@AdvanceGuyNotes

Let's talk about Head of State aircraft - the slightly overkill way America does it versus the way that every almost every other country does it - and how sometimes that goes wrong. Sometimes, America's giant ship of state can seem like a bit...much. For example, these FOUR aircraft accompanied Joe Biden on his 18,545 mile trip around the world to the G20 in India and then Vietnam. [and if you were wondering, this is generally in line with practice for all modern presidents, R or D, going back decades] ✈️ The familiar Boeing 747-based Air Force One that the President rides in, a VC-25A. There's two of these total, and they usually travel together wherever the President goes, with one as a backup - but one or the other has been alternately in the shop for heavy maintenance during the Biden administration, so the pair have not flown abroad together during his term. ✈️ So instead, there's a C-32A (a military version of a Boeing 757) - that Biden uses often for smaller airports with shorter runways, and is regularly used by the VP, SecState, SecDef, and sometimes FLOTUS - that is serving as a backup on this trip. ✈️ And then another C-32A (out of four total of this model) comes along as a "support" aircraft on these giant international trips - staff that don't make the cut for AF1, extra USSS agents, etc. are aboard ✈️ And THEN the all white 747 with the distinctive hump and all the antennae on its roof - this is the E-4B Advanced Airborne Command Post or "doomsday plane." This plane is 60 (!) years old this year, we have four of them total, and they were originally designed to house all the nuclear control / in-flight refueling capability / advanced comms gear the older models of AF1 didn't have at the height of the Cold War - now the modern AF1 has most of this built in, but they still send one of these to trail nearby where the President goes both domestically and abroad - in case something gets very, very dodgy and they're needed. So - as you can see - America rolls deep - but if one of these planes were to break, and they do often, there's a ready backup traveling alongside to keep the show on the road without delaying the President at all. Now in the next post - you'll see what happens when a country rolls around in just one 40 year old plane and things go sideways for our friends to the north 🇨🇦