Air Force One

Flying corps One

By Robert F. Dorr

2002, MBI Publishing Company

Hardcover, 156 pages, $29.95
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Previous president Theodore Roosevelt wasn't planned for a biplane ride in 1910, yet as he told a journalist a short time later, "You know, I didn't mean to do it, yet when I saw the thing there, I couldn't avoid it." That was only seven years after the Wright siblings' noteworthy flight at Kitty Hawk.

The primary sitting president to take to the air was the other Roosevelt, FDR, who flew over the Atlantic to meet with Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1943. For that memorable meeting he rode in a seaplane, a four-motor Boeing 314 called the Dixie Clipper.

Avionics and American history buffs will discover an abundance of such detail in Air Force One, a reference book chronicling the greater part of the flying machine appointed to transport the U.S. presidents. Creator Robert F. Dorr, a U.S. Aviation based armed forces veteran and resigned representative, has been expounding on military flying machine for quite a long time and conveys his years of mastery to endure in this attractive foot stool book. With more than 150 shading and high contrast photos, the definitive volume permits you to move on board and catch a look at what goes ahead off camera of the flying White House.

Dorr was on board SAM 27000, a Boeing 707-353B, on its last flight from Andrews AFB, Maryland to San Bernardino, California on September 8, 2001. This well known Air Force One had flown each American president since 1972. It conveyed Richard Nixon to China, Jimmy Carter to Germany (to meet the Iran prisoners after their discharge) and George W. Shrubbery to Texas. At San Bernardino the memorable air ship was dismantled and trucked in pieces to Simi Valley, California where it is currently on changeless show at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Today, two indistinguishable Boeing 747s, an uncommon military form of the well known traveler plane, wear the forcing presidential attire of Air Force One. The first of the twins was conveyed (15 months late) to the 89th Airlift Wing in August 1990, the second followed in December. The main president to fly in it was George H.W. Shrub on a trek to Topeka, KS in September, 1990.

Here's a photograph subtitle under a great shot of the colossal flying machine lifting off:

One Air Force officer depicted Air Force One as "heavenly... like a voyage ship." The high approach is made conceivable by the huge push of the four General Electric F103-GE-180 turbofan motors, each evaluated at 56,750 pounds push. In spite of the fact that the air ship is not efficiently fit for it, the motors are sufficiently intense to stand the 747 on its tail and make it climb straight up.