Step aboard the SAM 26000 - the first jet-powered aircraft ever built for the president of the United States
US Air Force
On October 19, 1962, Boeing delivered a highly modified version of the civilian 707-320B airliner with the serial number 62-26000. It would be tasked with Special Air Missions, and its call sign would be "SAM Two-six-thousand."
It was the first jet aircraft built specifically for use by the US president, whose presence prompted the call sign to change to "Air Force One," which had been adopted in 1953 for use by planes carrying the president.
The SAM 26000 would carry eight presidents during its 36-year career - John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton - as well as countless heads of state, diplomats, and dignitaries.
"A person could justify that it's the most important historical airplane in the world," Air Force historian Jeff Underwood told CNN in 2013. "It's a place in history that moves. Every time I get on board, that's what I think about."
Below, you can take a tour through the SAM 26000, which is now on display at the National Museum of the Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio.
President John F. Kennedy was the first to use the new presidential jet.
At Kennedy's request, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and industrial designer Raymond Loewy developed a new paint scheme for the plane.
In addition to the blue and white colors they picked, the words "United States of America" were painted along the fuselage, and a US flag was painted on the tail.
In June 1963, the plane flew Kennedy to Berlin, where he delivered his "Ich bin ein Berliner," or "I am a Berliner," speech.
A few months later, on November 22, 1963, the plane was witness to a more tragic scene, carrying John F. Kennedy's casket back to Washington, DC, after his assassination in Dallas.
That afternoon, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson helped staffers pull the the casket into the rear of the plane, where seats had been removed to make space. Johnson was sworn in as president on the plane prior to takeoff.
"You can stand on that spot where President Kennedy's casket came in — you think about the horror of what was going on and the shock of what happened," Underwood said. "You can look forward toward the nose of the aircraft and know that's where the transfer of power took place, and you can see where Mrs. Kennedy sat near the body of her slain husband."
After takeoff at 2:47 p.m., Swindal, Air Force One's pilot at the time, took the plane up to the unusually high altitude of 41,000 feet, which was the aircraft's ceiling.
"He didn't have any idea whether this was part of a large conspiracy," Swindal's son said after his death in 2006. "He wasn't going to take any chances with a new president in the plane."
The SAM 26000 played a prominent role in the presidencies after Kennedy as well.
In 1964, Johnson invited reporter Frank Cormier and two colleagues into the plane's bedroom for an improvised press conference. Johnson, who had just given a speech under the hot sun, "removed his shirt and trousers," while answering their questions and then "shucked off his underwear" and kept talking while "standing buck naked and waving his towel for emphasis."
In 1970, the plane shuttled Henry Kissinger, then Nixon's national security adviser, on 13 separate trips to secret peace talks with the North Vietnamese in Paris.
In February 1972, the SAM 26000 flew Nixon to the People's Republic of China for his "Journey for Peace," making him the first US president to establish ties with the Communist-run country.
As Nixon exited the plane in China, a "burly" aide "blocked the aisle" to keep staffers from following Nixon, Kissinger said later. Nixon didn't want anyone messing up his photo with the Chinese premier.
Three months after ferrying him to China, the SAM 26000 took Nixon on an unprecedented visit to the Soviet Union.
During a week of meetings with Soviet leaders, Nixon reached a number of agreements. One set the framework for a joint space flight in 1975. Another was the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT), which contained a number of measures to limit the manufacture of strategic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
In December 1972, the plane was relegated to backup duty after the Air Force got another Boeing VC-137C with the serial number 72-7000.
But the plane continued carrying high-ranking officials on important trips.
In October 1981, it took former presidents Carter, Nixon, and Ford on an uneasy trip to Egypt for the funeral of President Mohammed Anwar Sadat, who had been assassinated a few days before. Then-President Ronald Reagan did not attend because of security concerns.
Secretary of State Alexander Haig, as Reagan's official representative, took the stateroom, leaving other officials with regular seats. The former presidents were "somewhat ill at ease," Carter said later.
"It was one and only time that I'd seen three presidents and two secretaries of state standing in line to go to the men's room," said retired Chief Master Sgt. Stan Goodwin, who manned the radio on the flight. Things were also tense among staffers on the trip. They reportedly bickered over who got bigger cuts of steak at dinner.
But it was Nixon, whose resignation in 1974 led to Ford taking office, who "surprisingly eased the tension" with "courtesy, eloquence, and charm," Carter wrote later. Carter and Nixon's interaction on the plane led to them developing a friendship.
In March 1983, the SAM 26000 carried Queen Elizabeth II during her visit to the US.
It left the presidential fleet in 1990, but continued to carry government officials on official trips.
Before the Gulf War started in 1991, it took Secretary of State James Baker to talks with Iraqi leaders about the invasion of Kuwait.
Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern who became embroiled in President Bill Clinton's impeachment in 1998, flew on the plane during a trip to Europe with Defense Secretary William Cohen.
The SAM 26000's last time carrying a serving president came in January 1998, when it was called into duty to pick up Clinton.
The Boeing 707 that was acting as Air Force One got stuck in the mud at Willard Airport in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. The SAM 26000, waiting nearby as an alternate, was called in to pick up the president.
The SAM 26000 was officially retired in March 1998, after logging more than 13,000 flying hours and covering more than 5 million miles. While it made more 200 trips in 1997 alone, the lack of parts for the plane as well as its high exhaust and noise levels led to its retirement.
Then-Vice President Al Gore took the plane's final flight, traveling from Washington to Columbia, South Carolina. "If history itself had wings, it probably would be this very aircraft," Gore said after the trip.
In May 1998, the plane arrived at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. In a nationally televised event, the Air Force retired the plane and turned it over to the National Museum of the Air Force.
In 2013, with the imposition of mandatory budget cuts called sequestration, the Air Force ordered the museum to save money, which led the museum to shut down the buses that took visitors to the plane.
By 2016, however, the plane had become a centerpiece at the museum, with a prime location in a $40 million hangar that opened that summer.
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