Strange Air Force one phenomenon I saw

[ironflange]

A couple of years ago, the G-8 meetings were here in Calgary (actually in the mountains west of here). The day everything started, I arrived at the school Mrs. Ironflange teaches at to help her take some stuff home; it was right at the end of the school year. This school is directly under the main approach path to the airport. So I parked the van, got out, heard a roar, and looked up to see the big blue AF1 747 coming in for a loanding. Cool, I thought, and then went inside. Half an hour later, I came back out just in time to see the same danm plane on final approach. :wtf: Since then, it seems to me that there are two plausible explanations for this:

1. There are more than one of these planes, the others being decoys.

2. Shrubby looked out the window and said, "This can't be Canada, where are all the igloos?" So they had to circle while they convinced hime they were really in the right place. This seems more likely.

[DCDemo]

1. I think AF2 looks identical

But I too have a story...around 5:00pm on Sept 11, 2001, I was walking in Chelsea to Penn Station, and saw AF1 fly by overhead...it was very weird, since no planes were flying, to hear a jet, look up, and see AF1.

And of course, there was no mention of him having done a flyover of NYC.

[northzax]

4. technically

AF1 is any air force plane the President is on, and AF2 is any plane the VP is on (therefore, the plane that chimpy 'landed' on the carrier was, for that time, Navy One)

Yes, there are two 747's that appear identical.

[Az]

9. Sometimes they have to transport it

to a new location. It doesn't always fly with the football on board.

[ewagner]

2. Years ago......

AF1 visited the Space Center in Florida and it rather mysteriously showed up at our local Naval Air Station only 40 miles away. I learned later that refueling had to be done under viery tight conditions and the Naval Air Station was considered the only appropriate place.

Perhaps, what you saw was AF1 coming back from refueling to pick up the pres........

[BrotherBuzz]

3. Bush* doing touch and goes?

"Come on Captain, I'm the CIC and I say one more time...Please, please?"

[markus]

5. I got to watch Marine 1 and the two decoys in DC two weeks ago

I guess chimpie was coming back Sunday afternoon from Camp David or whereever he had spent the weekend. I just read a fictionalized account of the protocol of multiple choppers in a Vince somebody book my wife just got me to read.

As we were walking along the Tidal Basin from the FDR toward the Jefferson monument, I hear rotor wash and see three identical choppers coming in and circling the White House.

We had a pool, and I one. It was MESSAGE CENSORED FOR SECURITY REASONS. Ok, just kidding. But it was interesting to watch.

When the bunnypants-in-chief came to Fargo, N.D. a while back, there was only one plane. I know because I can see the southern approach out my office window and was on the lookout for it allday.

[MercutioATC]

6. The real story:

There are at least two 747's painted in Air Force One livery. They don't both fly on every trip, but on bigger trips, one carries the President and his staff and the other is a press plane. I won't explain the obvious advantage of having multiple targets if somebody were to try to shoot Air Force One down.

[LagaLover]

8. And another Air Force 747

the National Airborne Operations Center (NAOC) is always nearby wherever the President is.

[AngryAmish]

7. I have seen Marine 1 many times

My office is b/w O'Hare and the Loop. There are always others in the sky and I never have figured out which one has the President on it.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

10. Remember the naked protest on Stephen Ave?

Right outside my office.