AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024 - 53

he callsign Air Force One is assigned to any U.S. Air Force aircraft
in which an incumbent U.S. president is traveling. The
first such airplane was Columbine II, a Lockheed Constellation
used by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and named after the
state flower of Colorado, the adopted home of Eisenhower's
wife, Mamie. This now iconic callsign was created in 1954 after
Columbine II-which had been called Air Force 8610 because of
its tail number-crossed paths over Richmond, Virginia, with a similarly numbered
Eastern Airlines Flight 8610 at a time when the president was aboard
the Connie. The subsequent use of " Air Force One " was and remains intended
to prevent future callsign confusion and hazard.
Eisenhower had purchased a 189-acre working farm in Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, when he left the Army, a retreat for himself and Mamie. The
farm is on the southwest edge of the battlefield where Pickett's Charge took
place against the Union Army on the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg (July
3, 1863) during the Civil War.
After winning the 1952 presidential election, Eisenhower asked his pilot,
Col. William Draper-Ike's pilot since World War II-to find a way for him to
regularly travel between the White House and his 150-mile-distant farm while
in office. A motorcade was ruled out because it would be too expensive and
logistically difficult. The Secret Service would not yet allow a sitting president
to fly in a helicopter because it was not yet considered safe. Draper recommended
using a light twin capable of operating from the farm's 2,500-foot-long
grass strip even though the Secret Service had previously insisted that a presidential
airplane should have four engines. Four general aviation airplanes
were considered: an Aero Commander 560A, a Beechcraft Twin Bonanza, a
Cessna 310, and a Piper Apache.
The Aero Commander won the competition and became known as an
L-26B, the airplane's military designation. It was the smallest airplane ever
to carry a sitting president and obviously the smallest airplane to be called
" Air Force One. " Factory drawings of the airplane were labeled Ike's Bird,
a nickname for the airplane that stuck. Fifteen of these airplanes were
eventually procured by the Air Force. The first seven were assigned to the
White House, and the remaining eight were intended for VIPs and other
uses. All the Aero Commanders rolled off the Bethany, Oklahoma, assembly
line without any modifications whatsoever except for the Air Force color
scheme. The Polar White and Baltic Blue colors were borrowed from the
1954 Oldsmobile. The airplanes were then based at Bolling Air Force Base
in southwest Washington, D.C.
Originally based at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., Ike's Bird now resides
at the headquarters of the Commemorative Air Force (above left) at Dallas Executive
Airport (RBD). The logo for Ike's Bird (above) was designed by the CAF.
AOPA PILOT / January 2024
53
AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2024
