Special Air Mission 28000 arrives in Midland

[retroaviation]

It's not Air Force One today, since the swearing in of the new guy this morning, but this was Pres. Bush's final landing in the ol' 747 here in Midland a few minutes ago.

I know, I know, some may say this has nothing to do with Warbirds, but it was an Air Force mission after all. I just thought y'all might like to see the pictures, taken from the balcony of the Commemorative Center (new hangar) at CAF HQ. I'm not a huge fan of jet airplanes (wrong kind of round engines for me ), but they sure do keep this thing awfully shiney!

Sorry for the poor quality.......










Gary

[Ztex]

Beautiful Bird!

I got to see it in Waco a couple of years ago. Very cool to see!

Thanks
Gary

[cozmo]

I liked 'em, thanks.

[Taylor Stevenson]

I've always wondered, does Air Force One have any sort of defense on board?

[JDK]

I've always wondered, does Air Force One have any sort of defense on board?

Yeah, the chief.

There are defenses - funnily enough they don't tell you / us what but they are a bit more active than a memo.

[51fixer]

I've always wondered, does Air Force One have any sort of defense on board?

Do frogs croak?
I don't remember the generic specs but it does have some.
Even a Gulfstream can have anti missile defenses.
Rich

[bdk]

I remember when the MD-11 was in competition with the 747 for Air Force One. Now it's being retired soon I hear. Only wish I could retire so soon!

I'm sure at a minimum it has a flare dispenser setup. Needs a turret with some .50s I think!

[Warbird Kid]

Its funny, History Channel has been playing nothing but Presidential stuff! I mean, in the past 12 hours I've seen everything there is to know about where the Prez, eats, sleeps, and.....

well, you know.

[b29flteng]

Thanks for the photos Gary, I wish I could have been there too and cheer him on.

[CAPFlyer]

I've got some photos somewhere of AF1 coming into Fargo in early 2001 on one of the President's first trips aboard. I spent most of his speech in the FBO with the Border Patrol and Secret Service guys. Ended up with an offer to fly with the Border Patrol in their OH-6 after the President left, but alas I had to leave to get back to Grand Forks.

[APG85]

Would you believe the Air Force is already looking at replacing the current planes (747's) used for Air Force One. They want the first plane flying by 2017 and two more to follow...

[hahnej]

While working the Waco airshow in 2007, the Pres was in Crawford and the Marine-1 sea kings were at TSTC. They towed one out of the hangar and from a ~1000' distance all I got were horizontal lines on my digital camera. Later we went down and got permission to take a picture of the one in the hanger. We were ~30' from it, same thing just horizontal lines, while parked in the hangar. Same thing on my buddy's camera which was a different brand. Another guy's film camera did fine. The only pics I got of the dang things were when they did a flyby during the airshow. Pretty frustrating to be able to see something 30' away and can't get a picture of it.

Another time the helos flew right over my head while I was fishing on Lake Waco. I stayed very still, felt like a lot of eyes were on me....

I also saw Columbia break up standing on the deck of my bass boat on Lake Waco. Looked up and saw the contrails, knew it was bad but not what it was. Called the wife at home, she turned on the TV, and then it got really bad.

Another time they did some kind of test and had a bizjet fly low over Waco acting like it was heading to the ranch. I think it was an F-18 swooped down and acting like it was doing an intercept and shot off some flares. The whole dang town thought something was going on. Kinda scary for ahile. On the other hand, the F-22's that escorted a Cessa to MacGregor(sp) airport were pretty cool.

[Ztex]

All of my photos from Waco have come out just fine...

[warbird1]

They towed one out of the hangar and from a ~1000' distance all I got were horizontal lines on my digital camera. Later we went down and got permission to take a picture of the one in the hanger. We were ~30' from it, same thing just horizontal lines, while parked in the hangar. Same thing on my buddy's camera which was a different brand. Another guy's film camera did fine. The only pics I got of the dang things were when they did a flyby during the airshow. Pretty frustrating to be able to see something 30' away and can't get a picture of it.

Ooohh, how spooky! Are you saying that AF 1 has some kind of anti-photography cloaking device which prevents anyone from taking pictures of it? Or perhaps it was EMF interfering with the electronic bits in your digital cameras?

[Matt Gunsch]

Airforce 1 was in Waco several times while the DC-3 was there. The FBO tried to get a pic of the DC-3 with Airforce 1 in the background, but they never lined up just right.