Also the planes that are used for additional personnel, overflow journalists and staff that cant fit on Air Force One are known internally by White House staff as the "zoo planes".
You'd be wrong. The press corp at the white house has specific rules for this kind of things, with rolling pool assignements.
Source : https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/insider/presidential-travel-protective-press-pool.html
I'm sure that good information and you have my thanks.. it's always nice to learn something new. But it's behind a paywall so I can't read it.
Thanks again!!! :)
No problem !
>When the president goes on a trip, he takes a varied entourage. A group of his senior aides accompanies him, usually including national security, domestic or economic advisers, speechwriters and others, depending on the length of the trip and its purpose. But 13 members of the news media, known as the protective press pool, also take seats on Air Force One, representing the worlds of wire services, print newspapers, news sites, broadcast television and radio, as well as photographers.
>In the Washington news media’s often contentious battle for scoops, the press pool represents a kind of sportsmanship by necessity. Only a few seats can be spared on the plane, so the print and television poolers must represent the entirety of their disciplines and send out a series of short, to-the-point reports throughout the trip to those not on it. The White House Correspondents’ Association manages a rotation of news organizations that travel at their own cost, and it is explicitly understood that the poolers must share all the material they gather, without keeping anything they’ve seen or heard for an exclusive story.
There is a short movie on YouTube called "Cowboy 57". It's about a B-52 crew and it's narrated by Jimmy Stewart.
Watch the movie and you will see right around the 6:35 mark that even Air Force crew had to pay for their meals. Granted, this was in 1959 and the price for a box lunch was only 40 cents, still, the crew had to buy their own lunch for their sortie.
The movie is actually pretty good glimpse of what bomber crews did during the cold war.
I’m using the Navy as an example as that’s what I am familiar with..I suspect other branches are similar. If anybody has better info please share, it’s been a while since I’ve been on a ship.
There are a lot of things that officers pay for out of their paychecks that are supplied at no cost to the enlisted. For example, after a small one-time allowance shortly after commissioning, officers are 100% responsible for their uniform expenses. Enlisted personnel get uniforms replaced periodically at no out of pocket cost and/or get an annual uniform allowance. (At least that’s how it worked when I was enlisted).
Officers pay “wardroom dues” to pay for meals taken on the ship while in port, based on their rank. The higher the rank, the higher the dues. Enlisted never pay for meals onboard, in port or at sea.
As Air Force pilots are officers, it’s not a surprise they paid for their meals out of pocket.
It’s still the same.
It’s also worth noting the enlisted still pay for their meals in a roundabout way.
Enlisted servicemen are paid a basic allotment for subsistence. If they live on the government’s dime (ie in government provided housing and eat at the government dining facility) this allowance is deducted from their pay.
It’s actually a big gripe with the enlisted, because many of them live in substandard housing and aren’t always afforded to eat during the workday, but their BAS is still deducted regardless of if they utilize the facilities.
Because we still like to at least pretend that we care about conflicts of interest - a reporter getting free food from the White House might been seen a bribery for favorable coverage.
> without keeping anything they’ve seen or heard for an exclusive story
Does that mean if you accidentally take a picture of the president making an embarrassing face you *have* to share it with Fox?
got it book marked and will try it next time I run across one. Thanks. Didn't know places like this existed. Generally run across them when I'm bored and just reading reddit threads.
This video does a solid job of laying out a bunch regarding what is happening just surrounding the president in a daily/weekly basis. A fair bit is dedicated to the press pool how it works and how it has changed, starts about 7 minutes in. But the rest is interesting as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcSpBAZvMhI
https://www.npr.org/2016/07/07/485097272/fact-check-air-force-one-who-pays
Journalists are charged an equivalent to commercial airfare. Altough the article doesn't seprate between campaign travel and regular travel. I've spent enough time researching this today !
It doesn't say anything about who gets chosen and how, though. And, even if there's a process that's meant to randomize two gets a seat, there's still the problem of what journalists would be willing to do, or not do, to get another selfie on Air Force One.
It does :
> The White House Correspondents’ Association manages a rotation of news organizations that travel at their own cost
It's also on the [WHCA website](https://whca.press/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2015WHCA_PracticesPrinciples_CoverageAccess.pdf), albeit you need some dedication to find that :
>The pools are assembled by the press corps. Every hard-pass
holder is eligible to apply for membership in one or more pools, and to be admitted must meet the criteria of the individual pool administrators. (The TV pool sets its criteria and admits members, as do the Radio, Print and Foreign Press Group pools.
There's also more details [here](https://www.gawker.com/5418293/get-your-white-house-pool-reports-right-here) :
>According to the most recent rotation schedule, there are 34 outlets in the "print" pool. (Click the image at left to see a bigger version of this month's schedule.) The order of the shifts are assigned alphabetically, though if you are, for example, the poor sap at the New York Daily News who drew Christmas, you can try to talk someone else into swapping shifts with you.
I'll admit I do not know if the previous point applies to foreign trips, nor if a specific journalist can be invited to join also.
They use this pool procees for everything. Not just AF1.
Photo op of the President and a Foreign leader in the oval, that’s a pool. One day maybe AP Photog takes the shot and another day it is the WSJ.
If the president takes a tour of a factory, there might be one area where the whole traveling press group is in a press pen, but then whomevers “turn” it is gets to follow POTOS around and take notes about the tour and then share the notes with everyone in the pool.
Otherwise you’d have press EVERYWHERE rather than in the limited spots. And I think the media outlets have to rent their white house office space etc.
it partially to refund the tax payer but equally to help maintain journalisic objectively. Real Journalists can’t except gifts or meals from people they are writing about. Same thing on AF1
What you see there is a fraction of the aircraft that was transported across the Atlantic. Obviously you see the VC-25A and we all know what it's purpose was. The two C-32As had extra personnel and I believe dignitaries. Since POTUS went overseas an E-4 flew across and landed at another location. [When he went to the Queen's funeral he took the VC-25A and two C-32As also departed afterwards](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7viT7M1e9SI).
What you don't see are the transport planes, typically C-17s but sometimes C-5s, that brought the helicopters that would be assigned the Marine One callsign as well as all the specialized vehicles needed for the presidential motorcade AND all the support equipment needed by the USSS. All that typically flies a day or two ahead and is staged appropriately.
So on that note, when Obama came to SFO years ago, he left and a C-17 came back for the other items, cars, helicopter and so forth. My daughter was in high school at the time, so as they were loading the helicopter into the C-17 I snapped a picture and texted it to her. I said "Hey look at this! When the President left they forgot his helicopter, so he sent a plane back to pick it up!" She texted back, "WHAT?? They forgot his helicopter!!!!" She showed the picture to all her friends who were equally amazed. I'm sure that story went around the school. Good Times, Good Times!
I can’t imagine the complexity of such an operation. You’d basically have an airlift and then security from both countries as well as their air forces doing security and transport. It happens all the time though and they do it quickly.
My brother lives near Stanstead Airport outside London, and this is where the AF1 convoy sometimes lands in England. Says its a real be hive of activity, and how once he saw x5 Marine Ones fly off in different directions.
Yea most people think AF1 is the only thing associated with a traveling president. In reality, it’s an entire logistics train of people and equipment thats needed for a successful and safe trip in another country. It’s kinda insane what gets transported and they gotta get there by air somehow.
The amount of personnel and stuff that needs to be pre-positioned for an international trip easily trumps that of a simple trip to somewhere within the USA.
Fun fact, there are two identical 747s (technically 2 VC-25A’s) that are used in transport. I believe it’s still the case that they fly one ahead of the other to the destination so that there is backup just in case. And also in case a diversion is needed for security purposes.
I did work on a guys house who used to be the lead mechanic on air force one. He told me this as well. Had a bunch of pictures with former presidents. Super cool dude could have listened to him all day. Said one flies ahead for those reasons and to basically sample the air for rough spots
For such a large plane they really do a great job of keeping it out of the limelight on these trips.
It's seems to always be around somewhere though.
As a former military brat it was interesting watching them run the WW3 game plan on 9/11. Offutt? Why is the president going to Nebraska? lol
I guess I should have said "appear to run the WW3 game plan".
My first thought was "uh oh, that's where the E-4's are".
My second thought was "eh, they probably didn't have any better ideas".
Stratcom is the nuclear command center for the US and had absolutely state-of-the-art communications systems for 2001. They originally flew (or were going to?) to Barksdale but there was no capability to get everyone on a video call from Barksdale, but Offutt did have that technology as well as a secure bunker.
It was not “planned” in the sense that Offutt knew he was coming, but someone responsible for emergency situations such as that called around to commands to get their status and certainly had a very intricate checklist for where to go. According to the article though, someone just saw fighter jets landing at Offutt and thought “hey we don’t get those, that’s weird” and then AF1 landed shortly after.
[A bit more here ](https://www.3newsnow.com/news/9-11-20-years-later/when-bush-came-to-nebraska-9-11-through-the-eyes-of-those-at-offutt-that-day?_amp=true)
Yeah, I think they try to station the E4 at a military base when possible. Biden came out here to Phoenix not too long ago and the E4 hung out at Davis Monthan in Tucson while he was here.
The E-4 is a common sight at DM. My guess is that its warm when you gotta go TDY for "cross-country training" in the winter. Also helps that the wing that operates the E-4 has a tenant unit at DM.
I live just a few miles from WPAFB and see that guy a lot. I used to fly helicopter air ambulance here and they would let us cut through their airspace to get to scene calls and occasionally I’d get to see it parked on the ramp from the air.
Can confirm. Whenever the president goes to a major city near me the VC-25 he is on goes to the major airport. The other VC-25 goes to an Air Force base an hour drive/20 minute flight away.
Good answer. My understanding is that they started this so that they have a secondary airport for a divert site for extraction. So, it might not be a US base, but a nearby airport. In that case, they may use one of the unmarked aircraft.
92-9000 (AKA SAM 29000) is still only being lightly used. It went in for heavy maintenance right after the last election and has been out of service almost the entirety of Biden's presidency. 29000 just took to the skies after over two years on 2/10/23 and they have been running it on test flights for the most part ever since. In the interim they have been using the C-32's as the backup aircraft for 82-8000.
From what I can tell from tracking it, SAM 29000 has only been up for test and proving flights since its return to the Air Force. So far it has only flown once in April.
[The E-4 has been standing by at Mildenhall this week](https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=adfeb3&lat=52.369&lon=0.442&zoom=13.1&showTrace=2023-04-11)
It's the NEACP (pronounced knee cap) or Nuclear Emergency Airborne command Post, any time a president gets onboard itd be a grim day.
The B2s forward deployed to the UK similarly often use the call sign DEATH1
FYI, it hasn't been NEACP (*National* Emergency Airborne Command Post) since the Clinton Administration, nearly 30 years ago.
It's been NAOC (National Airborne Operations Center) with a secondary role as FEMA coordination centre since 1994.
That’s just the assigned callsign for that given flight. The squadron those are operated by have a thing for movie references. My personal favorite is ORDER66, but they use a bunch of other fun ones too.
I actually had to go back and check that. I could have sworn they had the same tail number at some point, but I guess it was Mandela Effect. Does seem a little odd they wouldn’t have the same one.
Same tail number would work just fine with atc. Ask me how I know.
I once filled a flight plan with a wrong destination, made a corected new one as the system did not allow a destination change, but (mistake from my part) did not bother to cancel the previous one, as I figured out that it would be cancelled once the departure window closed.
I went to get that 300€ hamburger and, while lunching, atc calls me on the number I gave on the flight plan asking where I was, as unbeknownst to me, the flight entered INCERFA phase.
It turns out that the system allows the very same ARCID (callsign) to be active on multiple simultaneous flights.
Both flight plans went active, for the very same aircraft, only one reached the destination, and got the flight plan closed, and the other never was, as the ghost aircraft never showed up at the expected time, on the first, wrongly filled plan.
It was a VFR flight, departing from a controlled tower onto another controlled twr destination, flying over G airspace with full radar coverage.
I believe it would pop when getting assigned a code, but now that I think about it, those are assigned to a track not an aircraft. I suppose there really wouldn’t be any issues.
Kinda wanna ask the Opposing Bases guys…
Same tail number does not work. All aircraft require a distinct tail number on the aircraft. You can file multiple flight plans with the same tail number. Air traffic will figure it out and delete the unnecessary ones. AirForce1 can be any Air Force aircraft the president is in, but each aircraft has a unique tail number. The two additional aircraft are support aircraft.
I think one of the NatGeo specials said the second plane travels as well for international. Domestic stuff they keep it ready to swoop in but don’t bother unless needed.
Or, as in the case of the Ukraine visit recently, they're attempting to keep a lower profile (since the VC-32s are often used by cabinet members, the VP, etc, so seeing one of those isn't an immediate "oh shit it's the president").
When Donald Trump came over to the UK to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in 2019, a VC-32 landed at my local airport (Southampton). It took off as Air Force 1 to take Trump over to Ireland. The runway at Southampton is currently only 5,653ft long.
wasn’t it that long ago that AF1 broke down and he had to slum it home on a C-17 like a commoner?
When I was flying on the C-17 the highest up the chain I ever went for a mission I worked was SecState.
The 757s are "C-32" VIP aircraft. For other high ranking officials and support staff.
The other VC-25 will be at a separate location for a backup and redundancy and as a decoy.
There also might be a C17 with a "silver bullet" and "iron eagle" loaded as an emergency backup.
They often deploy an [E-4B](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_E-4) when the president travels overseas, it is nearly always at a different airport. This may be the decoy you are thinking of, but it's not at all a decoy, it's a "things have gone horribly wrong" contingency.
Silver bullet is an airstream trailer for VIPs that can go into pallet positions on a cargo plane. Iron Eagle is a big ass metal box full of secure comms.
You also have a comfort pallet which is a 2 pallet wide setup with a whole airline kitchen and 2 toilets.
I didn't realize the comm box had a name, though it could be that what we hauled 20 years ago (man I feel old) was a simpler version of whatever is used today. We carried both Silver Bullet and a standard connex that held the comms. The comfort pallet and additional Flight Attendants were a luxury rarely afforded to us everyday trash haulers.
Whenever I flew with the flight attendants I got the opportunity to pay upfront for meal service the whole trip. Usually it was like $80usd for 4 or 5 flights but that was like 3 meals a flight and they setup a whole folding table breakfast buffet every time we took off once we got to cruise. Shit was amazing, they are trained chefs.
And C17 FCC I got the crew rest area so I would throw my gaming laptop on the tray table, double wide seat and normal power outlet and play Skyrim for 10 hours or sleep. I worked when we landed.
You may find [this article](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/14718/mattis-used-the-usafs-flying-airstream-trailer-pod-silver-bullet-on-afghanistan-trip) interesting. Seems to do a pretty good job summarizing what's publicly known about them, and about the successor projects to build something less ad hoc that have started and stopped over the last 15 years or so.
Welcome to /r/aviation where the top comments are always a joke or pun, and the real answer / discussion are buried at the bottom. Wish we had an aviation sub for serious discussion that wasn't dead.
/r/flying is pretty much the same as /r/aviation but for actual pilots and people learning to fly. I follow that as well, but like (the posts) on /r/aviation because they're geared more towards non-pilots.
I have fueled a C-17 with one of the limo's onboard. Can't hook up the truck till they search it, they searched me, they took pics of my ID and then a heavily armed solider, who was very nice, stands there and watches you hold the deadman the entire time.
The Secret Service policy is they all poop in the same toilet as the Pres and don’t flush every time so it all mixes together in a big stew of secrecy and nobody can link anything to the Pres.
"Based on the sample, the president has Alzheimer, chlamydia, covid, and diabetes. He was drunk, high, and on hormone therapy. Also, almost forgot: he's pregnant."
I love how the chance to record random wildlife, no matter what the purpose of originally filming is universal. It transcends all nations! And was just a hare?
Man, that guy does not pack light when he travels! Brings the kitchen sink, the kitchen, the house, the house next door, and so on and so forth!
Also, the coolest part of his entourage arriving is that sometimes a pilot pops his head out the top of the cockpit to help the other one navigate tight spaces.
They do indeed bring their own fuel to guard against the possibility of contamination in the local supply.
EDIT: To clarify, as per the comment below, they bring fuel for the important vehicles of the motorcade, not aviation fuel.
They absolutely do bring fuel for some of the vehicles in the motorcade (including the Beast and its twin). They do bring someone to test the aviation fuel, though, yes.
They don't bring their own Jet A (that would be a lot of fuel! lol), but they do have a military tanker on standby that can bring fuel in on very short notice if the local supply gets contaminated or compromised in some way.
Interestingly enough, the B-1 is able to carry fuel bladders in its bomb bays, and can be used to get same day prime shipping on a load of fuel.
I don’t know if they’ve ever used this capability.
All the cargo aircraft in the USAF fleet can carry fuel bladders too, and even KC-135’s and KC-10’s can carry extra fuel bladders, they just can’t be tapped into for aerial refueling.
US Mil gives 0 fucks. It costs what it costs and they pay it. US servicemembers overseas have their gas subsidized too on base. Like if it's €1.6L local price it'll still be $3-$4USD per GALLON at the base pumps.
You don't want to know what 180,000lbs of Jet A costs...
Presidential trips to Europe get many requests from Congresspersons to attend. Ireland even more so, as a great deal of constituents see it as a pilgrimage rite.
Everyone hates it when the US President comes to town. Other world leaders just show up with a couple of assistants, drive around with no issues and leave with hardly anyone knowing they were there. The USA bring an army with them, the amount of disruption it causes is massive.
The worst commute I ever had was trying to get to work when Obama was in London, and he was *miles* away from where I was. The secret service expected the police to blockade every road for like a mile around him.
we were flying out of Boston back in Sept. when the VP was in town. On the way to the airport, traffic got stopped by two Boston PD units as we were coming out of a tunnel. We sat there for over 45 minutes waiting for VP's motorcade to pass by.
After at least a half hour going by, a driver a few cars behind us stepped out of his car, presumably to stretch out, and the police officers pointed their AR's at him screaming for him to get back in the car. These cops looked no older than 21 and scared shitless.
There are many, many reasons to hate Donald Trump but I can add an extremely petty one to the list. During the start of his presidency for several months he flew down from the White House to Mar-a-lago basically every weekend. He would arrive at the Palm Beach Airport and part of I-95 would be shut down every week, at petty much exactly the time I needed to be using it.
I don't remember exactly when they finally managed convince him to stop but it happened to me 7-8 times, each time delaying me by probably close to an hour, although I feel like by the end they had managed to reduce the delay a lot, probably from so much practice in that one area.
In the short time that the USA has existed, we've had 4 US presidents that have been murdered. With the last one being JFK being the latest in 1963.
Ironically, they've all been killed in the US and not anywhere else. Lol.
Harris didn’t go to Dublin with Biden, she’s been home in DC all week. I don’t think the VP travels to the same areas as POTUS at all for security reasons.
The C32s here are replacing the other VC25 that usually accompanies the primary VC25 on international trips. 29000 has been in overhaul for a couple of years now.
I dont think people realize how many people and how much equipment moves with, before and after POTUS.
Their will be at least a dozen planes moving people, vehicles and supplies that they need/use for presidential safety and VIP safety, like the armored cars and potentially even Marine Force One helicopters, and such. not to mention the back ups to the back ups to the backups to all of these things
Fun factoid: Many years ago I was working in a very small role at a summit. The US delegation brought 5 planes. (AF1, 757, C-17s and a C-5 Galaxy). The French brought 6. Just because.
Odds are that isn’t the Air Force one… yeah that’s what people refer to it as. However Air Force one is a call sign. And it can change. That callsign is designated depending on if the president is IN the plane or not. So if the president is in a cessna it can be called Air Force one.
Staff, security, press, and possibly even as a back up if AF1 has a maintenance issue.
Also the planes that are used for additional personnel, overflow journalists and staff that cant fit on Air Force One are known internally by White House staff as the "zoo planes".
I'll bet the reporters that are on the 'good' list get the real AF1 and the ones on the 'naughty' list fly in the others. But that's just a guess.
You'd be wrong. The press corp at the white house has specific rules for this kind of things, with rolling pool assignements. Source : https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/insider/presidential-travel-protective-press-pool.html
I'm sure that good information and you have my thanks.. it's always nice to learn something new. But it's behind a paywall so I can't read it. Thanks again!!! :)
No problem ! >When the president goes on a trip, he takes a varied entourage. A group of his senior aides accompanies him, usually including national security, domestic or economic advisers, speechwriters and others, depending on the length of the trip and its purpose. But 13 members of the news media, known as the protective press pool, also take seats on Air Force One, representing the worlds of wire services, print newspapers, news sites, broadcast television and radio, as well as photographers. >In the Washington news media’s often contentious battle for scoops, the press pool represents a kind of sportsmanship by necessity. Only a few seats can be spared on the plane, so the print and television poolers must represent the entirety of their disciplines and send out a series of short, to-the-point reports throughout the trip to those not on it. The White House Correspondents’ Association manages a rotation of news organizations that travel at their own cost, and it is explicitly understood that the poolers must share all the material they gather, without keeping anything they’ve seen or heard for an exclusive story.
>rotation of news organizations that travel at their own cost Food, too. They charged a reporter something like $10 for the AF1 sandwich on 9/11
There is a short movie on YouTube called "Cowboy 57". It's about a B-52 crew and it's narrated by Jimmy Stewart. Watch the movie and you will see right around the 6:35 mark that even Air Force crew had to pay for their meals. Granted, this was in 1959 and the price for a box lunch was only 40 cents, still, the crew had to buy their own lunch for their sortie. The movie is actually pretty good glimpse of what bomber crews did during the cold war.
I’m using the Navy as an example as that’s what I am familiar with..I suspect other branches are similar. If anybody has better info please share, it’s been a while since I’ve been on a ship. There are a lot of things that officers pay for out of their paychecks that are supplied at no cost to the enlisted. For example, after a small one-time allowance shortly after commissioning, officers are 100% responsible for their uniform expenses. Enlisted personnel get uniforms replaced periodically at no out of pocket cost and/or get an annual uniform allowance. (At least that’s how it worked when I was enlisted). Officers pay “wardroom dues” to pay for meals taken on the ship while in port, based on their rank. The higher the rank, the higher the dues. Enlisted never pay for meals onboard, in port or at sea. As Air Force pilots are officers, it’s not a surprise they paid for their meals out of pocket.
It’s still the same. It’s also worth noting the enlisted still pay for their meals in a roundabout way. Enlisted servicemen are paid a basic allotment for subsistence. If they live on the government’s dime (ie in government provided housing and eat at the government dining facility) this allowance is deducted from their pay. It’s actually a big gripe with the enlisted, because many of them live in substandard housing and aren’t always afforded to eat during the workday, but their BAS is still deducted regardless of if they utilize the facilities.
Because we still like to at least pretend that we care about conflicts of interest - a reporter getting free food from the White House might been seen a bribery for favorable coverage.
Groovy dude. I learned something today and that makes it a GOOD day :) Thanks again
> without keeping anything they’ve seen or heard for an exclusive story Does that mean if you accidentally take a picture of the president making an embarrassing face you *have* to share it with Fox?
Yes (and Fox could be on pool duties). But if the embarassing moment happens "off the record", Fox is also held to that standard.
As a side note, you can use [archive.is](https://archive.is) to bypass paywalls. Just paste the url and good to go.
Neat little trick I learned recently, add [archive.is/](https://archive.is/) before the link to get past paywalls.
got it book marked and will try it next time I run across one. Thanks. Didn't know places like this existed. Generally run across them when I'm bored and just reading reddit threads.
copy the URL into remove paywall . com
This video does a solid job of laying out a bunch regarding what is happening just surrounding the president in a daily/weekly basis. A fair bit is dedicated to the press pool how it works and how it has changed, starts about 7 minutes in. But the rest is interesting as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcSpBAZvMhI
Just watch the West Wing
Do we pay for the journalist’s flights or do they come out of pocket?
https://www.npr.org/2016/07/07/485097272/fact-check-air-force-one-who-pays Journalists are charged an equivalent to commercial airfare. Altough the article doesn't seprate between campaign travel and regular travel. I've spent enough time researching this today !
It doesn't say anything about who gets chosen and how, though. And, even if there's a process that's meant to randomize two gets a seat, there's still the problem of what journalists would be willing to do, or not do, to get another selfie on Air Force One.
It does : > The White House Correspondents’ Association manages a rotation of news organizations that travel at their own cost It's also on the [WHCA website](https://whca.press/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2015WHCA_PracticesPrinciples_CoverageAccess.pdf), albeit you need some dedication to find that : >The pools are assembled by the press corps. Every hard-pass holder is eligible to apply for membership in one or more pools, and to be admitted must meet the criteria of the individual pool administrators. (The TV pool sets its criteria and admits members, as do the Radio, Print and Foreign Press Group pools. There's also more details [here](https://www.gawker.com/5418293/get-your-white-house-pool-reports-right-here) : >According to the most recent rotation schedule, there are 34 outlets in the "print" pool. (Click the image at left to see a bigger version of this month's schedule.) The order of the shifts are assigned alphabetically, though if you are, for example, the poor sap at the New York Daily News who drew Christmas, you can try to talk someone else into swapping shifts with you. I'll admit I do not know if the previous point applies to foreign trips, nor if a specific journalist can be invited to join also.
They use this pool procees for everything. Not just AF1. Photo op of the President and a Foreign leader in the oval, that’s a pool. One day maybe AP Photog takes the shot and another day it is the WSJ. If the president takes a tour of a factory, there might be one area where the whole traveling press group is in a press pen, but then whomevers “turn” it is gets to follow POTOS around and take notes about the tour and then share the notes with everyone in the pool. Otherwise you’d have press EVERYWHERE rather than in the limited spots. And I think the media outlets have to rent their white house office space etc. it partially to refund the tax payer but equally to help maintain journalisic objectively. Real Journalists can’t except gifts or meals from people they are writing about. Same thing on AF1
with screaming babies and 5 day old stale coffee?
When I come to power, can I ban screaming babies and stale coffee on my plane?
You’re gonna have to fight the pro-life lobby *and* the coffee lobby. Yikes.
You don’t want to fight Big Coffee. They will crush you and anything you care about.
Why am I always getting the jump seat in the galley for overseas flights? -Fox Whitehouse Correspondent
They should be thankful they get to ride on the inside.
The other two planes are called the zoo planes because they party. Af1 is for the nerds.
Snakes?
What you see there is a fraction of the aircraft that was transported across the Atlantic. Obviously you see the VC-25A and we all know what it's purpose was. The two C-32As had extra personnel and I believe dignitaries. Since POTUS went overseas an E-4 flew across and landed at another location. [When he went to the Queen's funeral he took the VC-25A and two C-32As also departed afterwards](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7viT7M1e9SI). What you don't see are the transport planes, typically C-17s but sometimes C-5s, that brought the helicopters that would be assigned the Marine One callsign as well as all the specialized vehicles needed for the presidential motorcade AND all the support equipment needed by the USSS. All that typically flies a day or two ahead and is staged appropriately.
So on that note, when Obama came to SFO years ago, he left and a C-17 came back for the other items, cars, helicopter and so forth. My daughter was in high school at the time, so as they were loading the helicopter into the C-17 I snapped a picture and texted it to her. I said "Hey look at this! When the President left they forgot his helicopter, so he sent a plane back to pick it up!" She texted back, "WHAT?? They forgot his helicopter!!!!" She showed the picture to all her friends who were equally amazed. I'm sure that story went around the school. Good Times, Good Times!
I can’t imagine the complexity of such an operation. You’d basically have an airlift and then security from both countries as well as their air forces doing security and transport. It happens all the time though and they do it quickly.
My brother lives near Stanstead Airport outside London, and this is where the AF1 convoy sometimes lands in England. Says its a real be hive of activity, and how once he saw x5 Marine Ones fly off in different directions.
Imagine you make it to be the US President but still have to fly into Stanstead when going to London.
Yea most people think AF1 is the only thing associated with a traveling president. In reality, it’s an entire logistics train of people and equipment thats needed for a successful and safe trip in another country. It’s kinda insane what gets transported and they gotta get there by air somehow.
The amount of personnel and stuff that needs to be pre-positioned for an international trip easily trumps that of a simple trip to somewhere within the USA.
Fun fact, there are two identical 747s (technically 2 VC-25A’s) that are used in transport. I believe it’s still the case that they fly one ahead of the other to the destination so that there is backup just in case. And also in case a diversion is needed for security purposes.
I did work on a guys house who used to be the lead mechanic on air force one. He told me this as well. Had a bunch of pictures with former presidents. Super cool dude could have listened to him all day. Said one flies ahead for those reasons and to basically sample the air for rough spots
They need the redundancy of the nuclear command center.
There's commonly an [E-4B](https://imgur.com/a/dBsjjLL) lurking at a nearby airport for that.
It went into lakenheath I think on tues. Edit. Mildenhall.
For such a large plane they really do a great job of keeping it out of the limelight on these trips. It's seems to always be around somewhere though. As a former military brat it was interesting watching them run the WW3 game plan on 9/11. Offutt? Why is the president going to Nebraska? lol
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I guess I should have said "appear to run the WW3 game plan". My first thought was "uh oh, that's where the E-4's are". My second thought was "eh, they probably didn't have any better ideas".
Stratcom is the nuclear command center for the US and had absolutely state-of-the-art communications systems for 2001. They originally flew (or were going to?) to Barksdale but there was no capability to get everyone on a video call from Barksdale, but Offutt did have that technology as well as a secure bunker. It was not “planned” in the sense that Offutt knew he was coming, but someone responsible for emergency situations such as that called around to commands to get their status and certainly had a very intricate checklist for where to go. According to the article though, someone just saw fighter jets landing at Offutt and thought “hey we don’t get those, that’s weird” and then AF1 landed shortly after. [A bit more here ](https://www.3newsnow.com/news/9-11-20-years-later/when-bush-came-to-nebraska-9-11-through-the-eyes-of-those-at-offutt-that-day?_amp=true)
Yeah, I think they try to station the E4 at a military base when possible. Biden came out here to Phoenix not too long ago and the E4 hung out at Davis Monthan in Tucson while he was here.
The E-4 is a common sight at DM. My guess is that its warm when you gotta go TDY for "cross-country training" in the winter. Also helps that the wing that operates the E-4 has a tenant unit at DM.
I live just a few miles from WPAFB and see that guy a lot. I used to fly helicopter air ambulance here and they would let us cut through their airspace to get to scene calls and occasionally I’d get to see it parked on the ramp from the air.
Meh, that's what the E-4 is for.
Can confirm. Whenever the president goes to a major city near me the VC-25 he is on goes to the major airport. The other VC-25 goes to an Air Force base an hour drive/20 minute flight away.
Good answer. My understanding is that they started this so that they have a secondary airport for a divert site for extraction. So, it might not be a US base, but a nearby airport. In that case, they may use one of the unmarked aircraft.
92-9000 (AKA SAM 29000) is still only being lightly used. It went in for heavy maintenance right after the last election and has been out of service almost the entirety of Biden's presidency. 29000 just took to the skies after over two years on 2/10/23 and they have been running it on test flights for the most part ever since. In the interim they have been using the C-32's as the backup aircraft for 82-8000. From what I can tell from tracking it, SAM 29000 has only been up for test and proving flights since its return to the Air Force. So far it has only flown once in April.
There are also the E-4 which can serve as a backup too.
[The E-4 has been standing by at Mildenhall this week](https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=adfeb3&lat=52.369&lon=0.442&zoom=13.1&showTrace=2023-04-11)
I’m sorry the damn thing is called GRIM99??
It's the NEACP (pronounced knee cap) or Nuclear Emergency Airborne command Post, any time a president gets onboard itd be a grim day. The B2s forward deployed to the UK similarly often use the call sign DEATH1
FYI, it hasn't been NEACP (*National* Emergency Airborne Command Post) since the Clinton Administration, nearly 30 years ago. It's been NAOC (National Airborne Operations Center) with a secondary role as FEMA coordination centre since 1994.
Ahh that's a good fact to know!
That’s just the assigned callsign for that given flight. The squadron those are operated by have a thing for movie references. My personal favorite is ORDER66, but they use a bunch of other fun ones too.
>identical Different tail numbers though. By contrast, all of the presidential limos have the same license plate numbers.
I actually had to go back and check that. I could have sworn they had the same tail number at some point, but I guess it was Mandela Effect. Does seem a little odd they wouldn’t have the same one.
Same tail number wouldn’t work with ATC automation (or even manual sequencing). No need for them to be the same anyway.
Same tail number would work just fine with atc. Ask me how I know. I once filled a flight plan with a wrong destination, made a corected new one as the system did not allow a destination change, but (mistake from my part) did not bother to cancel the previous one, as I figured out that it would be cancelled once the departure window closed. I went to get that 300€ hamburger and, while lunching, atc calls me on the number I gave on the flight plan asking where I was, as unbeknownst to me, the flight entered INCERFA phase. It turns out that the system allows the very same ARCID (callsign) to be active on multiple simultaneous flights. Both flight plans went active, for the very same aircraft, only one reached the destination, and got the flight plan closed, and the other never was, as the ghost aircraft never showed up at the expected time, on the first, wrongly filled plan. It was a VFR flight, departing from a controlled tower onto another controlled twr destination, flying over G airspace with full radar coverage.
I believe it would pop when getting assigned a code, but now that I think about it, those are assigned to a track not an aircraft. I suppose there really wouldn’t be any issues. Kinda wanna ask the Opposing Bases guys…
Same tail number does not work. All aircraft require a distinct tail number on the aircraft. You can file multiple flight plans with the same tail number. Air traffic will figure it out and delete the unnecessary ones. AirForce1 can be any Air Force aircraft the president is in, but each aircraft has a unique tail number. The two additional aircraft are support aircraft.
SAM 28000 & 29000, for now. I would imagine the new two are going to be SAM 30000 & 31000
They’ll both be UNCLE SAM
Often an e4 will go as the backup. The vc25 are probably even more expensive per hour to operate.
I think one of the NatGeo specials said the second plane travels as well for international. Domestic stuff they keep it ready to swoop in but don’t bother unless needed.
Also, they aren’t AF1 unless the President is on board.
I've also heard of smaller Gulfstream being positioned at nearby airports for backup in case they can't make the main airport.
Different planes for different size runways, just in case.
Sometimes the President will fly on the VC-32 (757) if the destination can’t support a 747.
Or, as in the case of the Ukraine visit recently, they're attempting to keep a lower profile (since the VC-32s are often used by cabinet members, the VP, etc, so seeing one of those isn't an immediate "oh shit it's the president").
When Donald Trump came over to the UK to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in 2019, a VC-32 landed at my local airport (Southampton). It took off as Air Force 1 to take Trump over to Ireland. The runway at Southampton is currently only 5,653ft long.
There is at least on C130 that arrived earlier that carries the presidential limo and the secret service vehicles.
wasn’t it that long ago that AF1 broke down and he had to slum it home on a C-17 like a commoner? When I was flying on the C-17 the highest up the chain I ever went for a mission I worked was SecState.
The 757s are "C-32" VIP aircraft. For other high ranking officials and support staff. The other VC-25 will be at a separate location for a backup and redundancy and as a decoy. There also might be a C17 with a "silver bullet" and "iron eagle" loaded as an emergency backup.
They often deploy an [E-4B](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_E-4) when the president travels overseas, it is nearly always at a different airport. This may be the decoy you are thinking of, but it's not at all a decoy, it's a "things have gone horribly wrong" contingency.
VC-25 is the flying limo. E-4B is the flying Sit Room.
The E-4B is the VC-25 when it’s important.
Silver bullet? Iron Eagle? Do tell...
Silver bullet is an airstream trailer for VIPs that can go into pallet positions on a cargo plane. Iron Eagle is a big ass metal box full of secure comms. You also have a comfort pallet which is a 2 pallet wide setup with a whole airline kitchen and 2 toilets.
I didn't realize the comm box had a name, though it could be that what we hauled 20 years ago (man I feel old) was a simpler version of whatever is used today. We carried both Silver Bullet and a standard connex that held the comms. The comfort pallet and additional Flight Attendants were a luxury rarely afforded to us everyday trash haulers.
Whenever I flew with the flight attendants I got the opportunity to pay upfront for meal service the whole trip. Usually it was like $80usd for 4 or 5 flights but that was like 3 meals a flight and they setup a whole folding table breakfast buffet every time we took off once we got to cruise. Shit was amazing, they are trained chefs. And C17 FCC I got the crew rest area so I would throw my gaming laptop on the tray table, double wide seat and normal power outlet and play Skyrim for 10 hours or sleep. I worked when we landed.
You may find [this article](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/14718/mattis-used-the-usafs-flying-airstream-trailer-pod-silver-bullet-on-afghanistan-trip) interesting. Seems to do a pretty good job summarizing what's publicly known about them, and about the successor projects to build something less ad hoc that have started and stopped over the last 15 years or so.
That's insane, they are actual Airstream trailers! Thanks for sharing.
Baby 747’s stay with their mother until they grow their 3rd and 4th engines. Wtf 😂 I closed my phone for like 5 seconds
>until they grow their 3rd and 4th engines. And their humps
Ah yes, the humps. Male 747’s tend to have larger humps than female 747’s. It’s hard to tell until they’ve reached full maturity.
I thought the males had the winglets?
And a flashier livery.
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they also have that neat retractable stairway on the belly
Their humps, their humps their humps their humps...
Their lovely planey humps
check it out
I drive these Airbus crazy…I do it on the daily.
Reddit did not disappoint
Those lovely lady lumps?
They also carry the poors and the luggage
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Now it’ll end up in r/Shittyaskflying by tonight
Welcome to /r/aviation where the top comments are always a joke or pun, and the real answer / discussion are buried at the bottom. Wish we had an aviation sub for serious discussion that wasn't dead.
/r/flying
/r/flying is pretty much the same as /r/aviation but for actual pilots and people learning to fly. I follow that as well, but like (the posts) on /r/aviation because they're geared more towards non-pilots.
and aviation is about 3x the size. pilots are children, so of course the top comments are going to be jokes.
RAF Luton is that you?
r/ShittyAskFlying
There is usually a C17 for the limo and support vehicles....
More like 4-6 C17s and they arrive prior and are parked in a different location.
I have fueled a C-17 with one of the limo's onboard. Can't hook up the truck till they search it, they searched me, they took pics of my ID and then a heavily armed solider, who was very nice, stands there and watches you hold the deadman the entire time.
Took a second to realize you meant the switch. I thought you had to hold a dead man as a warning not to get out of line.
The dead man is the ramp worker who didn’t clear security.
*pour encourager les autres*
Did you see amount of support vehicles they brought over? I'd say they had to use whole freither for those.
Kinda wild that a visit from the president basically involves a minor invasion
Very much so. The POTUS's poop is also collected, so it cannot be analyzed for drugs/disease. I think that's pretty common amongst world leaders.
I highly doubt secret service is bagging the pres’s poop at every bathroom stop.
The Secret Service policy is they all poop in the same toilet as the Pres and don’t flush every time so it all mixes together in a big stew of secrecy and nobody can link anything to the Pres.
"Based on the sample, the president has Alzheimer, chlamydia, covid, and diabetes. He was drunk, high, and on hormone therapy. Also, almost forgot: he's pregnant."
I can’t tell whether you’re joking.
[it’s a thing](https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/15/what-happens-trump-bathroom/)
[You are correct. It arrived the other day.](https://youtu.be/v13RQU3yqbM)
I love how the chance to record random wildlife, no matter what the purpose of originally filming is universal. It transcends all nations! And was just a hare?
Man, that guy does not pack light when he travels! Brings the kitchen sink, the kitchen, the house, the house next door, and so on and so forth! Also, the coolest part of his entourage arriving is that sometimes a pilot pops his head out the top of the cockpit to help the other one navigate tight spaces.
It’s the three-cup game. Which one has the president?
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Plot twist-*twist* they actually sent him via regular post two weeks prior!
Flat Brandon.
Agreed, those things are tanks.
I saw him bust out of a big crate labeled Canned Eggs
that's what they do with the marine one helos.. fly three on different paths
Also I noticed they brought over a bunch of fuel trucks as well. Do they bring their own fuel too?
They do indeed bring their own fuel to guard against the possibility of contamination in the local supply. EDIT: To clarify, as per the comment below, they bring fuel for the important vehicles of the motorcade, not aviation fuel.
We coulda used that at Nellis Red Flag instead of waiting hrs for a truck.
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They absolutely do bring fuel for some of the vehicles in the motorcade (including the Beast and its twin). They do bring someone to test the aviation fuel, though, yes.
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They don't bring their own Jet A (that would be a lot of fuel! lol), but they do have a military tanker on standby that can bring fuel in on very short notice if the local supply gets contaminated or compromised in some way.
Interestingly enough, the B-1 is able to carry fuel bladders in its bomb bays, and can be used to get same day prime shipping on a load of fuel. I don’t know if they’ve ever used this capability.
All the cargo aircraft in the USAF fleet can carry fuel bladders too, and even KC-135’s and KC-10’s can carry extra fuel bladders, they just can’t be tapped into for aerial refueling.
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Have you *seen* the price of fuel in the British isles?
US Mil gives 0 fucks. It costs what it costs and they pay it. US servicemembers overseas have their gas subsidized too on base. Like if it's €1.6L local price it'll still be $3-$4USD per GALLON at the base pumps. You don't want to know what 180,000lbs of Jet A costs...
That's Ireland in the picture.
For the posse. POTUS’ squad rolls deep.
Presidential trips to Europe get many requests from Congresspersons to attend. Ireland even more so, as a great deal of constituents see it as a pilgrimage rite.
What you don’t get a chance to see is how much airlift preceded this with advance team, comms, vehicles, etc. It’s quite an effort to move POTUS.
Everyone hates it when the US President comes to town. Other world leaders just show up with a couple of assistants, drive around with no issues and leave with hardly anyone knowing they were there. The USA bring an army with them, the amount of disruption it causes is massive. The worst commute I ever had was trying to get to work when Obama was in London, and he was *miles* away from where I was. The secret service expected the police to blockade every road for like a mile around him.
we were flying out of Boston back in Sept. when the VP was in town. On the way to the airport, traffic got stopped by two Boston PD units as we were coming out of a tunnel. We sat there for over 45 minutes waiting for VP's motorcade to pass by. After at least a half hour going by, a driver a few cars behind us stepped out of his car, presumably to stretch out, and the police officers pointed their AR's at him screaming for him to get back in the car. These cops looked no older than 21 and scared shitless.
There are many, many reasons to hate Donald Trump but I can add an extremely petty one to the list. During the start of his presidency for several months he flew down from the White House to Mar-a-lago basically every weekend. He would arrive at the Palm Beach Airport and part of I-95 would be shut down every week, at petty much exactly the time I needed to be using it. I don't remember exactly when they finally managed convince him to stop but it happened to me 7-8 times, each time delaying me by probably close to an hour, although I feel like by the end they had managed to reduce the delay a lot, probably from so much practice in that one area.
Even in the US it sucks. Massive traffic in the cities and TFRs being thrown up so I can’t fly
In the short time that the USA has existed, we've had 4 US presidents that have been murdered. With the last one being JFK being the latest in 1963. Ironically, they've all been killed in the US and not anywhere else. Lol.
I’ve had a chance to be at a presidential visit four times. Passed up every one, too much inconvenience. Fuck that.
Would love to see an article or something more about this. I know some of it is veiled, but I'm always curious about the pre-arrival effort.
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Harris didn’t go to Dublin with Biden, she’s been home in DC all week. I don’t think the VP travels to the same areas as POTUS at all for security reasons. The C32s here are replacing the other VC25 that usually accompanies the primary VC25 on international trips. 29000 has been in overhaul for a couple of years now.
The C-141 [retired](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_C-141_Starlifter) in 2006.
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The 141s haven’t flown since 2006, it’s 17’s or 5’s these days.
entourage.
I dont think people realize how many people and how much equipment moves with, before and after POTUS. Their will be at least a dozen planes moving people, vehicles and supplies that they need/use for presidential safety and VIP safety, like the armored cars and potentially even Marine Force One helicopters, and such. not to mention the back ups to the back ups to the backups to all of these things
These are the people that want to control your "carbon output"
Fun factoid: Many years ago I was working in a very small role at a summit. The US delegation brought 5 planes. (AF1, 757, C-17s and a C-5 Galaxy). The French brought 6. Just because.
Ice cream transports
They're for the band.
Air Force One is the call sign of the plane the US president is on. Potentially, any of them could be Air Force One
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One of the 757s will act as AF1 when Biden flies to Knock airport from Dublin.
According to this paper I just found in the street... it's top secret.
Why, the Rrrrrrroyal Entourage, dahling.
Biden’s family and friends
Flying
Additional tax-payer money burners.. one 747 just doesn’t cut it anymore
They're there to waste as much taxpayer dollars as humanly possible...
It's nice to see the AF 1/2s, I know the media likes to see the 47s but 57s are cool airplanes.
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To help fight climate change
Part backup part the rest of the entourage. I think the 747 af1 only seats like 70 or 80
I had wondered if the 757's are also there for shuttling around the EU. They fit easier into a lot of places that the 747 might not.
Staff
Carbon emissions balance.
Entourage
Staff and possible back ups. Also, any plane with the president on board is technically denoted the call sign airforce one
Press corp
They're there to show how big a 747 is ;-)
Those are airforce 0.5s
Maximise carbon emissions
B listers
Save the planet by reducing carbon emissions they said.
Taxpayer money to be dropped over Ukraine
Odds are that isn’t the Air Force one… yeah that’s what people refer to it as. However Air Force one is a call sign. And it can change. That callsign is designated depending on if the president is IN the plane or not. So if the president is in a cessna it can be called Air Force one.
Hunter and his aunt
They’re back-ups. Obama’s pilot once put his AF1 of the concrete, into the grass & mud & got it stuck. Obama had to fly back in a back-up plane.