Air Force One (or two!)
 

A colleague flew from LHR. on the day Mr. Pres. arrived in the U.K. and said that as his (my colleague)'s a/c was climbing away, he could in fact see two Air Force Ones parked right in the middle of the airport.
Can anyone enlighten, please?

all i could find on them

though is there really any need for one man to have so many aircraft?

They are not for just one man.

They are available for State dept business.

There is only one Airforce One, and the only way you know which one is to see who comes down the steps during deplaning.

AF1 is the call sign of whatever USAF plane the President happens to be flying on. AF1 has been a C-17 when Pres. Clinton used it to go into FRY.

There are two B-747s used by the Presidential Flight, both -200s (last production ones, I believe) tail nrs. 28000 and 29000. Usually, both are deployed whenever the President travels as a back-ups.

GF

Oddly enough, even a light aircraft can be 'AF1'....Eisenhower had an AeroCommander 560 for use when he was president.

Bright and shiney it was too...:ooh:

When Bush came here for the G8, they had both 747s parked in the middle of the airport. Apparently one is a back up, just in case.

I think that AeroCommander is in the US Air Force museum at Wright-Patterson. They have some of the other aircraft used as AF1 there as well.

goates

Bit of a stir at teesside when GWB came to have his pub lunch recently, as there was barely enough space on the main ramp for both the 747's! the queens flight 146 ended up being parked opposite the Tower outside FRA hanger (god knows what happened to the falcons that are normally parked outside there) and there was some charter jets parked on the GA ramp! and all this for one guy to have dinner.

Matty

MMEMatty - does you mean that Blair flew up on the 146?

411a
 

yep - that is the only piston engined aircraft to be in an airforce one capacity though....

Good sales gimmick - almost as good as getting a retired WW2 jock to develop an aerobatics routine!

CS

Hmmm....
 

Do you guys mean backups in case of mechanical probs etc?

Or decoys......? :E

SS

Thanks for the answers, folks. VAIRY interesting!!

The 2 presidential B747's always travel together. Both aircraft are usually fully loaded with people (press, aides, security people) and other equipment (e.g. his marine helicopter, his bullet proof cars, etc..). While both are usually required for normal presidential travel, either one will either be a decoy and/or a backup. If there are mechanical problems, the president would depart on the other plane and the rest would just have to stay behind (but you can't ask the president to stay behind or wait, obviously). Also, it functions as a decoy, because when approaching the airport for landing, "terrorists" would hardly know if the first aircraft has the president on board or the second one.


As for Airforce 2, thats any aircraft the vice president travels on. Beyond the vice-president, there are no designations.

...with a very large and flexible shoehorn perhaps?:ooh: :suspect:

If one is a combi then getting the cars in is no problem, I think, but the helicopters must surely come in a C5A?

I have not seen it personally, so i could very well be wrong. If i remember correctly i read it from a 'fact sheet' off of a .gov website. I tried to find it again but to no avail. But If i remember correctly, the helicopor gets stored just like all the other equipment - fold the rotors up and you got yourself a oversized 'car'. But again, I can't back any of that up.

I would be very surprised if the callsign "Air Force One" was used on his recent Thanksgiving surprise trip to Baghdad!

A C5 Galaxy always accompanies Airforce 1 and transports his car, helicopters, and his fleet of secret service GMCs and chevys.
So no they don't carry it all in the 747's.

Helicopters and cars on AF-1 !
Since you get to see the area below the main deck whenever you get on the back of the aircraft I can speak with some confidence and say that I have never seen a chopper or car down there. The area contains cargo, comminications gear and general 'stuff'. The helicopters and cars (and sometimes boats) come on either galaxy's, starlifters or globmasters and usually it takes several to bring them all.

There is a lot more to the entourage than 'just 2 747's', there is an advance party, which I would guess varies depending on the friendliness of the natives, but a fleet of Black Hawk's is not unknown and also a few C5's and C141's for the vehicles.

What happened to the last operational E4b - does that float around overseas with him anymore?

It was operationally dispatched out of Andrews on 9/11...