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We all know how the supreme leader fly's all over the place in AF1 for wasteful/unnecessary purposes......

Got me to thinking again......(oh NO )

How many aircraft required to fly all the vehicles/people for the motorcade around?

Just AF1 flying around is a wasteful exercise, just wondering what the real expense is?

And I don't even want to get into Hillary's travel costs to do absolutely nothing useful during her entire time as Sec of State.

AEA wrote:And I don't even want to get into Hillary's travel costs to do absolutely nothing useful during her entire time as Sec of State.

Hey now. At least she was keeping the seat warm until someone competent comes along.

Haven't been involved in quite a few years, but back in the 90's they usually just flew the main limo(s) in. All other stuff was normally driven to the location and came in with the pre-visit teams.

There's normally a C17 tagging along with the limos, escort vehicles and support teams. I suspect the further away they go, the more they bring, so two might be needed for an overseas trip.

If you travel by air alot and happen to see a really big, obviously military transport sitting at an airport, you should take a peek at the news. It may mean that the White Whale is either there too or on its way. A while back, I did a short trip to New Orleans and noticed what I thought was a C5 on the field (it was so long ago it may have been) and really didn't think about it. The next day we got stuck when WJC was departing NOLA in AF1. Although we were taxiing, when AF1 is ready to go, they shut down everybody on the airport wherever you are. We had a Captain that told us the procedures, told us where to look to see "the White Whale" take off and added a few remarks about William Jefferson that left no doubt that he hadn't voted for him either time.

Since then I've paid more attention to what's on the field and have crossed paths with the VP and President once each, both times tipped off by the big AF Transport parked on the apron.

Jeff B.

AEA wrote:How many aircraft required to fly all the vehicles/people for the motorcade around?

Jeff B. provided a good answer but I'd like to add that if you get a chance to see the History Channel documentary on the new Air Force One that was commissioned post 9/11, it covers all this stuff in detail. It's really fascinating.

Whether you like the guy flying around in the thing or not, you have to respect the amazing level of competence displayed by everyone who has anything to do with the plane. Whenever people grouse about how all government employees are incompetent, I sure wish I had a DVD of that documentary to hand 'em.

benenglishtx wrote:

AEA wrote: Whether you like the guy flying around in the thing or not, you have to respect the amazing level of competence displayed by everyone who has anything to do with the plane. Whenever people grouse about how all government employees are incompetent, I sure wish I had a DVD of that documentary to hand 'em.

When I was serving with the USAF, an opening for an information specialist/broadcaster came up in the 89th MAS ( the squadron that takes care of AF1 and all of the other official VIP aircraft at Andrews AFB. The qualifications to get the assignment were extremely stringent, down to the ability to receive a Top Secret /Compartmentalized clearance -and they don't give those things out to many folk. needless to say, I didn't get the assignment, but didn't feel too bad about that when I found out that there were almost 100 applications for that one posting.

The 89th rocks!

This was the view at a large Carolina airport when Barry dropped in for a couple of hours. "Battleground State."

One from McGuire, the other from Charleston.

AF1 landing was not particularly disruptive. They moved up some flights, and we were delayed a few minutes taking off.