I saw Air Force One this morning in flight.

Originally posted by Virgil Cain
On saturday afternoon, I saw 3 Chinooks escorting 2 Marine Ones over downtown Baltimore in the direction of DC. Listening to the Orioles game later, they mentioned that the helicopter escort came over the stadium to drop off President Obama at the White House (they were playing the Nationals down in DC).

I gathered that he had taken Marine One all the way to West Point, otherwise, I do not know why the helicopters would be coming in over Bmore.

As an aside, I saw one the huge transport aircraft come over not long after the Helicopters, also going towards DC from the northeast ( towards Andrew's I assumed). My assumption was that it may have been carrying auxillary equipment back from West Point, although it could've been unrelated.

Just thought I'd add my own observations to the discussion. I wondered whether he would take AFO to West Point or Marine One all that way, and based on my observations, it seemed he took Marine One.

[edit on 26-5-2010 by Virgil Cain]

I dont know if he would of flown Marine One all the way to west point from DC. It would make more sense to fly AF1 into stewart AFB then marine one to west point. Stewart to west point would only be about a 15 min helicopter ride. Idk just humble opinion.

Yeah.... A helicopter flight ALL the way from the DC Area to New York state? It's possible, I guess. Kind of a weird situation. It is certainly within range for a helicopter of that type. The SH-3 can go 600 miles, and the UH-60 about the same, if not a bit longer.... but why would you want to? On the other hand, the VC-25 (747) is just a bit overkill from DC to West Point. About the time you pulled up the gear, you would be setting up the approach, not to mention royally screwing up traffic into/out of NYC (Not that the prez would worry too much about that) If he was he was coming from elsewhere, by all means AF1 is the best bet, but from DC... either take a slow, (relatively) low-flying chopper all the way, or AF1, and risk getting bitched at by those folks who latch onto every opportunity to criticize him. (There are far better reasons to criticize Pres Obama IMHO, but I will opine thus, as it is not the subject of this thread...) I can't say which I would pick, but may lean toward the chopper, as I am quite fond of them myself.....

FLY ARMY!!!!!

One other thought.... it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the flight from DC to West Point was made by helicopter, and a VC-25 was on the ground locally on stand-by, in case of a need to move on something for one reason or another. I won't even begin to speculate further as I really don't follow the movements of the President, and can't say where he was immediately before this appearance at USMA.

reply to post by RichardPrice


Unless the other VC-25 is in PDM or down for maintenance, they fly them both on trips. One lands about 30 minutes behind the other. EVERY time that we had Air Force One come through Hickam, it was both VC-25s. When they were flying 26000 and 27000 it was always both of them. I have never seen them use another type of aircraft as the backup.

As to the fighter escort question, they only have a fighter escort when it's requested, usually by the Secret Service. As Richard said, there is are one to two (although I've seen as many as four) C-5s or C-17s (although rarely) now that go in several days ahead carrying the motorcade and the helicopters.

reply to post by ZodiacFlyer


My friend and I had a similar discussion though perhaps not quite as technically informed. We both wondered if they would take Marine 1 all the way to West Point, but I can tell you that it definitely flew over Baltimore heading from the east towards DC.

Perhaps they used it to get him from wherever they landed AF1 to West Point and once he was on his way back, they simply flew Marine 1 back to DC. The problem with that is that they would need the choppers to get him from Andrew's to the White House, wouldn't they?

Either way, just thought I'd report what I saw that day...

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by RichardPrice

 

Unless the other VC-25 is in PDM or down for maintenance, they fly them both on trips. One lands about 30 minutes behind the other. EVERY time that we had Air Force One come through Hickam, it was both VC-25s. When they were flying 26000 and 27000 it was always both of them. I have never seen them use another type of aircraft as the backup.

On every trip to London I have seen, there has been one VC-25 and a second 757 or 737, but no second 747.

Also there was the high profile VC-25 failure during Bush's (the second one) last trip to Asia when the 747 went tech and he had to complete a leg in the 757.

I have also been told that they do not like to fly the VC-25s at the same time as this puts the same wear on both airframes, and limits the time when they can do maintenace on them.

dont ask me how be here, but i have the same question and sign up in this website
i live in southamerica, chile and when was a child i saw the afo ( president clinton inside) flying in my hometown, i cant believe that picture : this huge airplane flying so low !!! I could clearly see all details, and never knew why flew so low. the low sound that airplane made was very strong and the windows of my house were stirring.
Over the years, I think this must be some tactical reason: to stop attack with some missiles or RPG

Zaph is right. They almost always fly both VC-25's around the world when he travels. I was able to refuel Prez Bush when he went to Africa back in his time. We had two tankers take off and we each got to refuel one of them, although were not sure which one was AFO and which was the decoy. They don't really use that call sign when traveling around the world, just for the papers and news outlets. They were using standard REACH call signs when we did them. I've been able to refuel the NAOC 747 jet as well.

I saw Air Force One this morning in flight

Unless you also saw President Obama waving to you out the window then no, you didn’t see Air Force One. Air Force One is the call sign for any US Air Force aircraft with POTUS on board, in other words its only Air Force One if the President is on the plane.

Basically this is a thread of the OP saying “I saw a blue plane today”…..

Why?