United States of America

[san-i-T]

Driving home from Wal*mart last night I could see bright lights at our small Sanford, Maine airport. So, we checked it out. There were people sitting in lawn chairs and kids hanging on the fence all staring at the runway.

She was sitting out there under the spot lights in total darkness. Never thought I would say an airplane looked beautiful! It was touching for the president left to be with his family hours ealier.

 

[Lee_in_KC]

Are you talking about Air Force One? She is indeed a beautiful airplane. We just had her (and her main passenger) here on May 29. Here is a shot out my office window (I'm the airport manager)...

 

[tfeverfred]

Nice! How cool would it be to be in a plane that had launch capability for all our warheads!

 

[san-i-T]

Yes, I was talking about AIR FORCE ONE ! Nice picture. Now I can go outside and hear the rumble of the fighter jets 24 hours a day as they fly between Sanford and Kennebunkport [his dads summer home] but they fly high enough that its hard to see them, unless someone trys to fly near Sanford then you see the fighter jets force them down. Which happens a couple of times each time the president is here.

 

[der Spieler]

I saw her a few times. The first was in the early 70s when I was stationed at Ellington Field in Houston and Nixon came in for a visit. The second was when I was stationed at Tempelhof Central Airport in West Berlin when Carter came. The third time was on 9/11/01. I was a salesman at the time and I got a late start that morning because the events at the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon that morning had kept me pretty well glued to the TV. That afternoon I was traveling along a lonely two-lane highway in eastern Iowa and looked up and saw contrails in the eastern sky. At first it didn't register but as I drove on I realized that the contrails were from Air Force One. When the terrorist struck the SCATANA plan (Security Control of Air Traffic and Air Navigation Aids) was enacted barring any civilian aircraft from flying. The only aircraft allowed to fly were military. Bush, who I believe was in Florida at the time of the attack, was flown first to Louisiana (I think Barksdale AFB near Shreveport) then to Offutt AFB before flying back to Washington. The aircraft I saw that day could only have been Air Force One on its way back to Andrews.