Presidential Planes: A History
Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to fly on an airplane
Air Force One is what we commonly know as the president of the United States (POTUS)'s plane. However, Air Force One isn’t a specific airframe, rather a callsign used by whatever craft the sitting president is on. It doesn’t matter if POTUS is on a Spirit A320 or the famed VC-25 that is typically used for presidential travel - the callsign will be Air Force One. However, for the purpose of simplicity and continuity, throughout this post I will refer to the Air Force operated, government owned, presidential transport craft as Air Force One (or AF1).
Presidents have been on the aviation scene from the get go. The very first president to fly was America’s 26th - Theodore Roosevelt. President Roosevelt took to the skies on October 11th, 1910, on a Wright Company Model B, piloted by Arch Hoxsey at the Missouri State Republican Party’s campaign in St. Louis. He was in the air for only a brief time, but was apparently quite impressed. He penned a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, John D. Long that evening, writing “The machine has worked. It seems to me worth while [sic] for this government to try whether it will not work on a large enough scale to be of use in the event of war.”
President Roosevelt seemed to have foreseen the future - on May 8, 1911, Captain Washington Irving Chambers, USN, signed a requisition for the Navy’s first airplane, the Curtiss A-1 Triad. The Navy put the aircraft to the test just 4 years later, at the outbreak of the First World War, where it proved its place in battle.
Despite the White House’s early entry into aviation, it wasn’t until 1933 that an aircraft was acquired solely for presidential transport. A Douglas Dolphin amphibious plane was outfitted with a luxurious cabin, complete with leather seating, a kitchen, and sleeping quarters, and based at Naval Support Facility Anacostia.
The aircraft was only used for short trips, mainly up and down the East Coast. It remained in service for 6 years, until President Franklin D. Roosevelt acquired a Boeing 314 during the Second World War. The very first international presidential trip by air was made that same year, when President Roosevelt flew the aircraft across the Atlantic to the Casablanca Conference in Morocco, covering nearly 5,400 miles over 3 legs. This Roosevelt wasn’t as big a fan of aviation as the former - in fact, it was rumored that he was scared of flying. However, the threat from the German submarines throughout the Battle of the Atlantic made air travel the preferred method of VIP transatlantic transportation.
The Air Force soon realized that floatplanes weren’t ideal. Much of the US is landlocked, so it’s not very efficient to travel domestically. They acquired a C-87A in 1943, which was nicknamed Guess Where II. But, after a review of the C-87’s highly controversial safety record in service, the Secret Service flatly refused to approve the Guess Where II for presidential carriage.
The Secret Service subsequently approved a Douglas C-54 Skymaster for presidential use, which was equipped with the first airborne telecommunications center. Unfortunately, Roosevelt only flew aboard it once before he died.
The National Security Act of 1947, the legislation that created the US Air Force, was signed by President Harry S. Truman while on board the VC-54C. The newest iteration of presidential air transport was a C-118 Liftmaster, the largest plane to date to serve the Commander in Chief. Interestingly, the Liftmaster is the oldest presidential aircraft not to have been scrapped - you can see it today at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.
President Eisenhower’s administration acquired a Lockheed C-121 Constellation, named Columbine II, after his wife’s home state of Colorado’s state flower. Columbine II was the first presidential transport plane to bear the Air Force One callsign.
Toward the end of Eisenhower’s second term, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles commented that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and other senior Soviet officials had begun using the technologically advanced Tupolev Tu-114 aircraft for their travels, and it was no longer dignified for the president to fly in a propeller-driven aircraft. They didn’t want to seem behind the times, so three Boeing 707-120 aircraft were purchased by the Air Force. The 707 was a beast compared to its predecessors. It was able to travel long distances, and it was certainly put to good use. During Eisenhower’s “Flight to Peace” goodwill tour in December 1959, he visited 11 Asian nations, flying 22,000 miles in 19 days.
The presidential plane rocketed to fame overnight as President Lyndon B Johnson was hastily sworn in on the jet following the shocking assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. Interestingly, it was the first presidential swearing in to have been filmed completely in color.
One of the aircrafts was scrapped, but the other two are on display, at The Museum of Flight in Seattle and the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona.
During Ronald Regan’s administration, 2 heavily modified Boeing 747-200s were ordered to replace the aging 707s. They were delivered in 1987, with much fanfare. They were decked out with bedrooms, conference rooms, telecommunications centers, a surgical center, and even the ability to launch a full on nuclear strike from onboard. These are the 747s still in operation today, flown by highly skilled veteran Air Force pilots, who command an average salary of $450,000.
On September 11th, 2001, President George W. Bush was interrupted as he read to a group of elementary school students in Sarasota, Florida by being told America was under attack. He was rushed to Air Force One, where they were airborne within the hour. Fearing a threat on the president’s life, the aircraft circled for hours before landing at an Air Force base in Louisiana.
But this isn’t actually anything new - since Reagan, every president (with the notable exception of Obama), has customarily taken AF1 back home on their last day in office.
In September 2020, the US Air Force announced several Presidential and Executive Airlift Directorate contracts signed with aircraft manufacturers to begin development of a supersonic aircraft that could function as Air Force One.
In the more short term, President Joe Biden approved a new livery design for Air Force One, with a lighter blue color and removing the polished metal, as modern commercial aircraft skin alloys don’t allow for it. This will go into effect when VC-25B is delivered, which is expected to happen in 2027. VC-25B is a modified 747-8i, which is being introduced to modernize the presidential fleet.