Nixon's chief of staff H.R. Haldeman intervened during the designing stage, and had the builders place the large staff compartment between the presidential suite and the family lounge. By doing so, Haldeman placed himself closest to the president and could keep tabs on who saw the president. It also meant that the First Family would have to pass through the staff compartment to enter the private quarters. This did not sit well with the First Lady, Pat Nixon. Julie Nixon, their daughter, petitioned the president for alterations on behalf of the Secret Service agents. In order to give Haldeman the space he demanded, the engineers shrank their compartment, leaving little room for the eight agents to sit, let alone travel comfortably. It was not until the press picked up on the First Family's complaints about the design that the layout was changed. Alterations cost an additional $750,000.
The Nixon years proved to be difficult ones for the crew and staff of Air Force One. Nixon was constantly on the go, flying to one of his private residences at San Clemente or at Key Biscayne, Florida, on the weekends. He also took numerous, extensive international trips, including his historic trips to China and the Soviet Union, both aboard SAM 26000. By the end of November 1973, he had stayed in Washington only four of the forty-four weekends of his second term. Travel-weary reporters started writing about Nixon they way they had about Johnson: "The President arrived in Washington today for a brief visit." Henry Kissinger, first as National Security Advisor and then as Secretary of State, also kept the crews hopping with his secret "shuttle diplomacy," flying to and from Europe for meetings with Vietnamese leaders, on secret trips to Moscow and Peking to arrange those meetings for the president, and then to the Middle East to solve international crises in that region of the world.
As the Watergate scandal deepened, the crew found it increasingly difficult to avoid the political intrigue and shenanigans even on the ground, let alone while in flight. The paranoia that permeated the White House staff and other high-ranking government officials soon affected the private life of the presidential pilot, Ralph Albertazzie. He belatedly discovered that his special phone line to the White House had been tapped and was constantly monitored. He found it increasingly difficult to find out more than twenty-four hours ahead which house the President would be flying to for the weekend, thus making it harder to prepare for the flight. As the presidential staff turned against one another, Albertazzie received orders not to talk to certain members of Nixon's staff. The headaches did not end until Nixon's last flight as president on August 9, 1974. For Albertazzie, it was his last flight as a presidential pilot as well.
The atmosphere aboard Air Force One lightened considerably during Gerald Ford's brief tenure in office. Like Kennedy, he used the time aboard the plane more to relax than work. Unfortunately for Ford's image, the plane played a part in creating the belief that something might be wrong with him. On a trip to Salzburg, Austria, Ford stumbled on the steps at the bottom of the stairs when he was leaving the plane. When he slipped later that same day on the wet steps at Salzburg's Residnez Palace, the press demanded to know what was wrong with him. Though it was nothing more than fatigue from the long flight compounded by stiffness from his old football injuries, the President was never able to shake the image of a bumbler.
Ford's successor, Jimmy Carter, was very much like Nixon in how he used his time on the plane. The privacy of the presidential suite gave him some degree of solitude in which to work. Signing legislation--or vetoing it--became increasingly commonplace during Carter's tenure. Ronald Reagan took the opposite approach, using the time like his Republican predecessor Ford to rest and relax or occasionally meet with his staff. He rarely met with members of the press pool who rode in the back of the plane, leaving that up to his staff members to handle. It was during the Reagan years that for health reasons Air Force One stopped providing packs of cigarettes embossed with the presidential seal to passengers and instead began distributing boxes of M&M candies.
In the early 1980s, the government placed an order with Boeing for two new presidential aircraft. SAM 27000 had over one million miles on it by 1986, and its older sister had even more. It had become increasingly difficult to find and stock replacement parts for the aging 707s, planes that were essentially 1950s models. Reagan's staff hoped that one of the new planes on order would be ready in time to take him to California on his last day in office. Instead, they delivered the planes mid-way through his successor's term.
George Bush broke in the first of two 747-200Bs (VC-25A) on September 6, 1990, when he flew from Washington to Kansas, down to Florida, and back again. SAM 26000, due to be retired in 1995, became available for cabinet officials to use, and SAM 27000 became Air Force Two. As vice-president, he logged more than 1.3 million miles in eight years on the old planes. He kept up the pace as president, flying 215,000 miles in his first eighteen months in office before the 747s arrived. Not unexpectedly, his flight time increased when the new Air Force One came on line, which was bad news for the press corps. Bush visited the media compartment almost every trip to hold impromptu news conferences. His staff, on the other hand, provided little useful news leads, frustrating them more. It got to the point where reporters would feign sleeping, or even wear Lone Ranger-style black sleeping masks, in hopes of discouraging the President from making news at the end of long flights. He also worked while on board, signing and vetoing legislation while aloft, making phone calls to politicians or fellow world leaders, meeting for hours with his aides, or catching up on paper work.
The state-of-the-art aircraft is unmatched in luxury and performance, making it easy for its special passenger to do all of those things. The six-story-high, 231-ft.-long plane has almost any modern convenience imaginable. Its mammoth 4000 sq.ft. of interior space comfortably holds a crew of about 25, including ground and communications crews, as well as 70 passengers. The ground crew travels with the plane to conduct maintenance wherever it goes. Air Force One nor any of its predecessors has ever been involved in an accident.
In the forward area, where the presidential quarters are located, there is a sitting room with couches that make down into a bed. It is decorated with wood veneer cabinetry, leather seats, deep-pile carpeting, and electric window shades. In the bathroom, there is a vanity mirror, a sink and shower stall, a spare electric razor with the presidential seal on it and a toilet. Next door is the presidential office with more leather chairs and a wood desk. Three digital clocks adorn the wall, giving the time in Washington, local time and destination time. Another working space serves as a conference room, complete with a VCR, projection screens, map hangers, and other essentials for meetings. The extra space of the 747 allowed for the installation of a medical center. The room has three first-class seats, two bunk beds, a sink, a refrigerator for blood and medicines, and a closet full of medical equipment, all in a space smaller than a kitchen in a New York City apartment. Designers also included a fold-out operating table, complete with high-intensity lights.
Though the food served aboard the plane for reporters is standard military fare, the president and his staff are always the recipients of a good meal. (In contrast, the chartered press plane that flies as part of the presidential entourage serves media members first-class cuisine and champagne. But their employers pay for that.) The new planes boast two galleys, both containing microwaves, ovens, and specially modified stoves in which a lobster soufflé can be whipped up just as easily as a cheeseburger. The kitchens are so well stocked that all those aboard can be fed three meals a day for a week if necessary. Food is purchased at different grocery stores, examined, and stored either on board or under lock and key--and armed guard--in the new Maintenance and Support Complex at Andrews, all under the watchful eyes of the 89th Airlift Wing. Spare parts for the plane receive similar scrutiny and security measures.
Staying aloft long enough to dish out those 2,000 meals would be no problem. Besides having a range of over 9,600 statute miles, and reaching a top speed of 701 mph (Mach 0.95), the 747s have been specially modified for air-to-air refueling. Fuel is always selected from random storage tanks or fuel trucks and tested before use in any of the VIP planes. Four General Electric CF6-80C2B1 jet engines, with 56,700 pounds of thrust each, power Air Force One through the sky, and allow it handle shorter runways than the 707s. When it does land, a full contingent of emergency vehicles is there to meet it just in case something does go wrong. Police and Secret Service agents check and secure the grounds before each landing and departure.
Other steps were taken when designing the plane to eliminate use of an airport's facilities, and thus the possibility of sabotage. When on the ground, self-contained airstairs in the lower lobe and an additional one in the rear remove the need for an external ramp, adding to the plane's self-sufficiency. The plane also has its own cargo ramp at the rear for the same purpose. While on the ground away from its home base, the plane is readied for an emergency take-off within two hours and the flight crew is always on stand-by. Armed guards are posted round the clock.
Safety is still the first priority for the president when aboard. The nature of the planes' defenses is top secret, but they are known to be very formidable. The on-board electronics war officer has many countermeasures at his disposal. He can use radar jammers, fine-tuned infrared flares and clouds of metallic chaff to throw off an airborne attacker, be it a missile or another airplane. Rather than use copper wire and silicon chips, which can melt down in the electromagnetic pulse that follows a nuclear blast, it is instead wired with pulse-resistant fiber-optic wire and gallium arsenide chips. So much computerized hardware is on board that the plane needs 57 antennas, 238 miles of wiring (twice the usual amount found on a commercial 747), an extra power unit in the tail to provide the needed electricity, and three communications officers to handle the traffic. With a total of 83 phones, some capable of reaching any point on the globe as well as ones that transmit encoded messages back and forth between Washington and the president, along with an eight-channel TV system, a six-channel stereo, and numerous VCRs, they keep very busy. Safety and comfort do not come cheaply. The two latest Air Force Ones cost a combined $650 million, a small price to pay for the well-being of the most powerful man in the world.
