It's Not Your Standard 747

Pimping the Presidential Ride
How do you build a huge private jet like Air Force One? In this case, you start with a 747 - one of the biggest airplanes in the world. The president's 747 has three decks, or levels. You can think of it as a three-story house with 4,000 square feet of floor space. An average-size house in the United States has about 2,000 square feet of floor space, so you can see that Air Force One is about as big as two houses. Engineers divide that space into all the rooms and compartments that the president needs in this home away from home.

Like a regular 747, the top speed for Air Force One is between 630 and 700 miles per hour. The plane can fly as high as 45,000 feet. Each plane carries 50,000 gallons of fuel and weighs 833,000 pounds fully loaded for a long-range mission. With a full tank, the plane can fly half way around the world.

Protecting the President
Because Air Force One carries the president of the United States, it has some special equipment that you don't find on most jets. For one thing, Air Force One can handle aerial refueling, which means that it can connect to a giant fuel tanker plane while flying. In a major emergency, Air Force One could keep flying for days.

Fighter planes escort Air Force One wherever it goes. These Air Force jets have the missiles and guns needed to shoot down any attacker. There may also be a radar plane nearby to help spot those attackers. But, since it is possible that someone could shoot a missile before the fighters could react, Air Force One has a flare system and a radar jamming system. Most missiles use heat-seeking systems to hit a plane in midair. The flares act as decoys to distract a missile and take it off target. Other missiles home in using radar. A radar jamming system sends out fake radar signals to blind the missile.

There are actually two jets called Air Force One. They are nearly identical Boeing 747-200B jets, and they allow the President to fly even if one of the planes needs maintenance. The planes themselves are designated VC-25A. The way you tell the difference is to look at the tail numbers. One is labeled 28000 and the other 29000.

Getting Down to Business
The front of Air Force One holds the president's suite, but the rest of the plane is meant for business. When you board Air Force One, immediately in front of you are staircases to the upper and lower decks, along with a small lounge area.

To your right, the plane looks like an office suite. You walk down a hallway past the galley (kitchen). This kitchen is able to serve a hundred people at a time. Freezers on the lower level hold up to 2,000 meals. There are relaxed seating areas across from the galley. Just past the galley, is a large conference room that takes up nearly the entire width of the airplane. It comes complete with a large conference table, TV sets and computers, and sectional seating along the walls. This is the biggest room on Air Force One; it's about 15 feet wide and 30 feet long. This room can comfortably accommodate 20 people.

Image courtesy DoD. Photo by PH1 CAROL CLINE http://www.defenselink.mil/ A left side view of Air Force One parked (VC-25A aircraft) on the tarmac at NAS Norfolk.

Past the conference room, is a workroom with tables and chairs for smaller meetings. Beyond that, is the rear seating area and restroom. This seating area is set up with rows of seats like those that you might find in a First Class cabin of a commercial jet.

The upper deck is smaller and contains the airplane's cockpit, a second galley and a lounge area. A communication room filled with equipment and computers takes up most of the space on this deck.

There is equipment everywhere on the plane. For example, Air Force One has 85 telephones. There are televisions, fax machines and computers everywhere. The phone system is set up for normal air to ground connections and secure lines to the Pentagon. No matter where Air Force One is flying, the president can reach just about anybody in the world while cruising tens of thousands of feet in the air.

The onboard electronics include about 238 miles of wiring (twice the amount you'd find in a normal 747). Heavy shielding is tough enough to protect the wiring and crucial electronics from the electromagnetic pulse associated with a nuclear blast. This is important because during a nuclear explosion, the electromagnetic pulse given off would disable the electronics of anything nearby, including airplanes.