Improvements were made inside and out. Air Force planners adopted an American eagle motif for the exterior, painting the nose of the plane to resemble the head of an eagle, complete with beak and mouth done in yellow. The cockpit windows served as the eagle's eyes. Stylized feathers swept back along both sides of the fuselage. Fanned out across the tail were three blue feathers outlined in yellow. Just behind the pilot's window the words The Independence were boldly inscribed, proclaiming to all who was aboard or even where it might be bound.
Given its 67-foot cabin, there was no mistaking the interior of this plane for that of its predecessor. Substantially larger than the Sacred Cow, the main passenger cabin accommodated twenty-four passengers for daytime flights, easily providing more space for the presidential staff and guests. For overnight flights, the seats could be opened to create berths for twelve. The presidential suite itself was greatly enlarged and improved. A large reclining swivelchair sat beside a window on the left side of the stateroom, just in front of the large conference table-desk that could be extended and used as a dining table for eight. Opposite the table was a double-seat chair covered in elk hide. The elk-hide sofa below the three windows converted into a full-sized bed. The room also contained a mahogany filing cabinet, a built-in wardrobe for clothes, and a storage cabinet, along with roll maps recessed in the ceiling.
The plane also contained the latest in flight and communications technology. Its four 2,100-horsepower Pratt & Whitney engines gave it a cruising speed of 315 miles per hour and a maximum speed of 358 mph. The use of water injection--the first Air Force transport to do so--gave each engine 300 additional horsepower on takeoff, which would be helpful on the shorter runways so common throughout the world. Extra gas tanks enabled it to fly 4,400 miles without refueling. It was equipped with an experimental radar nose capable of detecting areas of heavy precipitation and turbulence for thirty miles ahead, an important advance in transport aviation in the 1940s. The Independence was the first DC-6 to have it. The President now could not only work comfortably while aloft but keep in touch with staff personnel back in Washington through the use of a radio teletype transmission system. The system was capable of sending or receiving encoded messages over a 3,000 mile distance. Messages were instantly scrambled at one end and decoded at the other so that no time was lost translating them.
The Independence set the trend for all future presidential aircraft. All planes would have the latest communication, and later defense capabilities, in existence. As new devices were developed, the plane would be updated with them. The aircraft also would have the latest in travel comforts, giving the president a relaxed environment so he could continue conducting the nation's business regardless of location or time of day. Accommodations for staff and security personnel, as well as the press, were now taken into account when designing or redesigning any of the planes. The president's almost every need could be attended to just as it was on the ground. Most importantly, the plane reflected the user's personality in some fashion either its interior or exterior design.
The first mission for the Independence was one of great diplomatic importance. Just after taking delivery of the new plane in July 1947, the Greek ambassador to the United States died. Due to the strategic and diplomatic importance of Greece to the U.S. at the beginning of the Cold War, proper and speedy transportation in this delicate matter was of the utmost importance. Instantly, the plane was off to Europe carrying the ambassador's remains and the official escort party. Unfortunately, the coffin could not be turned once it cleared the doorway because the entry way was too confining. The crew decided to leave the coffin in the entry way, making it a rather cumbersome obstacle that crew and passengers alike had to climb over in order to get around the plane. Making the best of a odd situation, a pad and linen tablecloth were discreetly placed atop the massive box, transforming it into a bar for serving drinks to the passengers.
Truman's first flight aboard the Independence provided another opportunity for one of his pranks. He brought along his daughter and wife on a trip to Rio de Janeiro. Though Margaret shared her father's love of flying, Mrs. Truman did not like flying in the least, yet she always tried to appear relaxed regardless. The trip required a stopover at an airport in Brazil that had a short runway, and would require using reversible propeller action to make the short landing. Myers warned Truman that the process meant a great deal of noise as he gunned the engines, and he wanted Mrs. Truman not to worry about it unnecessarily. "Nuts," replied Truman. "I'm not going to tell her that at all. She wouldn't understand it in the first place. She'll take it all right."
As they approached the landing, there was the sudden shaking and loud booming of the reversible action. "Oh, my!" exclaimed the First Lady. "What's happening to us?"
Truman took advantage of the situation and his wife's ignorance. He glanced out the window, then he looked back at his wife with a worried look on his face, and shouted, "The plane is falling apart!"
"Whew!" she uttered in response, letting out a long sigh of relief and relaxing in her seat. "If that's all that happens when this thing falls apart, then it's not as bad as I've expected."
Shortly after receiving the plane, all DC-6s were ordered grounded for inspection and correction of the deficient heating system. The system had a nasty habit of creating cabin fires, one resulting in a fatal accident. From November 11, 1947 to May 6, 1948, the Independence underwent modification at the Douglas factory in California until the problem was corrected. Though the Sacred Cow was available as a backup, presidential travel was not as dependent upon the use of the plane as it is today. As it turned out, the absence of the plane and the lack of sophisticated navigational instrumentation essential for bringing in planes during foul weather may have contributed to Truman's election campaign that year. Truman took to train travel that winter, and kept on using it during the campaign to great success.
Though he had great confidence in his own election chances in 1948, Air Force command officials were so confident in Truman's defeat that they selected one of the ten Lockheed Constellations (C-121As) they had on order to become the next "Flying White House," and to have it delivered by January 1949 in time to greet the new president. They even took the step of naming it the Dewdrop in honor of the incoming president, Thomas Dewey! Fortunately, they had not yet painted the name on the plane prior to election day. Embarrassed nonetheless, they offered it to Truman to use as his presidential aircraft. He rejected it with a laugh, and relegated it to backup status to his Independence. It found use as the primary plane for Truman's Secretary of the Air Force, and for the Secretary of State. It stayed in use well into the Kennedy Administration in that capacity.
When Truman left office, the Independence was retired to fleet operations and stripped of its special markings. There it remained in special missions service for the next ten years before being transferred to Tactical Air Command for two more years of service as a staff transport. In August 1965, it was retired to the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, where it is now on display. Coincidentally, its last presidential passenger was not Truman but rather John F. Kennedy. With his own plane undergoing modifications, Kennedy boarded the plane for a flight from Washington to New York on April 27, 1961, unaware of whose plane it had previously been. Not until he was aboard did he realize that it had been Truman's plane. It was Kennedy's first flight as president.
A new plane greeted the incoming presidential administration in January 1953. The new president, Dwight Eisenhower, had been assigned a Lockheed C-121A when he was commander of Allied Forces during the Second World War. He had named it Columbine, the official flower of Mrs. Eisenhower's home state of Colorado. That aircraft remained in Europe after Ike's return to the United States. Another C-121A awaited his use upon his arrival in the White House. This one, named Columbine II, was the same one that had flown him to Korea after the election in November 1952. Eisenhower had his old pilot, William Draper, appointed as presidential pilot.
Formerly used by Secretary of the Air Force, by the time Eisenhower acquired the plane it already had logged 650,000 miles in 3,000 hours aloft. No. 8610 had seating for 24, but could only sleep fourteen, leaving no room for the press to sleep. Its top speed was 322 miles per hour, a cruising speed of 275 mph, a range of 3,300 miles, and used four Wright 2500 horsepower engines. As a safety precaution, the presidential pilot had 30 parachutes placed aboard, or six for every five passengers. After its replacement, it joined the Independence as one of many VIP transports, but ended its career rather ignominiously as scrap metal.
Because it was a war-era plane, Columbine II was still not deemed proper for the president. In early 1954, the Air Force selected a Lockheed 1049C, Super Constellation to replace it. Designated a VC-121E, Mrs. Eisenhower formally christened the new plane Columbine III on November 24, 1954, with a bottle of water flown in from Colorado. It had a range, with full fuel reserves, of 4,000 miles. Four Wright-turbo-compound 3250 horsepower engines gave the aircraft a maximum speed of more than 370 mph, and a cruising speed of 335. As expected, it had the latest communication and electronic equipment aboard. The plane served Eisenhower well, as he logged an average of 30,000 miles and 100 hours a year.
Eisenhower quickly set himself apart from the two previous presidents. He was the first President to have a pilot's license, having earned it during his early Army years in the Philippines. His love of flying had not diminished by the time he entered the White House. After a few trips by car from Washington to his farm in Gettysburg, Pa., Ike became convinced of the need for a faster mode of transportation. He began using a twin-propeller L-26 Aero Commander, manufactured by the Aero Design and Engineering Company, on June 3, 1955, for his commute to Gettysburg, becoming the first president to fly in a plane with less than four engines. The trip there took 32 minutes on the inaugural flight, and 22 to bring Eisenhower back. It was used on short trips other than to Gettysburg as well. In all, he used three different models for his travels, all of them painted in the blue-and-white trademark colors. Some believe that this color scheme inspired the scheme used on Air Force One since the Kennedy days.
In 1957, Ike made another historic first. He became the first president to fly in a helicopter (a 47-J Bell Ranger), which replaced the L-26 as the vehicle of choice to ferry the President directly to and from the White House. It was not until 1957 that the Secret Service felt confident enough about helicopters to allow the President to use them. Eisenhower's use of the light aircraft and then the helicopter in such a visible capacity gave a boost to those industries, much as Roosevelt's and Truman's use of airplanes had done.
America entered the jet age in 1947, and the air force soon began employing jets as fighters, bombers and tankers. The British began the first international commercial jetliner service in 1952. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles started pressuring Eisenhower to bring the VIP fleet into the jet age as well. He argued that the wrong image was being put forth when the President of the United States arrived in a turbo-prop plane in some foreign capital when Soviet diplomats were arriving in turbo-jets. It was essential, he believed, to show that the United States was technologically superior in every way. As a result, the Air Force designated the 1254th Air Transport Wing-Special Air Mission (SAM) pilots within the Military Air Transport Service (MATS), who had no jet experience but had extensive experience in dealing with VIPs, to fly the jets. They took delivery of the first of three new Boeing 707s on May 12, 1959. Ralph Albertazzie, later Richard Nixon's presidential pilot, became the first qualified 707 pilot in the Air Force.
Soon every military and civilian official with any influence was demanding to be flown somewhere on the new jets. At the cost of $6.5 million a piece, the Air Force was not about to let one sit idle for very long. Now the pilots were expected to fly out, drop one person off, return to Washington, and take someone else to yet another destination before returning to pick up the first passenger. But one always remained for the exclusive use of the president. On August 26, 1959, Eisenhower ushered the presidency into the jet age when he flew aboard SAM 970, a VC-137A, to Germany, London, Paris and Scotland for a series of conferences. The trip covered 8,711 miles in 19 and one-half hours.
Ike enjoyed jet travel so much that in his last year in office he increased his air time by 193 hours and his mileage by 78,677 miles over his previous years' averages. The President quickly grasped the advantages of this new machine. He had long wanted to push beyond Europe and travel to the Asian subcontinent, and possibly return to North Africa, scene of his first victory as Allied Commander. The Boeing made it possible to do so with relative ease. In the winter of 1959, he made just such a trip. He followed it up in early 1960 with a ten-day tour of Latin America.
The one trip that he planned and hoped to take was never made. In the spring of 1960, he wanted to travel to Russia for meetings with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev had made a rather flamboyant tour of the United States in September 1959, arriving in a Soviet jet. Eisenhower wanted to show off his new plane and American technology. What Eisenhower did not know was that Central Intelligence Agency Director Allen Dulles wanted to turn SAM 970 into a spy plane for the trip. The United States had been using U-2 spy planes to photograph military activities in the Soviet Union since 1956, but the photos were taken from 70,000 feet in the air. Though of outstanding quality and detail, they were still photos taken at high altitudes. Dulles secretly ordered the installment of cameras like those used aboard the U-2s into the nose of the Boeing, which would be operated in clandestine fashion by the co-pilot from his seat. In tests, photos taken at 30,000 feet were sharp enough to read the numbers off of license plates. After spending roughly $1 million on the program, everything was ready to go. But just prior to leaving the trip was canceled when the Soviets captured U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, and he became a pawn in the Cold War. One could say Dulles' U-2 program ultimately shot down his other secret project.
When John Kennedy arrived in the White House in 1961, he selected a seven-year-old Douglas DC-6 as his official presidential aircraft. Since he did not select a name for the craft, it was simply known as SAM 3240, its tail number being 53-3240. As with other planes selected for this mission, it too was modernized and updated with all of the latest equipment. Kennedy's choice was one of necessity. He selected the piston-powered plane for short trips to New York or Boston, or for locations near Washington that could not accommodate jet aircraft. But he preferred the Boeings, and used them any time he took longer flights. During such a trip SAM 3240 operated as a White House staff plane.
The home of the presidential aircraft changed in 1962 with the transfer of the 1254th Air Transport Wing from National Airport to Andrews Air Force Base in nearby Maryland. One month after a new Boeing 707 arrived at Andrews on October 10, 1962, the young president became the first to fly aboard the first officially designated "presidential aircraft" with jet engines. With a nonstop range of 7,000 miles, and a top speed of 620 miles per hour, its four Pratt & Whitney JT3D-3B turbo fan engines enabled it to operate from shorter runways than SAM 970 or the other two Boeings. The wingspan of SAM 26000 was an impressive 146 feet, fifteen more than the previous Boeings. It was also eight feet longer and at 328,000 pounds, it weighed a full 35 tons more than her shorter sisters. Built with taxpayer money for just over $7 million, once the necessary spare parts and ground support equipment was added in, the actual cost approached $8.6 million. Boeing absorbed the difference in honor of the privilege. vice-president Lyndon Johnson "inherited" SAM 970 to use as Air Force Two.
As well-equipped and beautiful as the new craft was, there was one disappointing flaw--its old-styled floor plan. The original configuration of this plane was based on that of the earlier prop planes. That meant the presidential suite was in the rear half of the plane. The president would have to leave and enter the plane by the rear door. The staff and press areas were in the front of the plane. That made sense for prop planes because the presidential suite would be located at the furthest point away from the engines, and would be quieter. Kennedy was too proud and humbled by the new acquisition to demand changes in the layout. His wife, Jacqueline, though, spent $15,000 to have a chandelier installed for her husband.
Kennedy did order changes for the exterior. Wanting to give it a more national character and have it reflect the prestige of the office, he had the traditional military markings removed. With the help of the First Lady, designer Raymond Loewy came up with a striking color scheme. The words "UNITED STATES AIR FORCE," which appeared on all previous SAM aircraft, were removed. The words "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" replaced them on both sides of the fuselage, and were complemented by having the American flag painted on the tail. The new Boeing also had the presidential seal placed on both sides of the nose.
The plane received name Air Force One during Kennedy's administration. Up through the Eisenhower Administration, the tail number served as the call sign for the president's plane, just as it was and still is for all military, commercial and private aircraft. Because of the constant threat of nuclear war, it became even more imperative to know where the president was at all times so that he could remain in constant touch with the military. It was deemed during the Kennedy Administration that one name should be used for the president's plane regardless of which one he was on. The designation Air Force One came about as a result of needing a quick and positive identification for the plane bearing the president, and was first used in September of 1961. Any Air Force aircraft the president flies on now has that call name. Whatever branch of the service is flying the president, the call name incorporates the branch's name. For example, when the president flies from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base on a Marine helicopter, that aircraft is designated Marine One for as long as he is on board. The same is true of the vice-president's aircraft, only it has the equally distinctive moniker Two attached to its name. When Kennedy failed to name his new Boeing, the press quickly picked up the call name and used it for his plane. Despite military efforts to deter this, the name stuck.
Kennedy used the privacy afforded him by the presidential suite to catch up on his rest. There he could easily escape the pressures of running the country while reading the newspaper or taking a nap. His bad back forced him to spend as much time as possible off his feet, so the bed was a welcomed treat. In the one year that Kennedy used the plane, he kept its crew busy flying about the country politicking and preparing for the 1964 campaign, as well as having them shuttle VIPs about the world. In May 1963, on one of those missions, the crew set a nonstop speed record between Washington and Moscow breaking 14 existing air records. On November 22, 1963, Kennedy flew to Dallas for what was expected to be an ordinary political trip.
The events of that day are well known. The President and vice-president, along with their wives, came to Texas to drum up support for the administration and their forthcoming reelection campaign. While the entourage made its way into the city towards its fateful passage through Dealey Plaza, the crews of Air Force One and Two were having lunch with the crew of the chartered press plane out at Love Field. Without any explanation, an order came through for them to refuel the plane, cancel the announced itinerary, and file a flight plan back to Washington immediately. Then the call came in over the plane's radio. The president had been shot. Shortly after that, they heard the announcement that Kennedy was dead.
Air Force One became the setting for a historic occasion simply by coincidence. With the slain president's body loaded on board the plane, Lyndon Johnson had a federal judge come aboard to swear him into office. Technically, the moment JFK was pronounced dead, Johnson became president. But he felt compelled to do something while waiting for the body to be delivered from the hospital, something of an official capacity. When Judge Sarah Hughes arrived, the administering of the oath of office could now take place. At Johnson's request, Jackie Kennedy joined him and his wife for the brief ceremony, which took all of half a minute to do. With that done, Judge Hughes left the airplane, and the presidential plane bearing the new president and the body of his predecessor began its most famous journey. It was the first for Johnson as president, the last for Kennedy.
Johnson enjoyed traveling by air while vice-president, and the new responsibilities of the highest office in the land did little to change that. He moved quickly to rearrange the interior of Air Force One to suit his needs. A large, outgoing man from the big state of Texas, he wanted the interior to be as open as possible. He had the seats reversed so that they faced backwards, towards his compartment. Then he had the cherrywood panels removed and replaced with clear plastic dividers so he could keep an eye on everyone, and they on him. When he wanted privacy he could draw the drapes across the panels. To open it up even further, he had the wall to his bedroom replaced with an accordion divider so that he could fit more people in there for discussions. He ordered a fancy chair that went up and down at the press of a button. The Secret Service dubbed it his "throne." He had a kidney-shaped conference table installed that also went up and down, so that it could serve as a coffee table or as a work space.
Johnson altered the perception of how presidents used the airplane and their time aloft. Constantly flying between Washington and his ranch in Texas, Johnson wanted the country to know that he was always working, even while making the two-hour flight to and from the nation's capital. He moved around the plane a great deal, cajoling reporters to change their stories so that they would cast him in a better light, working with staffers on speeches, or making phone calls to members of Congress from the air about an impending bill. He often brought congressmen along with him on trips, using the intoxicating powers of his office's trappings to intimidate and persuade them to go along with him politically. Johnson knew that once in flight, they were his captive audience.
Like Eisenhower's farm, the Johnson ranch was a long drive from the nearest sizable airport. To insure his safety and eliminate the drive, a single Beech A90 King Air was ordered under the designation VC-6A to use between Bergstrom AFB in Austin and the LBJ Ranch. Much to the First Lady's annoyance, the commute was dubbed "The Lady Bird Special." Given the frequency of his visits home, the light aircraft got quite a workout.
A few months after Kennedy's death, Johnson was to fly to a Democratic fund-raising dinner in Miami when the FBI received a tip that a Cuban pilot might try to shoot or ram the presidential aircraft. Hesitant to believe that Fidel Castro or the Soviets would be so foolish as to launch an attack against the president, the Secret Service nevertheless undertook extraordinary safety measures. SAM 26000 was pulled from duty, and instead the White House party flew aboard SAM 970. Plane markings were painted out to conceal it. On the flight to Florida, the plane was flanked by two similar Boeing 707s, their tail numbers also painted over, while fighters flew cover overhead. Instead of landing as scheduled at Miami, the plane stopped in Jacksonville to drop off the First Family for a ceremony and then for an unannounced visit to Joseph P. Kennedy, father of the late president. Air Force One continued on to Homestead AFB while Johnson and his family took a helicopter to Miami. Just off shore, armed boats patrolled the waters. At dawn the next morning, the Johnsons secretly flew back out from Homestead to Washington. It is the only time Air Force One has been altered in such a way for the president's safety.
A historic first occurred late in the administration when Johnson completed the first Presidential around-the-world mission. He flew to Australia for the funeral of his friend Prime Minister Harold Holt, and then continued on to visit servicemen in Southeast Asia and the pope in Rome before winging his way back across the Atlantic to the United States. They covered 28,000 miles in five days, of which 59 hours and 30 minutes was spent in the air.
When Johnson left the presidency, Air Force One was never quite the same again. He received incoming president Richard Nixon's consent to fly home at the end of his term in office. At Bergstrom AFB, Johnson's people stripped the plane of almost every passenger convenience. It was and is commonplace for a visitor to take a glass or deck of cards as a souvenir because they bare the presidential seal, but Johnson's men exceeded even that expectation. Incoming presidential pilot, Ralph Albertazzie, later recalled, "When I took over the plane after it came back from Texas, I found an empty larder. We had no presidential china, no Air Force One silverware, no Air Force One cigarettes, no cocktail napkins, no towels--not even any paper products like toilet tissue. All these items were not stamped LBJ either, but were imprinted AIR FORCE ONE. But they were all gone. Even LBJ's special executive chair--the one we called 'the throne'--was unbolted from the floor and taken away. The presidential stateroom was bare of pillow, blankets, everything that bore the presidential seal. I couldn't believe my eyes." Most of the booty eventually turned up in the LBJ Presidential Library at the University of Texas at Austin.
Perhaps knowing that the plane was going in for its first major overhaul in March 1969 gave Johnson the impetus to strip the plane bare. While in the shop, when it was almost totally dismantled, the interior was completely redesigned to satisfy Nixon's demands and expected needs. At its core, a new special three-room suite of private quarters for the President and his family up forward over the wings, the most stable and quiet area of the plane. The suite consisted of a combination office and sitting room for the president, a smaller sitting room for the First Lady, and a large lounge that afforded them a place to sit together or serve as a conference room. Its own lavatory and ample closet and storage space was installed. Just forward of that area was a seating area for the Secret Service agents. Between the Secret Service area and the cockpit the communications console was installed on the left side, opposite of the forward galley and another lavatory for the crew and staff. A special aisle was designed along the left side of the interior so that fuselage traffic could move past the First Family's quarters without disturbing them.
To the rear of the presidential suite went the roomy staff compartment the width of the fuselage. Behind that, an eight-seat guest suite for VIPs that might travel with the president was provided. That sits in front of a compartment shared by reporters and the plane's security guards. A larger galley and additional lavatories occupy the tail section. The new layout would later serve as the model for SAM 27000, the next presidential aircraft.
Despite these extensive modifications, Air Force officials pushed for a brand new presidential aircraft. Because SAM 26000 was the newest of the Boeings, it could outfly and outdistance the older ones in the fleet. This created scheduling difficulties because the older models needed to refuel more often and could not operate out of airports with the shorter runways that Air Force One could handle. The Nixon Administration received a new plane, which was the same basic model as its predecessor, at the cost of $12.9 million. That was one and one-half times the cost of all the alterations SAM 26000 had undergone during the Kennedy-Johnson years. (By comparison, the Wright plane that Theodore Roosevelt flew on cost $10,000.) Delivered just before Christmas in 1972, controversy over the design differences soon surfaced.
