This WV-2 aircraft, U.S. Navy Bureau Number 141311 (Lockheed Serial Number 4435), was completed by Lockheed Aircraft Company and delivered to the Navy in August 1956 -- one of 142 WV-2 examples built over the years. It was first assigned to Navy patrol squadron VW-13 at Patuxent River, Maryland, but later served with VW-2 and VW-15 at the same base. It was flown on “Atlantic Barrier” missions during the height of the Cold War, serving as one of the many airborne early warning aircraft that extended the ground-based Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line across far-northern North America eastward out over the North Atlantic. For these missions the aircraft operated out of Argentia, Newfoundland. With its specialized radars and radio equipment the plane continuously watched over the northern horizon for incoming Soviet aircraft, flying a ceaseless 200 mile-wide racetrack pattern between Newfoundland and the Azores. Typical missions for the aircraft’s 27 crew members were 12 to 14 hours long.

In April 1962 the aircraft was reassigned to the Pacific Missile Range as a down-range missile tracker and stationed at Point Mugu, California. On 18 September 1962 all Navy WV-2 aircraft were re-designated as the EC-121K, but they retained their official nickname of Warning Star. For the next several years ‘311 flew for the Pacific Missile Range, which later became the Pacific Missile Test Center. By June 1975 the airframe had accumulated 12,347 flight hours.

On 7 May 1979 ‘311 was transferred to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, for storage. In September 1982 it was moved from the U.S. Navy inventory to that of the United States Air Force, still located at Davis-Monthan. Finally, on 4 June 1983 it made its last flight—to Chanute AFB for permanent display, arriving with engine #2 feathered. When the museum opened in 1994 the aircraft was included in the loan agreement from the National Museum of the United States Airforce at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.