One man's quest to restore the first-ever Air Force One | Hacker News Reader

One man's quest to restore the first-ever Air Force One

atlasobscura.com

252 pointsrmason68 comments

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...

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...

I’m pretty there are two you can walk through. I only remember because the smaller one was a really tight squeeze.

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.

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...

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

They also have a rather large space museum. Unfortunately a lot it is filled with old rockets though.

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.

They also have a portrait of the Gipper made from his favourite snack: Jelly Beans!

A friend used to work there. Everything anyone sent to Reagan is in there somewhere.

They'd have to get me a fake thermometer too.

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.

Just like the temperature controls in some offices I've worked in.

Oh wait, that's the "abominable shower" guy!

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

Yesterday, I learned most all outdated presidential limos are destroyed and so aren't present in any museum.

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.

JFK’s limo is still being displayed

https://www.grunge.com/827864/what-happened-to-the-car-jfk-w...

Wow, I had no idea that they just repaired it and kept using it as a presidential limo until 1977. That's wild!

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.

The earliest presidential limo was taken from the mob. Not sure what happened to the early ones. The last several generations were/are mostly custom vehicles designed by GM. Jay Leno had a whole mini documentary on the subject. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=thZX9zHwodk

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...

There is one not even far from me: https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g55649-d...

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.

For those of us not in-the-know about national intelligence acronyms:

SCIF = Sensitive compartmented information facility

> SCIFs with wheels and an engine

Can the typical SCIF withstand RPGs and ATMs ? Asking for a friend.

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.

They're not so much "destroyed" as they're "endurance tested to EOL".

It's a valuable opportunity to test the outgoing vehicles which are usually a previous iteration of new vehicles.

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

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

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 ...

I really wanted this to be about the sneaker.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Isn't that intentional?

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.

I think you're right about "most of the aviation industry". From a regulatory approach if they ever approve a new GA powerplant and something happens, they'll be considered responsible. So long as they don't approve anything it's unlikely to come back on them.

It doesn't hurt that some of the industry loves selling 1930s technology at a premium price.

> From a regulatory approach if they ever approve a new GA powerplant and something happens, they'll be considered responsible.

I don't think this is the problem. GA is a fringe phenomenon anyway. Look at what happened with the 737MAX. The FAA hardly got any of the flak and they didn't even care enough to certify it themselves, they just let Boeing sign off on their own product.

If something happens with a GA powerplant no way anyone would blame the FAA. It didn't even happen for the 737MAX where hundreds of people literally died. And for GA the damage/life-loss impact would be much much lower.

It's just the cost, if you make 1000 jet engines a year that sell for $10 million each then yeah it's easily justifiable. If you sell 500 GA engines for $100k it's much harder.

Look at Rotax for example. They're doing good business, their engines are much more modern than Lycoming and the like, they run on unleaded petrol, and they are reliable workhorses. But the ultralight market simply has much lower regulatory requirements. This is why innovation still happens.

I think it's time to stop holding a 4-seater 100 knot cruise aircraft to the same standards as a 300 seater jet airliner. It'll be good for safety because people will actually use things designed in this century, good for the environment and good for aviation in general.

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.

$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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

You would think the Smithsonian would want it. Glad someone is trying to get it restored.

very true. strange.

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."

A beautiful plane.It is to bad they are not flown anymore. Glad to see someone caring for a piece of history.

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.

Modern planes aren't shaped like that for two reasons:

1) It was expensive to build

2) It looks like Quasimodo

Isn’t this like a case of “Ship of Theseus”?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

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.

It reads like it's the Airplane of Theseus...

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.

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.

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.

How is there this much money in Bridgewater, VA, which is apparently a college town near JMU?

Separately the website won't load images if you're using an ad block. Sigh...

Worked fine for me with uBlock Origin.

What a beauty!

I thought it was the Nike shoes lol

Reddit quality comments...

This is the single worst HN comment thread I've seen in 5 years.

> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.

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