Other Presidential Aircraft
During the Johnson Administration, the United States Air Force acquired a Beechcraft King Air B90 which was designated VC-6A. The aircraft was used to transport President Johnson between Bergstrom Air Force Base and his family ranch near Johnson City, Texas, and was used at least to transport the President to Princeton, New Jersey. It was referred to as Lady Bird's airplane and later in its service life featured a basic color scheme similar to civilian aircraft. When the President was aboard the aircraft used the callsign Air Force One.
United Airlines is the only commercial airline to have operated Executive One, the designation given to a civilian flight on which the U.S. President is aboard. On 26 December 1973, President Richard Nixon and his family flew as commercial passengers from Washington Dulles to Los Angeles International Airport. His staff explained that this was done to conserve fuel by not having to fly the usual Boeing 707 Air Force aircraft.
The President regularly flies in Marine One helicopters operated by the U.S. Marine Corps.
In November 1999, President Bill Clinton flew from Ankara, Turkey, to Cengiz Topel Naval Air Station outside Izmit, Turkey, aboard a marked C-20C (Gulfstream III) using the call sign "Air Force One", escorted by three F-16s.
On 8 March 2000, President Clinton flew to Pakistan aboard an unmarked Gulfstream III while another aircraft with the call sign "Air Force One" flew on the same route a few minutes later. This diversion was reported by several U.S. press outlets.
On 1 May 2003, President George W. Bush flew in the co-pilot seat of a Sea Control Squadron THIRTY-FIVE (VS-35) S-3B Viking from Naval Air Station North Island, California to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the California coast, where Bush delivered his "Mission Accomplished" speech. During the flight, the aircraft used the callsign of "Navy One" for the first time. This aircraft is now on display at the National Museum of Naval Aviation at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida.
In May 2009, President Barack Obama took the first lady on a date to New York City in a Gulfstream C-37B. On 16 July 2010, the First Family flew to Maine for vacation in a USAF Gulfstream III.
On October 25, 2012 and November 3, 2012, President Obama flew into Cleveland, Ohio's Burke Lakefront airport, in a Boeing 757 that normally serves as Air Force Two to do a campaign speech, before returning to Washington, DC.
Read more about this topic: Air Force One
Famous quotes containing the word presidential:
“Because of these convictions, I made a personal decision in the 1964 Presidential campaign to make education a fundamental issue and to put it high on the nation’s agenda. I proposed to act on my belief that regardless of a family’s financial condition, education should be available to every child in the United States—as much education as he could absorb.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)