[HN Gopher] One man's quest to restore the first-ever Air Force One
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One man's quest to restore the first-ever Air Force One
Author : rmason
Score : 237 points
Date : 2024-08-15 21:04 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
| tocs3 wrote:
| A beautiful plane.It is to bad they are not flown anymore. Glad
| to see someone caring for a piece of history.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Indeed beautiful. The article says it has a dolphin shaped
| fuselage and I thought that looked so elegant. I wonder why
| modern jets aren't shaped like that.
| fitsumbelay wrote:
| I'm just relieved this wasn't a post about sneakers but if it was
| I hoped for the best. This is a topic I never really ever thought
| about to be honest. If I were pressed to answer I'd assume the
| first was FDR or Truman. The US presidency (and govt) gets really
| weird and interesting right after WW2, this feels like an
| artifact to that point. Shame I can't find any interior shots
| online, I'm curious to see a photograph that matches the first
| paragraph of the post ...
| BadHumans wrote:
| I really wanted this to be about the sneaker.
| fitsumbelay wrote:
| LOL, like I said if it were and it's on HN I would really
| hope it has at least one interesting paragraph of content
| w-m wrote:
| You can step inside the first jet-powered Air Force One in the
| Museum of Flight in Seattle. It's fully stocked, with meeting
| rooms and communication equipment and all. My favorite part is
| the fake temperature control:
|
| > President Johnson was finicky about room temperature and when
| he was VP and developed a habit of haranguing the flight crew
| about lowering or raising the cabin temperature. After a while
| the crew got tired of his shenanigans, so they installed a "fake"
| temperature control in the Conference Room. This appeasement was
| successful, and Johnson was so pleased with manipulating the
| controls himself that he didn't even notice when the temperature
| remained the same.
|
| https://blog.museumofflight.org/quirks-of-the-first-jet-powe...
| rtkwe wrote:
| The Airforce Museum in Ohio also has a few different early Air
| Force Ones including at least one you can walk through.
|
| https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Pres...
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I'm pretty there are two you can walk through. I only
| remember because the smaller one was a really tight squeeze.
| rtkwe wrote:
| I remember two yeah I took a 360 cam through them and some
| day I might chop it up and run it through some
| photogrammetry to try to make a model of the insides.
| dphidt wrote:
| Ten total presidential aircraft and four you can walk
| through at the Dayton USAF museum [1]! You can walk through
| SAM 26000, the VC-137C used by 8 presidents including
| Kennedy. Amazing collection.
|
| [1] https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-
| Exhibits/Pres...
| arethuza wrote:
| SAM 26000 must be one of the most historic aircraft in
| the world - being the place Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn
| in after the assassination of JFK:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VC-137C_SAM_26000
| practicemaths wrote:
| They also have a rather large space museum. Unfortunately
| a lot it is filled with old rockets though.
| whartung wrote:
| Ronald Reagan Presidential Library has the last 707 model. Just
| as an exhibit, and the hoops they had to jump through to
| install the plane, are remarkable all in themselves.
| mtsolitary wrote:
| They also have a portrait of the Gipper made from his
| favourite snack: Jelly Beans!
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| A friend used to work there. Everything anyone sent to
| Reagan is in there somewhere.
| bagels wrote:
| They'd have to get me a fake thermometer too.
| walrus01 wrote:
| For anyone who hasn't been there, I'd highly recommend visiting
| the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in general, not just for
| the Air Force One, but for many other fascinating exhibits.
| Great place for a very "Seattle" experience if you're not from
| the Pacific Northwest, and historical info on Seattle as home
| of Boeing.
| usefulcat wrote:
| Just like the temperature controls in some offices I've worked
| in.
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| Oh wait, that's the "abominable shower" guy!
| netsharc wrote:
| It reads like it's the Airplane of Theseus...
| ryanmcbride wrote:
| That's pretty much the difference between restoration and
| conservation.
|
| It's not about conserving the original parts (though often
| people restoring something will do that as much as possible)
| it's about restoring it to what it would have looked like or
| how it would have worked originally.
|
| Both conservation and restoration are important parts of
| appreciating history.
| bankcust08385 wrote:
| Yesterday, I learned most all outdated presidential limos are
| destroyed and so aren't present in any museum.
| w-m wrote:
| Oh, really? I guess here goes my second presidential
| transportation museum fact of this thread then: you can visit a
| limousine used by Truman in the Little White House in Key West:
| https://fla-keys.com/news/article/10941/key-west-visitors-ca...
|
| To me it seemed just like any older car, not anything special.
| Didn't realize they are destroying most of them.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| JFK's limo is still being displayed
|
| https://www.grunge.com/827864/what-happened-to-the-car-
| jfk-w...
| sparky_z wrote:
| Wow, I had no idea that they just repaired it and kept
| using it as a presidential limo until 1977. That's wild!
| buildsjets wrote:
| Not sure why you are being downvoted so severely, as what you
| say is plainly and verifiably true. JFK and Truman's old
| jalopies being in museums do not count. They were lightly
| modified production cars that were not much different than
| their mass produced counterparts. The Beast is a custom made
| tank with a Cadillac badge on it and weighs over 20,000 lbs.
| JFK got shot in some old convertible, which probably did not
| even have seatbelts. The security technology of those antiques
| is to The Beast, as the power of a TRS-80 is to a spanky new
| AMD Ryzen.
|
| BTW, they are not just destroyed. They are destroyed in a
| series of tests of the vehicle's countermeasures and protective
| devices against an array of potential weapon systems, boom boom
| kaboom. I got to see some components installed on the gun shock
| test rig at NTS in Fullerton CA, while I was there doing some
| unrelated vibration and shock testing on an aircraft system.
| Unfortunately I did not get to see the kaboom.
| sahaskatta wrote:
| I recently visited the Henry Ford Musuem in Dearborn. Several
| presidential limos were there:
|
| "The Henry Ford's Presidential Vehicles exhibit traces the
| changing balance between a president's need to be seen, and
| need to be safe. Included in this exhibit are the horse-drawn
| carriage used by Theodore Roosevelt and presidential parade
| cars that transported Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman,
| Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan
| and George H.W. Bush. The most prominent vehicle is the 1961
| Lincoln Continental Presidential Limousine that John F. Kennedy
| was riding in when assassinated on November 22, 1963. The
| vehicle was rebuilt and used regularly by Lyndon B. Johnson and
| Richard Nixon."
|
| https://www.thehenryford.org/visit/henry-ford-museum/exhibit...
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| There is one not even far from me:
| https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g55649-d...
| ryukoposting wrote:
| Modern ones are basically SCIFs with wheels and an engine, so I
| suppose that checks out.
|
| It makes me wonder what would have happened with the first Air
| Force One if not for a clerical error. I know older
| presidential limos are still around, but that's because they
| served more as a fashion accessory than as a security device.
| ziddoap wrote:
| For those of us not in-the-know about national intelligence
| acronyms:
|
| SCIF = Sensitive compartmented information facility
| euroderf wrote:
| > SCIFs with wheels and an engine
|
| Can the typical SCIF withstand RPGs and ATMs ? Asking for a
| friend.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Weird, why? Unless they have James Bond gadgets built in that
| they don't want the public to know about. But then, armored car
| companies will happily advertise their builtin pepper spray
| cloud dispensers.
| h4x0rr wrote:
| I thought it was the Nike shoes lol
| k4rli wrote:
| Reddit quality comments...
| sdwr wrote:
| This is the single worst HN comment thread I've seen in 5
| years.
| fragmede wrote:
| > Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into
| Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| 2007 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852 2007
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=60767 2007
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=60767 2007
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66057 2008
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=289254 2008
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=253657 2009
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=582513 2009
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=633099
| kurisufag wrote:
| I did as well. I suppose to make this `Hacker News Quality', we
| should spin it into some kind of missive about classism?
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Is the intention to keep it flying for VIP tours? Why not just
| focus on the cosmetics instead of the costly real maintenance
| work? When I see a museum WW2 or older vehicle, I assume the
| thing can no longer run.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| There is a museum near me that does the required maintenance on
| some of the planes they have to keep them in theoretical
| working condition. I like that I am looking at "real" planes,
| not just empty shells with the guts ripped out or decayed.
| Maybe one day they will actually be flown.
|
| Much easier to restore fully in the future if they are
| maintained now.
| miketery wrote:
| There's a difference between not flyable, flyable but not
| certified, fly able and certified. Each step is a big cost
| difference. But many hobbyist can get from one to two depending
| on the tech used.
|
| If I recall correctly there's a guy putting Honda engines
| inside Cessnas making them much cheaper. But they are not
| certifiable.
| buildsjets wrote:
| I've done business case studies where we can't even make a
| profitable case to re-engine a Cessna (150) with a newer
| technology, but already certified aircraft engine, due to the
| costs involved in the required flight testing, such is the
| cost burden of certification.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Isn't that intentional?
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I don't think it's really intentional. Most of the
| aviation industry would love to get rid of the burden
| that is leaded avgas. Not to mention the
| environmentalists, health departments etc.
|
| The problem is just that the rules for larger aircraft
| apply to general aviation too. And the margins there
| aren't high enough to pay for all the certification. So
| we're stuck with 1950s tech which would never pass
| certification today but did at one time in history. It's
| weird how regulations supposedly intended to make things
| better are holding us back and stopping innovation to
| make things safer, more sustainable and efficient.
| kelnos wrote:
| The article says they want to take it to air shows, where
| presumably it will need to be airworthy. But yeah, I would hope
| they plan to do more with it than that...
|
| I don't think they should try to turn this into a profit-
| seeking enterprise, but with the cost of the restoration
| probably pushing $20M (enough to buy a brand-new, modern jet of
| similar size, I'd bet), it might be nice to recoup some of
| that.
| j33zusjuice wrote:
| $20M is not even close to the cost of a _new_ jet. Jets are
| insanely expensive.
|
| Idk whether jets are best measured by dimensions or capacity,
| but a jet with a similar wingspan is a 737-800, and those
| cost like $106,000,000. If we're going by capacity (I'm using
| seating-capacity because it's easier to find than volume
| measurements), a G550 sits up to 19 (depending on the
| configuration: most rentals I saw list up to 16 passengers),
| and retails at $62,000,000. You can get them used for around
| $20M.
| darzu wrote:
| Damn, I wish they had filmed this restoration and put it all on
| YouTube, that would have been an incredible channel. Like Tally
| Ho[0] but for a plane.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/@SampsonBoatCo
| ricktdotorg wrote:
| feel i should push Kermit Weeks' channel[0] because he is the
| GOAT when it comes to documenting vintage airplane restoration
| on Youtube
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOC84qwgDHkUPwfeLKL40tQ
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| I love this aircraft! It was an amazingly advanced aircraft for
| its time, which is perhaps not surprising when one discovers that
| no other than Howard Hughes' TWA funded its development.
|
| I can highly recommend the book by Ken Wixey (ISBN
| 978-0752417660) for a history of both the military and civilian
| variants; it starts with the Lockheed company's beginnings after
| the Great War and goes all the way to the Lockheed Starliner (the
| final variant of the Constellation). Suffice it to say that the
| model was significantly more reliable than a certain other
| vehicle with the same name!
|
| Also, there's a Super Constellation that you can fly in the
| FlightGear simulator[1], which is remarkably accurate (and, dare
| I say, a big challenge to fly).
|
| [1]: https://wiki.flightgear.org/Lockheed_Constellation
| WalterBright wrote:
| What a beauty!
| jmclnx wrote:
| You would think the Smithsonian would want it. Glad someone is
| trying to get it restored.
| fitsumbelay wrote:
| very true. strange.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| Maybe it has to do with differences in approach? It's basically
| a Plane of Theseus now, by the sound of it. I imagine that the
| Smithsonian would care more about "original" than "looks/works
| the way it did in its own time."
| fsckboy wrote:
| ok, I understand what planes we're talking about here, and
| they're interesting, but I do think there's room for the
| obligatory:
|
| "the call sign 'Air Force One' is not for any particular plane,
| it's the air traffic control sign for any Air Force plane the US
| President is flying on."
| ianburrell wrote:
| Air Force One also refers to the primary presidential aircraft.
| Words can mean multiple things, and can get attached to
| adjacent things.
|
| It helps that US has been using the same two VC-25 since 1990.
| fsckboy wrote:
| I acknowledged what Air Force One was referring to in this
| discussion and in the article, did you miss that? then I
| added some information.
|
| now I'll add some more, both from wikipedia:
|
| Marine One is the call sign of any United States Marine Corps
| aircraft carrying the president of the United States. It
| usually denotes a helicopter operated by Marine Helicopter
| Squadron One "Nighthawks", consisting of either the large
| Sikorsky VH-3D Sea King or the newer, smaller VH-60N "White
| Hawk"
|
| Air Force Two is the air traffic control designated call sign
| held by any United States Air Force aircraft carrying the
| vice president of the United States, but not the president.
| The term is often associated with the Boeing C-32, a modified
| 757 which is most commonly used as the vice president's
| transport.
|
| I always try to add information or clarification, knowledge
| is power.
| kelnos wrote:
| I get what you were going for here, but I think to some it
| might have come across as unimportant pedantry.
|
| Perhaps phrasing your initial comment as "Fun fact: the
| call sign..." would have been better received? I dunno,
| people are fickle sometimes.
| j33zusjuice wrote:
| You acknowledged that we were discussing specific planes,
| but did not acknowledge the use of "Air Force One" as valid
| for discussing a specific aircraft (as shorthand for, "the
| plane most commonly used for presidential flights, and
| therefore, most commonly assigned the call-sign 'Air Force
| One'"). Maybe that's what you intended to do, but that is
| not clear in your original phrasing, which, to me, seemed
| more like a correction than an addition.
|
| Also, to note: I'm not trying to argue any points you're
| making. I'm only trying to help clarify how you were
| misunderstood.
| irjustin wrote:
| Separately the website won't load images if you're using an ad
| block. Sigh...
| mkl wrote:
| Worked fine for me with uBlock Origin.
| supportengineer wrote:
| How is there this much money in Bridgewater, VA, which is
| apparently a college town near JMU?
| auselen wrote:
| Isn't this like a case of "Ship of Theseus"?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
| Lorkki wrote:
| I guess in the same sense that every functional aircraft is.
| Taking everything apart and putting it back together, replacing
| worn out parts, is considered normal maintenance.
| sailfast wrote:
| This is cool! I do wonder why they didn't work with the National
| Museum of the Air Force on this that has a hangar full of them
| (including Roosevelt's) and could have helped with the costs.
| ansible wrote:
| The museum has "Columbine III" (a slightly newer Super
| Constellation), which was also used by Eisenhower. It was
| delivered to them soon after it was retired in 1966.
|
| https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact...
|
| I saw this plane decades ago when it was in an auxiliary
| hanger, before being moved to its present location. It was in
| decent shape then (you were allowed to walk through it), and
| hasn't spent decades sitting outside.
|
| Obviously, Columbine III is not in flyable condition, and will
| likely never fly again.
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