Originally posted by Badge01

With all due respect, if you are not part of the Presidential detail then there's no way you could know if there are offensive capabilities.

With all due respect, I have walked round AF1 enough times, and have enough knowledge of both basic 747s and large military aircraft to identify every lump, bump, access panel and port on the aircraft, and apart from the passive defence mountings (chaff, flares, redeye etc) whose mere positionings preclude them from being offensive, there are no unidentifiable constructs on the VC-25s.

There are no missile mountings externally, there are no panels of the shape and size required or in the right place.

An armed escort is available to AF1 everywhere it flies, so why not leave the offensive capabilities to the professionals?

But, for instance, say the plane is forced down somehow. I would not be surprised if there are hidden gun ports and arms on board for the agents to use to defend the plane. Would it be such a stretch to allow the pilot some offensive capability? I don't see anything preventing it.

There is a sizeable weapons cache carried onboard by the Secret Service detail for precisely that purpose.

Originally posted by Badge01
With all due respect, if you are not part of the Presidential detail then there's no way you could know if there are offensive capabilities.

I've been on both the VC-137 and VC-25s that they use and none of them have any kind of offensive weaponry. They have a very nice ECM and detection suite on board though. Some of which you can see if you get a close up picture of certain parts of the plane.