Believing they had a capable and flexible platform in the S2F, Grumman quickly adapted it to other roles in naval aviation. In December 1951, even before the S2F first took flight, company engineers modified the design so that it would be capable of carrying nine passengers or 3,500 lb. of cargo. When the Navy expressed an interest in the plane as a carrier on-board delivery (COD) platform, the total load was increased to 8,500 lb. in order to accommodate tactical nuclear weapons then carried on board flat-tops. Designated the TF-1 (later redesignated C-1) Trader, the airplane first became operational in 1955. The museum’s example was the seventh TF-1 accepted by the Navy, joining the fleet on June 30, 1955.
The plane would spend the majority of its extensive service operating from the deck of the carrier
Lexington (CVA 16), beginning with her last Far East cruise in 1960–1961. When the carrier was redesignated (CVS 16) and assigned duties as the training carrier at NAS Pensacola, Bureau Number 136754 went with her. From 1963 to 1976, the venerable airplane burned a path in the sky between NAS Pensacola’s Forrest Sherman Field and the flight deck of
Lexington operating in the Gulf of Mexico, in the final years of its service averaging double the monthly flight hours of COD aircraft in the fleet. After it passed the 15,000 hour mark in flight hours, the decision was made to retire the aircraft, and it arrived at the museum in 1976 still wearing a special paint scheme honoring the nation’s bicentennial.