Air Force One
Air Force One is the official air traffic control-designated call sign for a United States Air Force aircraft carrying the president of the United States. The term is commonly used to denote U.S. Air Force aircraft modified and used to transport the president, and as a metonym for the primary presidential aircraft, VC-25, although it can be used to refer to any Air Force aircraft the president travels on.
The idea of designating specific military aircraft to transport the president arose during World War II when military advisors in the Department of War were concerned about the risk of using commercial airlines for presidential travel. In 1944, the Douglas C-54 Skymaster was converted for use as the first purpose-built presidential aircraft. Dubbed the Sacred Cow and operated by the U.S. Army Air Force, it carried President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference in February 1945 and was used for another two years by President Harry S. Truman.
The "Air Force One" call sign was created in 1954, after a Lockheed Constellation carrying President Dwight D. Eisenhower entered the same airspace as a commercial airline flight using the same flight number. Since the introduction of SAM 26000 in 1962, the primary presidential aircraft has carried the distinctive livery designed by Raymond Loewy.
Other aircraft designated as Air Force One have included another Lockheed Constellation, Columbine III; three Boeing 707s, introduced in the 1960s and 1970s; and the current Boeing VC-25As. Since 1990, the presidential fleet has consisted of two highly customized Boeing 747-200B aircraft. The USAF has ordered two Boeing 747-8s to serve as the next presidential aircraft, designated VC-25Bs and expected to enter service no earlier than 2026.
From time to time, presidents have invited other world leaders to travel with them on Air Force One. In 1973, President Richard Nixon invited Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev to fly with him to California from Washington, D.C. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan and Queen Elizabeth II toured the U.S. West Coast aboard the aircraft.
History
20th century
On 11 October 1910, Theodore Roosevelt became the first US president to fly in an aircraft, an early Wright Flyer from Kinloch Field near St. Louis, Missouri. He was no longer in office at the time, having been succeeded by William Howard Taft. The record-making occasion was a brief overflight of the crowd at a county fair but was nonetheless the beginning of presidential air travel.First presidential aircraft
was the first president to fly in an aircraft while in office. The first aircraft obtained specifically for presidential travel was a Douglas Dolphin amphibian modified with luxury upholstery for four passengers and a small separate sleeping compartment. Designated RD-2 by the US Navy, it was delivered in 1933 and based at the naval base at Anacostia in Washington, D.C. The aircraft remained in service as a presidential transport from 1939.During World War II, German submarines operating in the Atlantic Ocean made air travel the preferred method of VIP transatlantic transportation. In 1943, Roosevelt traveled to the Casablanca Conference in Morocco on the Dixie Clipper, a Pan Am-crewed Boeing 314 flying boat, on a flight that covered 5,500 miles in three legs.
Concerned about relying upon commercial airlines to transport the president, officials of the United States Army Air Forces, the predecessor of the US Air Force, ordered the conversion of a military aircraft to accommodate the special needs of the commander-in-chief. In 1943, a C-87A transport, number 41-24159, was modified to carry President Franklin D. Roosevelt on international trips. But after a review of the C-87's controversial safety record, the Secret Service flatly refused to approve the aircraft for presidential carriage. The C-87, a derivative of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber, also carried more militaristic associations than aircraft designed for transport. The aircraft, named Guess Where II, was used to transport senior members of the Roosevelt administration on various trips. In March 1944, it flew Eleanor Roosevelt on a goodwill tour of several Latin American countries. The C-87 was scrapped in 1945.
The Secret Service subsequently reconfigured a Douglas C-54 Skymaster for presidential transport duty. The VC-54C aircraft, nicknamed the Sacred Cow, included a sleeping area, radiotelephone, and retractable battery-powered elevator to lift Roosevelt in his wheelchair. The VC-54C flew President Roosevelt only once, to the Yalta Conference in February 1945.
The National Security Act of 1947, the legislation that created the US Air Force, was signed by President Harry S. Truman aboard the VC-54C. He replaced the VC-54C in 1947 with a modified C-118 Liftmaster, calling it the Independence after his Missouri hometown. It was given a distinctive exterior, as its nose was painted like the head of a bald eagle. The plane included a stateroom in the aft fuselage and a main cabin that could seat 24 passengers or could be made up into 12 sleeper berths. It is now housed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.
Eisenhower introduced four propeller-driven aircraft to presidential service. This group included two Lockheed C-121 Constellations: aircraft Columbine II and Columbine III. They were named by First Lady Mamie Eisenhower for the columbine, official state flower of her adopted home state of Colorado. Two Aero Commanders were also added to the fleet.
Columbine II, the first plane to bear the call sign Air Force One, was a Lockheed Constellation configured for VIP travel that replaced an earlier Constellation called Columbine. Bearing the aircraft registration N8610, the plane would use the call sign "Air Force 8610", regardless of the passengers on the flight. After a 1953 incident in which a commercial flight, Eastern Air Lines 8610, crossed paths with Air Force 8610, which was carrying President Eisenhower over Richmond, Virginia, pilot William G. Draper suggested the standardized designation to avoid any future confusion with civil aviation using a similar call sign. Initially used informally, the designation became official in 1962.
Boeing 707s and entry to jet age
Toward the end of Eisenhower's second term, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles commented that Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and other senior Soviet officials had begun using the technologically advanced Tupolev Tu-114 aircraft for their travels, and it was no longer dignified for the president to fly in a propeller-driven aircraft. This paved the way for the Air Force's initial procurement of three Boeing 707-120 jet aircraft, designated SAM 970, 971 and 972, which were constructed at a unit cost of $5.5 million and were initially less lavish than the Columbine III that had preceded them.The high-speed jet technology built into these aircraft enabled presidents from Eisenhower through Nixon to travel long distances more quickly for face-to-face meetings with world leaders. Then-Vice President Richard Nixon first used a VC-137A on his visit to Russia in July 1959 for the opening of the American National Exhibition that became the site of the impromptu Kitchen Debates between Nixon and Khruschev. The following month, Eisenhower became the first president to fly via jet airplane when he used SAM 970, nicknamed "Queenie", to meet German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in Bonn. During Eisenhower's "Flight to Peace" goodwill tour in December 1959, he visited 11 Asian nations, flying in 19 days, twice as fast as he could have covered that distance in one of the Columbines.
SAM 970 to SAM 972 were removed from the presidential role with the January 1963 arrival of the specially built VC-137C designated SAM 26000. The older planes were repainted in the Loewy secondary livery designed for Air Force Two and other non-presidential VIP aircraft. SAM 970 is now on display at The Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington. SAM 971, best remembered for returning the Americans held during the Iran hostage crisis in 1981, is on display at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona. SAM 972 was scrapped in October 1996.
Loewy's livery design
The new VC-137C was not yet modified for presidential service when John F. Kennedy took office in 1961. On the recommendation of his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, he contacted the French-born American industrial designer Raymond Loewy for help in designing new livery and interiors for the VC-137C.Loewy, who had seen SAM 970, complained to a friend in the White House that it "had a garish orange nose and looked too much like a military plane", Air Force One historian and former Smithsonian curator Von Hardesty told CNN. He offered Kennedy his design consultation services free of charge.
Kennedy chose a red-and-gold design from one of Loewy's initial concept sketches, and asked him to render the design all in blue. Loewy also drew inspiration from the first printed copy of the United States Declaration of Independence, suggesting the widely spaced and upper case "United States of America" legend in Caslon typeface. He chose to expose the polished aluminum fuselage on the bottom side and used two blues, steel blue associated with the early republic and the presidency and a more contemporary water blue, to represent an America both rooted in the past and flying inexorably into the future. The presidential seal was added to both sides of the fuselage near the nose and a large American flag was painted on the tail. Loewy's work won immediate praise from the president and the press. The cheatline suggested a sleek and horizontal image that mirrored America's Jet Age optimism and prosperity of the era, and today signifies its legacy and tradition.
Loewy's VC-137C livery was adapted for the larger VC-25A when it entered service in 1990, and the secondary variation is still in use on USAF C-40, C-37, C-32, and C-20 aircraft in standard VIP configurations. The presidential paint scheme can also be seen on Union Pacific 4141, the locomotive used in George H. W. Bush's funeral train.