Step aboard the SAM 26000 - the first jet-powered aircraft ever built for the president of the United States
President John F. Kennedy was the first to use the new presidential jet.
At Kennedy's request, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and industrial designer Raymond Loewy developed a new paint scheme for the plane.
Source: US Air Force
In addition to the blue and white colors they picked, the words "United States of America" were painted along the fuselage, and a US flag was painted on the tail.
Source: US Air Force
In June 1963, the plane flew Kennedy to Berlin, where he delivered his "Ich bin ein Berliner," or "I am a Berliner," speech.
During the flight into Berlin, "The Russians put MiGs (fighter planes) up on both our wings so we would stay in the corridor over East Germany to West Berlin. They didn't want us to spy," said Col. John Swindal, who became commander of Air Force One at the start of Kennedy's presidency.
Source: US Air Force
A few months later, on November 22, 1963, the plane was witness to a more tragic scene, carrying John F. Kennedy's casket back to Washington, DC, after his assassination in Dallas.
That afternoon, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson helped staffers pull the the casket into the rear of the plane, where seats had been removed to make space. Johnson was sworn in as president on the plane prior to takeoff.
Retired Air Force Master Sgt. John Hames, who worked as a steward on Air Force One between 1960 and 1975, was one of the crew members who helped remove seats to make room for the casket.
"We served a lot of beverages (Scotch) on the way back," Hames said in 1998. "It was a long ride back to Washington. Nobody wanted to eat. Mrs. Kennedy was in shock. She still had on the blood-stained clothes."
Source: CNN, The New York Times
"You can stand on that spot where President Kennedy's casket came in — you think about the horror of what was going on and the shock of what happened," Underwood said. "You can look forward toward the nose of the aircraft and know that's where the transfer of power took place, and you can see where Mrs. Kennedy sat near the body of her slain husband."
Source: CNN
After takeoff at 2:47 p.m., Swindal, Air Force One's pilot at the time, took the plane up to the unusually high altitude of 41,000 feet, which was the aircraft's ceiling.
Source: The New York Times, US Air Force
"He didn't have any idea whether this was part of a large conspiracy," Swindal's son said after his death in 2006. "He wasn't going to take any chances with a new president in the plane."
Source: The New York Times
The SAM 26000 played a prominent role in the presidencies after Kennedy as well.
In 1998, retired Air Force Master Sgt. John Hames, a steward on Air Force One between 1960 and 1975, said the SAM 26000 "was so much faster that we had less time to prepare meals, but we got the job done."
Kennedy was a "great person for soup. It was a comfort food for him," Hames told The Cincinnati Enquirer in 1998. "President Johnson was kind of different. He told me that any beef prepared aboard Air Force One had to be well done. He didn't care for rare beef the way the group from New England did."
Nixon "ate fairly light ... cottage cheese," Hames said. "President Ford ate almost anything, but he was in such a short time."
In 1964, Johnson invited reporter Frank Cormier and two colleagues into the plane's bedroom for an improvised press conference. Johnson, who had just given a speech under the hot sun, "removed his shirt and trousers," while answering their questions and then "shucked off his underwear" and kept talking while "standing buck naked and waving his towel for emphasis."
Source: CNN
In 1970, the plane shuttled Henry Kissinger, then Nixon's national security adviser, on 13 separate trips to secret peace talks with the North Vietnamese in Paris.
Source: US Air Force
In February 1972, the SAM 26000 flew Nixon to the People's Republic of China for his "Journey for Peace," making him the first US president to establish ties with the Communist-run country.
Source: US Air Force
As Nixon exited the plane in China, a "burly" aide "blocked the aisle" to keep staffers from following Nixon, Kissinger said later. Nixon didn't want anyone messing up his photo with the Chinese premier.
Source: CNN
Three months after ferrying him to China, the SAM 26000 took Nixon on an unprecedented visit to the Soviet Union.
Unsuccessful presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey was reportedly given a ride on the plane by President Richard Nixon, according to retired Chief Master Sgt. Stan Goodwin. During the trip between Washington and Minnesota, Humphrey made 150 phone calls to tell people he'd finally made it aboard Air Force One.
During a week of meetings with Soviet leaders, Nixon reached a number of agreements. One set the framework for a joint space flight in 1975. Another was the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT), which contained a number of measures to limit the manufacture of strategic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
Source: Encyclopedia Britannica, US Air Force
In December 1972, the plane was relegated to backup duty after the Air Force got another Boeing VC-137C with the serial number 72-7000.
Source: US Air Force
But the plane continued carrying high-ranking officials on important trips.
In October 1981, it took former presidents Carter, Nixon, and Ford on an uneasy trip to Egypt for the funeral of President Mohammed Anwar Sadat, who had been assassinated a few days before. Then-President Ronald Reagan did not attend because of security concerns.
Source: UPI
Secretary of State Alexander Haig, as Reagan's official representative, took the stateroom, leaving other officials with regular seats. The former presidents were "somewhat ill at ease," Carter said later.
Source: CNN
"It was one and only time that I'd seen three presidents and two secretaries of state standing in line to go to the men's room," said retired Chief Master Sgt. Stan Goodwin, who manned the radio on the flight. Things were also tense among staffers on the trip. They reportedly bickered over who got bigger cuts of steak at dinner.
Source: Ronald Kessler, CNN
But it was Nixon, whose resignation in 1974 led to Ford taking office, who "surprisingly eased the tension" with "courtesy, eloquence, and charm," Carter wrote later. Carter and Nixon's interaction on the plane led to them developing a friendship.
Source: Douglas Brinkley
In March 1983, the SAM 26000 carried Queen Elizabeth II during her visit to the US.
It left the presidential fleet in 1990, but continued to carry government officials on official trips.
Source: US Air Force
Before the Gulf War started in 1991, it took Secretary of State James Baker to talks with Iraqi leaders about the invasion of Kuwait.
Source: US Air Force
Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern who became embroiled in President Bill Clinton's impeachment in 1998, flew on the plane during a trip to Europe with Defense Secretary William Cohen.
Source: CNN
The SAM 26000's last time carrying a serving president came in January 1998, when it was called into duty to pick up Clinton.
The Boeing 707 that was acting as Air Force One got stuck in the mud at Willard Airport in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. The SAM 26000, waiting nearby as an alternate, was called in to pick up the president.
The SAM 26000 was officially retired in March 1998, after logging more than 13,000 flying hours and covering more than 5 million miles. While it made more 200 trips in 1997 alone, the lack of parts for the plane as well as its high exhaust and noise levels led to its retirement.
Source: CNN, The Cincinnati Enquirer
Then-Vice President Al Gore took the plane's final flight, traveling from Washington to Columbia, South Carolina. "If history itself had wings, it probably would be this very aircraft," Gore said after the trip.
Source: CNN, The Cincinnati Enquirer
In May 1998, the plane arrived at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. In a nationally televised event, the Air Force retired the plane and turned it over to the National Museum of the Air Force.
Source: US Air Force
In 2013, with the imposition of mandatory budget cuts called sequestration, the Air Force ordered the museum to save money, which led the museum to shut down the buses that took visitors to the plane.
Source: CNN
By 2016, however, the plane had become a centerpiece at the museum, with a prime location in a $40 million hangar that opened that summer.
Source: NPR
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