You’d think the last thing that the Secret Service would consider,
is transporting a US President inside a gangster’s car,
but they did! It was December 8th, 1941, only one day after the Pearl Harbour attack.
President Franklin Roosevelt needed to go from the White House to Congress to declare war on Japan,
but given the sensitivity of the situation, the presidential car was deemed unsafe, because it
had no protective armor or bulletproof glass. Apparently back then, the US Government was not
allowed to spend more than $750 on the purchase of any single automobile, and a bullet proof car cost
way more than that. This is according to Michael Reilly, Roosevelt’s head of Secret Service.
It just happened that the infamous gangster, Al Capone, had a vehicle
with bulletproof glass which had been seized 9 years earlier by the Treasury Department.
This is how Roosevelt became the first US President to ride in an armored vehicle.
Fast forward a few decades and a number of failed and unfortunately successful assassinations
attempts on US Presidents, and not only have we learned that a convertible is not a wise
choice for transporting a president, but now the White House is comfortable spending 300 to
400 million dollars each year, just to securely transport the President of the United States.
There are two vehicles in the presidential motorcade, which are quite unique … and
those are the presidential limousines. It’s estimated that the president has anywhere
between 16 and 20 of these. Sounds excessive, but it should all make sense in a minute.
Within each motorcade, there are a few dozen vehicles, anything from police cars and secret
service SUVs, to ambulances and the two identical limos. These two limos even have the same license
plate number. Which one does the president travel in? Your guess is just as good as mine.
These two limos have bomb-proof bottoms, bullet proof doors and windows,
and a variety of weapons onboard. No wonder this limo weighs between 15,000 to 20,000 lbs.
Two bags with the president's blood type are also carried onboard in case of an emergency.
But let’s say the president is campaigning, and has to visit multiple cities in one day,
which is not uncommon. Each city that the president travels to requires its own motorcade.
But because everything has to be in place prior to the arrival of the president in each of those
cities, all the required vehicles, including the two limos, are forward deployed to those cities.
Adding in some redundancy for maintenance and other unexpected circumstances, it’s not too
hard to see why the president would have so many limos. But here is the interesting part.
The costs associated with running a motorcade is huge, but actually not that significant – not
when you compare it to the cost of transporting the “secure package” in the first place.
The secure package is part of the motorcade made up of the two limos and a few Secret Service SUVs
that immediately surround the limos. Prior to the president leaving his house, the White House,
the vehicles that make up the secure package are loaded into C-17 Globemaster and sometimes C-5
Galaxy cargo planes. These heavy-transport aircraft belong to the US Air Force,
and as you can imagine, operating these giant birds is not cheap. We’re talking 100 grand
or more per flight hour. But things are about to get a lot more expensive for US taxpayers.
If the president needs to fly somewhere that is not too far from the White House,
Marine One lands in the South Lawn to pick him up.
Marine One is the call sign for any Marine helicopter that is carrying the president.
For longer distances, the President flies on Air Force One,
which again is a call sign when the sitting president is onboard an Air Force aircraft.
As you can see, there is a pattern in the call signs.
But let’s say the president wants to visit a farm in Kankakee, Illinois, which President
Biden did visit in May of 2022. First, Marine One would land in the South Lawn of the White House.
In less than 10 minutes, the president is dropped off in Andrews Air Force Base,
where he would typically go to hop on Air Force One.
Air Force One flies the president to Chicago O'Hare International Airport.
From there, it’s just a 75-mile drive to Kankakee. But that’s a waste of time for the president. He
actually flies from O’Hare International Airport to the Greater Kankakee Airport on Marine One. But
wait, how did Marine One magically show up in Chicago to pick up the president?
Another Marine helicopter had been previously loaded into a transport
airplane, and delivered to O’Hare, awaiting the president’s arrival.
Similarly, the secure package would have also been delivered to Kankakee airport,
waiting for the president to fly in on Marine One. Holy cow! You can see how a
simple farm visit can become so costly, and US presidents visit at least 100 cities each year.
The first Air Force One looked quite different from what we see today.
In August 1959, President Eisenhower became the first US president to fly on a presidential jet
plane. It was a modified Boeing 707 with the callsign SAM 970 where SAM indicated Special Air
Mission. But its red, orange and black livery, which was designed by the Air Force, made the
airplane look like a full-fledged military aircraft. That was until a famed industrial
designer named Raymond Loewy, who had designed things like the first Coca-Cola dispenser,
the Greyhound buses, and popular logos for Exxon and Shell, consulted the Kennedy administration
on a new color scheme for Air Force One. That’s how the current steel blue and water blue became
the look of the iconic Air Force One, and even Air Force Two, which carries the Vice President.
The two Boeing VC-25 airplanes which currently serve as Air Force One,
are a military version of the Boeing 747. One of them is just the President’s transport,
while the other is nicknamed the Doomsday plane. It’s basically a command center, where
the president and his team could operate from, including orders to launch nuclear weapons. Both
airplanes are believed to be able to withstand electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear detonation.
But Air Force One was not always called Air Force One.
Previously, the airplane's actual call sign would be used, even when the president was onboard.
But in 1953, when Eastern Air Lines 8610, a commercial flight, crossed paths with Air Force
8610, which was carrying President Eisenhower, it became obvious to everyone involved that a unique
call sign would greatly reduce confusion. The Air Force One designation became official in 1962.
Over the years, this designation has expanded to Marine One, Army One,
Navy One, Ground Force One, and even the unofficial “Rail Force One”. You
can probably guess what each of those call signs refer to, but have you heard of Executive One?
The story of Navy One is interesting, because only one aircraft has ever been designated as Navy One,
and that was a Lockheed S-3 Viking which transported President George W. Bush to
aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1st, 2003. That “Mission Accomplished” banner
was in reference to the invasion of Iraq which had begun 6 weeks earlier. George W.
Bush is the only US President to have come to a full stop, with the help of an arresting cable!
Ground Force One refers to the black armored bus that
carries the US president when he has to be on the road for longer periods.
There are actually two Ground Force Ones which the Secret Service purchased for a sweet $1.1
million dollars each when President Obama was campaigning for his second term in office.
One of the features of this bus is its run-flat tires.
Conventional tires use pressurized air to support the weight of the vehicle, but when the tire is
punctured, air escapes and the weight of the vehicle can no longer be supported.
A run-flat tire also uses pressurized air to support the vehicle's weight but it also has
a backup. It has sidewall supports which are designed on the molecular level to resist the
buildup of heat and maintain their shape under pressure. So even though the tire may lose air,
the vehicle can continue driving for tens of miles before the repair can be performed.
Rail Force One is not an official designation. It was used to refer to the overnight train
that took President Biden from Poland to Ukraine to visit Kyiv in February 2023.
And finally, Executive One is the call sign used when a president is on a civilian aircraft.
This is not a common occurrence for obvious security reasons, but on December 26th, 1973,
then-President Richard Nixon became the only sitting president to travel on a
regularly scheduled commercial airline. But why would Nixon do such a thing?
This was at a time when there was fuel shortage across the US, so Nixon and his family supposedly
flew the commercial flight from Washington to California to save taxpayers money. But
it was all a photo op. Air Force One ended up flying to California empty, because regardless,
it had to pick up the president and bring him back to Washington, after the holidays!