew commonly numbered 18, six officers (two pilots, two navigators, two weapons controllers) and twelve enlisted personnel (two flight engineers, one radio operator, two crew chiefs, five radar operators, two radar technicians). However, when North Korea shot down a Navy EC-121 in 1969, a crew of 31 was on board.
Orders were placed totalling 142 PO-2W Constellations with deliveries beginning in 1953. The type was redesignated WV-2 in 1954. The WV-2 was familiarly known to its crews as "Willy Victor". In 1962, with standardization of aircraft designations within the Department of Defense, the WV-2 then became the EC-121K. 13 of these were converted to WV-2Q electronic intelligence aircraft (which became EC-121M in 1962), and 9 were converted to WV-3 weather reconnaissance aircraft (WC-121N in 1962). A single aircraft became an NC-121K, an electronic warfare variant assigned to VAQ-33 and the last EC-121 in operational service, flying until 25 June 1982.
The Air Force received 10 RC-121C and 74 EC-121D Warning Stars beginning with diversions from the Navy contracts in October 1953. The 10 RC-121Cs became trainers, designated TC-121C. Between 1966 and 1969, 30 retired Navy EC-121s were transferred to the USAF and converted in EC-121Rs as sensor-monitoring aircraft. Of the 74 EC-121s, 42 were converted to the EC-121H upgrade beginning in 1962, and in 1969, 15 of the remaining EC-121Ds and 7 of the EC-121Hs were further upgraded into the final operational variant, the EC-121T, which served as an AWACS prototype in Southeast Asia in 1972. Five EC-121Ds were modified to be broadcasting aircraft for psychological warfare operations, the predecessors of the EC-130 Commando Solo.
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