The Flying White House
Presidential airplanes, past and present.
- By Rebecca Maksel
- AirSpaceMag.com, November 06, 2008
U.S. Air Force / NASM SI 9A-00007
In this post-election season, we offer a look at the airplane that serves as both transportation and command center for U.S. presidents—Air Force One.
The first military transport officially assigned to a president was a Douglas DC-4—popularly known as the Sacred Cow—used by Franklin D. Roosevelt beginning in 1944. Prior to World War II, only Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson had left the country during their presidencies—to significant criticism at home. Public opinion would soon change.
The Sacred Cow gave way to Harry Truman’s Independence (a Douglas DC-6 named in honor of the president’s hometown), and Dwight Eisenhower’s Columbine II and Columbine III (a Lockheed Constellation and Super Constellation). Eisenhower would also be the first president to travel by jet, on a Boeing 707 nicknamed “Queenie.” It was during Eisenhower’s era that “Air Force One” was first used to identify any airplane carrying the president. As Kenneth Walsh writes in his book Air Force One: A History of the Presidents and Their Planes, “Columbine II, known as Air Force 610, was carrying Eisenhower to Florida when air traffic controllers briefly confused it with Eastern 610, an Eastern Airlines plane on a commercial flight in the same area. Ike was never in danger, but [William] Draper, his pilot, decided from then on to call the president’s plane Air Force One, and the name stuck.”
Walsh also relates the story of Bill Clinton’s last trip on the presidential airplane nearly half a century later. On “a sentimental journey to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he had gotten his start in politics, [Clinton] walked the length of the plane, inspected the cabins, the galley, and the conference rooms, and even paid a visit to the press compartment.” Upon leaving the White House in 2001, Clinton listed three things he would miss: “I’ll miss Camp David. I’ll miss the Marine Band. I’ll miss flying on Air Force One.”
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Comments (1)
Thanks for the interesting article on presidential planes, well done. It is by accident I learned of President Franklin Roosevelt's trip to the Casablanca Conference by seaplane, and if I have done my homework correctly the first trip by airplane by a sitting president. My uncle was in World War 2 and I was reading a letter he had sent to his parents. He said he was preparing for an inspection and recalled that his previous inspection was by the president. I thought it a bit strange that the president would be inspecting a Navy unit in Brazil. After doing a little research I learned that Roosevelt's plane had landed at Natal on his trip home from the conference and had indeed inspected the VP-74 Squadron. According to squadron members he met with some of the officers following the inspection and talked to them about the war. The few remaining squadron members still take a great deal of pride that they were inspected by President Roosevelt. I found it fascinating that a small piece of American history would become a part of our family history.
Posted by Bill DeArmond on December 28,2008 | 01:50 PM
When I was 18 years old, I had the priviledge of flying in the Sacred Cow as A Civil Air Patrol Cadet. Myself and five other cadets had won a trip to Mexico on the Cadet Exchange program in 1957. We flew from Andrews AFB to Mexico City. We were allowed to sit in the Presidential compartment with its bullet proof picture window and play cards with a deck provided by the sergeant who had been assigned to the plane from the beginning. The cards had the presidential seal on them. I don't recall whether we were shown the elevator, but it was such a pleasure to fly on the plane. You can probably verify my story through CAP records. Glad to hear the plane is now at the Air Force Museum. My CAP Squadron at Gentile AF Depot in Dayton had a small part in the initial fund-raising for the Museum.
By the way, our return from Mexico was on a C-47 flown by Air Force Reserve pilots who had never flown out of a 7,000-foot-high airport. They attempted to take off too soon, and our plane came up, dropped back down on the right wheel, bounced across the runway and hit a landing light with the left wheel, which shattered. We made it back into the air, then proceeded to Brownsville for customs, then on to Maxwell AFB for an overnite. Then we flew to Andrews, where I caught at C-119 to fly back to Wright-Patterson. I'd taken pictures throughout the trip. When we arrive at WPAFB, I snapped a picture of the C-119. An Air Policeman grabbed my camera and rolls of film and exposed them, scolding me for taking pictures in a classified area. Oh well.
Posted by Tom Suitts on May 18,2009 | 06:06 PM