Air Force One
Wednesday, 9th January 2008 by Rob
Air Force One is the callsign for any aircraft that has the President of the United States on board, most commonly one of two specially adapted Boeing 747s.
One of them is seen here in Yuma, Arizona, where the President was making a speech about Immigration Control on May 18, 2006 (Yuma is on the US/Mexican border).
(Incidentally, there are lots of Police closing all of the roads south of Yuma on Avenue B, so the President's motorcade must be around there somewhere!)
The fleet consists of two Boeing 747-200B aircraft, designated VC-25, specially fitted to enable the President and his entourage to conduct its business from the air. Inside, there are separate areas for the media, Secret Service and the President's family, which includes bathrooms and dining quarters. Unlike a regular Boeing 747-400, the VC-25 can refuel in midair.
Usually its home is Andrews Air Force Base, Washington DC. The 'President's Wing' can hold both of the VC-25 aircraft, as well as 3 Marine One helicopters.
In order to train the Secret Service how to protect the President when he is onboard, there is a mockup VC-25 at the James J. Rowley Training Center, near Washington DC, as well as a mockup of Marine One next to it. Once in the air however, it's up to the anti-missile systems and electromagnetic pulse resistors to keep it safe.
Naturally, there is much more information on Air Force One over at Wikipedia. There's even a nice floor plan available. If you really want to get a good look inside, the film Air Force One is said to have a particularly accurate recreation of the interior.
Thanks to Aaron, Adam J, Airman, Cr@X, Dan Hadad, david, gmr2048, KLashNekOff, PapaPenguin, patrick, PoopyPants, Rob, Siavash Shiva, SnowManson, Stephan, Tim, Travis Mitchell and TVGenius.
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Great first post! You can follow the trail of cop cars north and south for miles. Trail runs cold for me here: Google Maps. So I’m guessing this is the motorcade – parked up at a Wendys or something.
Nice find! The motorcade would be hard to miss, considering it’s usually made up of dozens of cars (I’ve seen it in person). They usually close the roads about 15-20 minutes before the motorcade is scheduled to go by. But I find it odd that the C-17 that carries the specialized vehicles isn’t anywhere to be seen.
That diagonal thing coming off the upper left of AF1 – is that the staircase thingy that they’d use to board the plane?
julian, i’m not convinced that is the motorcade. The roads to the north of that retail area are open, however if you follow the open path to the south taking only open roads you end up down towards the mexican border. I haven’t seen the motorcade in person, but the cars don’t look like what I would expect in a presidential motorcade. I don’t see many black cars and I don’t see a limo.
I follwed the police blockades quite a bit further south (I think) and ran into a deadend here. It looks like the imagery changes at this point as the angle of the fence to the north of the road changes as does the appearance of the desert bushes.
How’s about this for the motorcade: View Placemark (32.494271,-114.737595) ??? Several black vehicles two or three hundred feet apart, all headig the same way – i.e. back to the Airbase where Air Force 1 is. All fits in with the road closures etc. and Dubya did aparantly go that way: http://www.yumasun.com/onset?id=33234&template=article.html
I think he’s inside the Border Patrol headquarters here. The area is crawling with police and it looks like a limo is parked in the back of the building. I also see what look to be press corps buses parked in the back and TV news satellite trucks in the front.
Also, the line of cops leads all the way into San Luis but the trail endshere. He did visit the border in San Luis that day, but I can’t find the motorcade the anywhere.
Phil, I considered that grouping, but at best I can see 6 cars. A typical motorcade involves at least 15-20 vehicles, including several police cars both front and rear (preferably even with motorcycle officers in front of those for blocking intersections).
The White House says that Bush was riding a buggy at the border, and this image shows it:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/images/20060518-18_d-0482-515h.jpg
In the background you can see a long road with a fence and tall light-poles, and the only place that looks like that is this:
View Placemark
Maybe that scrabble of vehicles is the media? 😀 Sadly, I don’t think it is. There are too many trees in the picture to be of that area. I quite literally spent hours trying to find this guy, and the Secret Service seem to have done a pretty good job of covering his tracks!
The first time I saw this: View Placemark I thought it could be limousines and police cars, but it turns out it is just lorries for the adjacent field! 😀
I think Arend has a good point – the imagery is changing there. And why would they shut down the entire road to the south if the Great George W. is in some building near to the airport? So I suppose he’s somewhere off the image of that date.
Talking about being invisible, the Secret Service Training Center near DC is, according to the street names, an ‘agricultural research center’ – a bit suspicious, though, that they would have a mock-up helicopter and airplane there…
Just noticed, Andrews AFB is actually in Maryland, not in DC
Doesn’t Rob get a satellite after his name when he writes a comment now?
Yes Jonathan he will – we already noticed and are on the case 😉
Ah, but the challenge will be making it only appear on posts following his appointment! That may require some code hacking. 😀
The motorcade changes size and make-up for different occasions. And when the president is not in the car on the way someplace, they don’t park the cars at Wendy’s. They park them inside a building if possible, especially in the arizona heat. The president does not enter or leave the car outdoors unless necessary, and of course it’s easier to protect the cars with them inside.
Nobody has mentioned it, but AF1 is parked at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, a United States Marine Corps air station which is the home to the AV-8B Harrier II’s of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing. You can only see 1 harrier, but there are bunches of harrier sized mini-hangers/carports.
Argh. I hate to do this, but must. “Air Force One” is not the callsign of any aircraft the President of the United States is on. Rather, “One” is the flight number of any aircraft the President is on. The first part is dependent on whose aircraft it is. Thus, “Marine One” is the Marine’s helicopter that picks the President up from the White House. This would also apply if the President were to fly aboard any other commercial aircraft. Think for a moment how great it would be to announce that “Virgin One” is asking for clearance to land. . .
I spent half of the Chritmas break with my daughter doing “Where’s Wally?” Books. Now this….
Rob now has a satellite for all comments from yesterday. No major hacking required 😀
The last picture has already been featured in a previous article 🙂
@keger
Yep! I thieved it. :p
You can read about the Secret Service’s ‘Agricultural Research Centre’ here:
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/2007/07/25/fake-city-us-secret-service-training-facility/
@Martin:
I hate to do this too, but you are right. Air Force One is the generally accepted term for a President carrying craft, but this in actuality only applies to the fleet run by the US Air Force (which is what the VC25 belong to).
The call-sign simply appends ‘one’ to the name of the service carrying him, so ‘Marine’ One and ‘Army’ One if he is on an Army aircraft. So says the FAA itself, in Order 7110.65R (Air Traffic Control) §2-4-20 ¶7 –
http://preview.tinyurl.com/ywd56a
Cheers for pointing it out Martin. 😀
So Martin was only partly right. Because in that directive it says: ‘(b) When the President is aboard a civil aircraft, state the words “Executive One.”‘ So there would never be a ‘Virgin One’ …
As a small aside: A bit north-east from Yuma, there’s a dam covered in Swastikas! I knew Bush was a reincarnation of Hitler! (just kidding)
Rob, I definitely agree that sandy area is where GW road in the buggy at. Not only can you see the trees, fence and poles you can see the road that splits away from the fence and heads north. I noticed the same line of cars Phil noted. I agree with the imagery change. I also noticed the crowd of cars at the Border Patrol headquaters, but I didnt see very many black vehicles. I guess they could be parked inside one of the buildings.
Interesting finds and research to say the least. Well done guys.
Get off my plane! Sorry, I just had to. A few years ago I was flying from Orange County to Phoenix, and narrowly avoided a two hour delay on the ground as we were the last flight allowed into Sky Harbor before Air Force One’s departure. It was still there when we landed, and probably didn’t take off for another half hour. I’m not sure how close they let other flights get under “normal” situations, but that was also right before one of Bush’s surprise Thanksgiving trips to Iraq.
Just spotted a black helicopter here – View Placemark (32.512067,114.696619) Must be related to the pres etc. Anyone know more and wanna comment?
Oops, that should’ve been View Placemark (32.5121,-114.697)
Here’s Air Force One in Scotland (During the G8 summit of July 2005):
View Placemark
Stephen.
I was driving around town while all this was going on, and more than likely he’s at the border in San Luis, which does in fact have different imagery than the rest of Yuma and the surrounding area. He landed, went to San Luis, back to BP HQ, and then back to the plane. His second visit, a year later, he only visited the HQ, but then did a speech outdoors with several hundred people in attendance. Based on the roadblocks I found vs. where I knew he was at the time, he probably was still at the border. Once he was at the BP HQ, the roads between there and the airport were locked down, and they’re still partly open in this imagery.
The black helicopter is at a 2/3rds abandoned airstrip called Rolle Field. The maintained runway is fenced off, and still used by military for the most part.
Sorry StephenD, but that is NOT Air Force 1 in Scotland. Looks more like a Air Force C-5 Galaxy. Notice the lack of the AF1 paint scheme and the different tail. AF1 (a Boing 747) does not have a raised T-tail like a C-5 does.
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