Who Built Air Force One Before Boeing Took Over?

Air Force One is a strong candidate for the most recognizable plane on the planet. The white and blue Boeing VC-25, based on the 747, has carried the President of the United States since 1987. The iconic livery itself has a longer lineage, dating back to the 707-based VC-137C first used by John F. Kennedy in 1962. Despite such a lengthy tenure, Boeing hasn't always been the manufacturer of the presidential aircraft.

The official transition for air travel was a matter of both convenience and necessity for the American president. Teddy Roosevelt was the first president to fly on a plane in 1910. However, he had left office the year before and the rudimentary Wright Flyer wasn't suitable for long-distance travel. His fifth cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, would be the first president to fly while in office. In 1943, FDR flew across the Atlantic Ocean to the Casablanca Conference during World War II. According to "The Presidential Aircraft," the plane was a Boeing 314 Clipper flying boat, known as the Dixie Clipper. With German U-boats prowling the sea lanes across the Atlantic, flying was deemed safer than sailing on USS Potomac, the then-presidential yacht.

As the Dixie Clipper moniker implies, the plane was crewed by Pan Am. The historic airline christened all of its aircraft "Clippers." This relationship with the unofficial flag carrier would quickly end as the United States Army Air Forces successfully advised the Commander-in-Chief to convert a military Consolidated C-87, named Guess Where II, for use as an executive transport aircraft.

Guess Where II would be scrapped in 1945 for FDR's most well-known presidential plane, the Sacred Cow. He only flew on the modified Douglas C-54 Skymaster once, but the trip was to the Yalta Conference in 1945. Harry Truman continued to fly on Douglas aircraft throughout his tenure in the Oval Office. However, things would change again with the election of Dwight Eisenhower. Ike would add two Lockheed C-121 Constellations, Columbine II and Columbine III. The planes were named after the state flower of Colorado, where First Lady Mamie Eisenhower was raised. Columbine II became the aircraft to use the callsign Air Force One.

As jet-powered planes became proven technology over the 1950s, the White House decided it would be best for President Eisenhower to travel in a jet airliner to flex the country's technological superiority over the Soviet Union. The US Air Force would procure three Boeing 707s in 1959, with a maiden trip to Moscow led by then-Vice President Richard Nixon. Boeing would be the exclusive provider of Air Force One from that point onward.

The choice of potential contractors has diminished since the 1950s. Douglas would merge with McDonnell in 1967, and then McDonnell Douglas would merge with Boeing in 1997. Lockheed ceased production of civilian airliners in 1984, following the commercial failure of the L-1011 TriStar. It's effectively Boeing or we're not going, because it would be a national embarrassment if Air Force One were ever a European-built Airbus. Despite the last Boeing 747 being built in 2023, the White House remains so determined to continue using a VC-25 that both Trump administrations were willing to retrofit a pair of undelivered 747s ordered by a Russian airline and a controversially gifted 747 from the Qatari royal family.