Most Albatrosses were used by the U.S. Air Force (USAF), primarily in the search and rescue (SAR) mission role, and initially designated as SA-16.

[2] Other examples of the HU-16 made their way into Air Force Reserve rescue and recovery units prior to its retirement from USAF service.

It was also employed as an operational support aircraft worldwide and for missions from the former Naval Air Station Agana, Guam, during the Vietnam War.

The HU-16 was also operated by the U.S. Coast Guard as both a coastal and long-range open-ocean SAR aircraft for many years until it was supplanted by the HU-25 Guardian and HC-130 Hercules.

51-5282 to the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, in July 1973 after setting an altitude record of 32,883 ft earlier in the month.

[3] The final US Navy HU-16 flight was made 13 August 1976, when an Albatross was delivered to the National Museum of Naval Aviation at NAS Pensacola, Florida.

[11] Three Grumman Albatrosses from the Indonesian Air Force took part in the 1975 invasion of East Timor for maritime patrol role.

Due to shortage of ground attack aircraft in the initial stage of the invasion, the Albatross was modified so it could be armed with 12.7 mm M2 Browning machine guns, bombs and rockets.

In the mid-1960s the U.S. Department of the Interior acquired three military Grumman HU-16s from the U.S. Navy and established the Trust Territory Airlines in the Pacific to serve the islands of Micronesia.

Amphibian Aerospace Industries in Darwin, Australia, acquired the type certificate and announced in December 2021 that it planned to commence manufacturing a new version of the Albatross from 2025.

Dubbed the G-111T, it would have modern avionics and Pratt & Whitney PT6A-67F turboprop engines, with variants for passengers, freight, search and rescue, coastal surveillance, and aeromedical evacuation.