The LuLac Edition #5, 256, February 17th, 2025

 

MAYBE I’M AMAZED

 Our “Maybe I’m Amazed” logo.

PRESIDENT’S DAY EDITION

EISENHOWER’S AIR FORCE ONE

MAYBE I’M AMAZED…..that President Eisenhower was the first White House occupant to have a flight designated Air Force one. The Columbine II was the first plane to fly with the call sign “Air Force One” when it carried President Dwight D. Eisenhower for the first two years of his administration.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED……. the aircraft would have been lost to history without the intervention of three men – one who bought the plane almost 50 years ago, the friend who helped save it from the scrap heap, and the man whose aviation company purchased it two decades later with plans to restore it to its 1950s glory.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED……..that the plane was built as a C-121A at Burbank, California, and converted to a VC-121A-LO to carry VIPs in 1953. The Columbine II, named after the Colorado state flower by first lady Mamie Eisenhower, became the official presidential aircraft later that year.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED…….that the designation of Air Force One came purely by accident. An Eastern Airlines flight had the same call numbers as the Columbine II, and confusion ensued when both planes shared the same airspace. Because of the incident, the “Air Force One” call sign became used for any plane the president was on board.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED……that the plane, while hardly resembling the Air Force One flown by presidents from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama, included marble floors and a mahogany desk where Eisenhower wrote the “Atoms for Peace” speech he gave to the U.N. General Assembly in 1953. The Columbine II also took him to Korea, both as a president-elect and during his administration.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED…….that In 1954, the aircraft was replaced by the Columbine III, which Eisenhower used for the remainder of his presidency. The Columbine II continued in service as a VIP transport for Eisenhower’s vice president, Richard M. Nixon, and others, such as Queen Elizabeth II, before it was finally retired to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, in 1968.

MAYBE I’M AMAAZED…..that The Air Force stripped the aircraft and fitted it with mismatched landing gear, an error that, in an odd twist of fate, led to the aircraft being spared from destruction long enough for its historical value to be discovered by its new owners.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED…..that the aforementioned the Columbine II was sold to Mel Christler as part of a package lot with four other Connies for $35,000 in a surplus auction at the Davis-Monthan AFB aircraft “boneyard.” He didn’t know one of the five planes had a presidential past and planned to make it part of his crop-dusting operation. Christler rebuilt the other four VC-121s for spraying operations, but didn’t convert the Columbine II because its starboard main gear had been replaced with the wrong part from a Lockheed 1049 Super Constellation. The incorrect landing gear, again, saved the Columbine II from being converted to a crop-duster. Instead, it was used for supplying the other four Connies with parts.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED….that Christler was considering cutting the aircraft up as scrap when Robert Mikesh of the Smithsonian Institution contacted him in 1980 and informed him that his Connie with the serial number 48-610 was a former presidential aircraft.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED….that other Presidents prior to Ike such as Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president to have an official plane, he used it just three times. His successor, Harry Truman, was similarly avoidant. However, Eisenhower was a seasoned pilot and relied heavily on air travel to manage Allied campaigns during World War II.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED…..but not really that if you want to restore the original Air Forde One, you can do so by using this link. https://www.greatcommunitygive.org/organizations/first-air-force-one or https://www.historynet.com/dwight-eisenhowers-granddaughter-wants-to-save-a-piece-of-aviation-history/ from Ike's grand daughter.