Talk:Air Force One/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

SAM warning

The article says tailcodes are 28000 & 29000; isn't it correctly (still) "SAM 28000" & "SAM 29000"? Trekphiler (talk) 21:08, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Evidently not. Remembering that the Air Force will do as the Air Force pleases (for whatever reason) it has a different way of placing identifying numbers on the tails of the Presidential Aircraft. Its standard(s) for placement of identifying info on the tails of Air Mobility Command aircraft differ from those for other types of aircraft. See, for instance, the WP article on Tail codes (under the heading Air Mobility Command markings. And realize, of course, that the Air Force has apparently deviated slightly from standard in the case of these two special planes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NorthCoastReader (talk • contribs) 00:01, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, SineBot, and I apologize for forgetting to sign the above response. NorthCoastReader (talk) 00:05, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Roster of presidential pilots

Not sure what this adds to the article non of them seem to be notable enough for an article and I am not sure why they should be relevant. MilborneOne (talk) 11:16, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Concur. - BilCat (talk) 11:20, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Since no one has defended the list, I'ved removed it. - BilCat (talk) 20:30, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

That'd be right - the one bit of info that I was just looking for and you deleted it yesterday! If you don't like it - why not break it out into a seperate article and link-off to it? Where can I find this information now? - 11:28, 13 January 2011 (GMT+10) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.142.249.81 (talk)

You can still see the roster in the previous version of the article. –BMRR (talk) 01:40, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Is it significant enough to have a separate article for this list? I have been trying to figure out if it is worth it to write an article on Mr. Swindal. GT (talk) 03:52, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Reason for call sign creation

Is there any evidence that this statement is accurate: "The "Air Force One" call sign was created after a 1953 incident involving a flight carrying President Dwight D. Eisenhower entered the same airspace as a commercial airline flight using the same call sign." (de:Air Force One gives that flight as Eastern 8610 v Air Force 8610) As most commercial carriers do have a flight #1, I don't really see how changing the flight number could help avoiding confusion. If there's no source for this statement, I'd assume that the number has been assigned because it's obviously the most prestigious one. --Studmult (talk) 08:33, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

It would avoid confusion by letting everybody know it was the presidential jet, if you were in ATC and heard Air Force One it would get your attention while Air Force 8610 could be anything. Not so much callsign confusion just a statement that this is special pay attention. Just to add a lot of the airlines in Europe now use alpha-numeric callsigns to avoid same number confusion. Agree the story should really have a reliable reference or be removed. MilborneOne (talk) 10:54, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Wait... What??

The Sunday, 1 July 2012 airing of National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Sunday featured a story on the U.S. Forest Service's strained aerial firefighting resources. One pilot of a firefighting tanker aircraft claimed it was once used as "Air Force One" during the Ford administration. Obviously not one of the two VC-137Cs which have been retired to museum duty. Anybody got any insight on this one? NorthCoastReader (talk) 23:25, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

I suspect it was Canadian Tanker 475 C-GSKQ which was a former VC-131H with serial number 54-2815. It was one of the last C-131s in service, it was operated by the VR-48 at NAF Washington from May 1979 after service with the USAF. [1] During its USAF service it was one of three VC-131Hs used for VIP flights, http://people.virginia.edu/~rjr/whdays/ says 2815 was used as Air Force One once in October 1972. MilborneOne (talk) 19:21, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I thought that such might be the case and I would like to thank you for the information and clarification. NorthCoastReader (talk) 00:42, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Pre-Air Travel

This article states: "Prior to World War II, overseas and cross-country presidential travel was rare. Lack of wireless telecommunication and quick transportation made long-distance travel impractical, as it took much time and isolated the president from events in Washington, D.C. Railroads were a safer and more reliable option if the President needed to travel to distant states." If presidents only traveled by rail before WWII, overseas travel would have been more than just rare. Theodore Roosevelt was not only the first president (or ex-president) to travel by air, he also was the first president to travel overseas while in office - in a ship. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.158.48.16 (talk) 19:39, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Routing

Add a section to mention if routing differs from commercial flights. Especially if care must be taken to avoid e.g., airspace of countries not recognized by the United States, etc. Jidanni (talk) 02:12, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Merging these articles would improve Air Force One. Executive One is effectively the same thing, just on Civvy aircraft not military.

Section on SAM 27000 doesn't make sense

This section doesn't seem to make sense:

After announcing his intention to resign the presidency, Nixon boarded SAM 27000 to travel to California. Colonel Ralph Albertazzie, then pilot of Air Force One, recounted that after Gerald Ford was sworn in as president, the plane had to be redesignated as SAM 27000, indicating no president was on board the aircraft. Over Jefferson City, Missouri, Albertazzie radioed: "'Kansas City, this was Air Force One. Will you change our call sign to SAM 27000?' Back came the reply: 'Roger, SAM 27000. Good luck to the President.'"[27]

Why would a pilot request to rename SAM 27000 to....SAM 27000? Wasn't the plane already called SAM 27000 to begin with? If this is correct perhaps there needs to be a sentence explaining why the pilot felt this was necessary as it is very confusing.

If the plane was called Air Force One this probably needs to be made clear prior. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:420:C0C0:1006:0:0:0:32B (talk) 11:16, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

The aircraft is (was) always SAM 27000, while the president was aboard, its call sign was "Air Force One', while he's not aboard, the call sign was "SAM 27000". The call sign is *usually* just the registration of the aircraft, except in a few cases, like when the president is aboard. Actual no matter what the usual name/call sign of any USAF aircraft is, if the president is aboard it will use "Air Force One". I have tweaked the text a bit. Rwessel (talk) 11:29, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Capitalization of "president"

64.216.107.13 had capitalized a couple of occurrences of "president", and while I was considering a revert, @BilCat: beat me to it. OTOH, the article is chock full of capitalized "presidents". AFAIK, president, except when referring to a specific one ("President Harry S. Truman"), or part of a specific reference to the office/thing ("President of the United States", "Presidential Seal"), would generally not be capitalized, so we should de-capitalize many of these. Rwessel (talk) 21:20, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

More info

Sorry if it is in the article and I missed it but could someone add some more info on AF1? Specifically I'm thinking things like where it is stored, where does it normally take off/land (Ronald Reagan? An Air Force base?). Who maintains it etc. As an outsider it's the kind of info that I'd be interested in. Tigerman2005 (talk) 01:56, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

That's actually a good question. The short answer is that the aircraft are operated by the 89th Airlift Wing, and stationed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. The wing article has some information on the Presidential Air Group. - BilCat (talk) 02:05, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for that! That sentence with those links might be worth adding. Good explanation without cluttering this page. Tigerman2005 (talk) 04:18, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

List of Defensive Systems

https://theaviationist.com/2018/10/23/these-are-the-systems-that-protect-air-force-one-from-heat-seeking-missiles/

Sammartinlai (talk) 11:49, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Not really relevant to this article, refer Boeing VC-25 for a description of the actual aircraft. MilborneOne (talk) 11:55, 28 October 2018 (UTC)