Air Force One

Big John wrote:

Optimum is to hook number three wire. If you don't get
#3 wire, the LSO (Landing Signal Officer) doesn't give
you a top grade for the landing.

You don't really think any LSO on the platform
was going to let Navy 1 go the *slightest* bit
low, do you?

Dave "(HAW) OK 4" Hyde

"TMOliver" wrote in message .. .

The DC-6/C-118 operated by the USAAF for President Truman came
courtesy of Donald Douglas with a glamourous stylized blue eagle
paint job, so JFK & Loewy weren't first (and the current VC-25
paint job is really somewhat diffrent than the first Boeing 700
series presidential a/c.

I was referring to specifically the 707's before they were re-painted.

The following is the only picture I could find of the old paint job.
It doesn't begin to show how ugly it really was.
http://www.rediscoveredpaper.com/graphics/af1photo.jpg

Actually, the Loewy scheme looks much better on the 707 than it
does on the whales.

Dave

I'm sure they didn' t want him in the "spud locker" (or on the ramp)
but a 'bolter' would have looked bad on camera so they probably rode
the 'ball' just a little high and missed #3 G

Big John
Point of the sword

On Thu, 10 Jul 2003 20:03:10 GMT, Dave Hyde wrote:

Big John wrote:

Optimum is to hook number three wire. If you don't get
#3 wire, the LSO (Landing Signal Officer) doesn't give
you a top grade for the landing.

You don't really think any LSO on the platform
was going to let Navy 1 go the *slightest* bit
low, do you?

Dave "(HAW) OK 4" Hyde

Good grief. There is no reason to paint Air Force One blue and white
in such an elegant design, either. Why not olive drab? For that
matter, why not a C-5A?

Because despite the fact that the plane is operated by the Air Force and the president
is cic of the military, we feel that a more "civilian" approach to presidential trips is a
better image.

Right. It looks better that way. And arriving on an aircraft carrier
in a navy jet looked better than arriving in a helicopter. And
arriving in a flight suit looked better than arriving in a business
suit.

It looked good! It was fun! It was good politics!

Get over it, Senator Byrd & Co.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at http://www.danford.net/index.htm
Vietnam | Flying Tigers | Pacific War | Brewster Buffalo | Piper Cub

Cub Driver writes
Right. It looks better that way. And arriving on an aircraft carrier
in a navy jet looked better than arriving in a helicopter. And
arriving in a flight suit looked better than arriving in a business
suit.

It looked good! It was fun! It was good politics!

UK politicians do this kind of thing too. Mrs. Thatcher visited the
Falkland Islands in January 1983. Mr. Blair has recently visited Iraq.

For myself I don't much like this kind of stunt. It usually smacks of
the politicians trying to catch some reflected glory from a recent armed
conflict. The politicians should reflect that they have put their
country's armed forces in harms way while facing little or no risk to
themselves.
--
Simon Elliott
http://www.ctsn.co.uk/

"TMOliver" wrote in message .. .


It's time for a new contest, "Paint the Big Bird!"

Besides, both JFK and Loewy have been dead for a while, so who's gonna
complain?

TMOliver wrote in message ...
[snip]
....and sadly, amusingly or whatever, one of the great
stimulants involved in the rise of Enron was the frequent
personal presence of Ken Lay....
[snip]

One of the more interesting complaints around here a couple
of division presidents ago was that, for all the general
loathing people had for the man, a top objection was
"...and ya never see him around here". They don't have to
like ya to expect ya to show up once and a while. "Showing
the flag" I think they call it.

TMOliver writes
For myself I don't much like this kind of stunt. It usually
smacks of the politicians trying to catch some reflected
glory from a recent armed conflict. The politicians should
reflect that they have put their country's armed forces in
harms way while facing little or no risk to themselves.

....As a former serving officer (and once a corporate exec), I
could not disagree more.

One of my first memories of active service was a visit by JFK to
an Atlantic Fleet exercise, and in my life to have seen "in
person"(and in several cases close enough to shake hands with)
FDR, Truman (through a wet car window dimly), Eisenhower, JFK,
LBJ (on several occasions, during which one inescapably became
aware of the enormity of his "presence"), Ford, Reagan and both
Bushs, the elder to sit next to and talk with during an extended
lunch and speechifyin' long before he became President, count as
memorable moments (especially in a land of far more than 200
million).

Certainly, the mire of politics inevitably muddies the traveling
leader's hem, but both history and an even better judge, popular
literature, provide all the evidence needed to support the
contention that heads of state (in the case of the US) have an
obligation no less than that of a hereditary sovereign to
visibly and demonstrably appear in environments which convey the
iamgery of leadership.

While Mr Churchill may have been one to overplay that sort of
card, and Ms. Thatcher looked a bit out of place in the Falkands
(or for that matter, just like my elementary school principal,
when I saw her on TV on the Front bench), Le Gran Charles
carefully cultivated (out of absolute necessity for without the
Army he was without a base) the austere image, unadorned kepi,
decorationless military tunic, and wore it in public and on the
parade grounds of damn near every unit in the French forces.

The "working edge" of every military force since before Xenophon
is young, impressionable, politically naive, and substantially
swayed by the trappings of leadership.

Talking to many of my fathers' generation who served in WW2 and Korea,
they seemed pretty cynical about their experiences, and if anything
despised the trappings of leadership. But it's possible that the
cynicism was acquired later, when they returned to the UK and found that
those who had stayed at home had done much better for themselves.

But I have this strong feeling that, although most of them say that it
was all a load of ********, if they had their time again most of them
would still do it all over again.

I'm afraid that your
perspective is all too cynically civilian, and that while
Thatcher's trip to the South Atlantic or Bush on a CV or
certainly political photo-ops, there equal significance is to
stimulate among the troops the same sort of magic which the Bard
provided for the Harry, esprit d'corps.

An interesting angle, and one which I hadn't considered, nor discussed
with my various friends and acquaintances in the armed forces. (Most of
them ex armed forces these days. None of us are getting any younger.)

I'd suspect that this is even more important in a conflict which has
limited support at home. It would pretty demoralising to feel that even
the political leaders who had put your neck on the block were distancing
themselves.

Am I correct in thinking that the president of the US is also the
commander in chief of the armed forces? If so, maybe this adds some
further nuance to presidential visits to the troops?
--
Simon Elliott
http://www.ctsn.co.uk/

Simon Elliott iterated.....



Am I correct in thinking that the president of the US is
also the commander in chief of the armed forces? If so,
maybe this adds some further nuance to presidential visits
to the troops?

.....and there you have one of the less well recognized
differences between the US and UK "systems". Not only is POTUS
CinC (and indirectly able to exercise command, even occasionally
tactical command, not necessarily a good thing), but he/she's
also controls the purse strings and as in the case of your
sovereign occupies a more spirtual position, "Colonel of the
Regiment" in a tradional sense.

FDR had been Ass't Secretary of the Navy (and because of his
successor's rare public apperarance, in essence the service's
visible spokesperson). JFK and Bush41's naval years provided
them particular cachet with that service (while as a submariner,
Carter - already suspect - had belonged to a uniquely suspect
community in the eyes of many naval officers). Can you imagine
how "The General" was treated by the Army throughout his
presidency and twilight years? Rumsfield is a former Navy
carrier aviator. Even Reagan whose closest brushes with combat
were in front of the lenses of training films, had this mutual
love affair with the military.

Nixon, on the other hand, an (according to the records)
absolutely superior naval officer, had little or no rapport with
the forces. I suspect that it was because he was a "Porkchop",
an officer in the Navy's Supply Corps, just as Paymasters and
Mess caterers were regraded in your own country's forces during
WWII.

Even Bush43's brief pilotage stint in the Texas Air National
Guard raises his relationship with the military. After all,
ALincoln was a militia volunteer in the Blackhawk War...

Asst't Navy Sec. T. R. Roosevelt "made" himself a military
career, while among the least military of US Presidents,
Jefferson could always cite having served (and well if not
always effectively) in the Revolution.

.....But then, I must admit that having Bob Hope and an almost
juvenile Ann Margaret come aboard for a Christmas show in Naples
Bay was better'n a presidential visit...

TMO

Thank God, we've never had a Marine....

TMOliver writes
(while as a submariner,
Carter - already suspect - had belonged to a uniquely suspect
community in the eyes of many naval officers).

I've read that there was a US Naval Directive during WW2 which ensured
that the contribution of US submariners to the defeat of Japan was
suppressed. The suggestion was that in those bygone days all admirals
were battleship admirals at heart. I didn't realise that submariners
were still considered suspect in the eyes of USN. Why do you think this
is?

....But then, I must admit that having Bob Hope and an almost
juvenile Ann Margaret come aboard for a Christmas show in Naples
Bay was better'n a presidential visit...

It seems that there are compensations in a naval career...

Thank God, we've never had a Marine....

The Bill Mattocks for president?
--
Simon Elliott
http://www.ctsn.co.uk/