nt (Gordon) wrote in message ...

Relax.

I'm fairly relaxed, Steven. Some folks act like "no harm, no foul" and that
can be a damn slippery slope.

You're assuming it happened as it's been reported. I think that
unlikely.

However it happened, the flight plan should not have included deception
concerning the size of the aircraft involved.

Uhm, if I may - I can think of a solution that would provide:
1) Adequate security as to the President's wherabouts
2) Allow filing a flight plan that is accurate, without revealing that
the President is aboard.

Remember that there's no Rule, Regulation, or Law that says that the
aircraft that the President's on has to be Air Force
[Navy/Marine/Army] 1.
Or that that callsign is only used when the President's on board.

That use is custom/habit, not law.

Step 1: File a flight plan for the VC-25 as, say, BIGMAC 1234, a VC-25
on some manner of normal, non-Presidential flight.

Step 2: Publish a NOTAM that states that the President will be
travelling,
and that VC-37 (Gulfstream V) will be flying under the callsign of
"Air Force 1".

(The VC-25s go all manner of places ferrying People Other Than the
President. An example would be the use of one of the VC-137s by Henry
Kissenger during the lead-in to the Moscow & Peking visits. (VC-137
stages to French base that houses the French KC-135s, and is parked
among 'em, so it doesn't stand out.
Hank K. with Jill St. John on his arm, flies to Paris and checks into
a Ritzy Hotel, where they enter a suite & draw the shades. Thus,
nobody
expects him to sneak out the back door, into an umarked French Govt.
car,
which shuttles him to Orly, where, the French President's Mystere 20
(Falcon Bizjet, for us USAnians), on a Routine Proficiency Flight to
the
KC-135 base. H.K. boards the VC-137, which takes off for the Neutral
Location used for teh negotiations. (After dark, of course, to fool
the Planespotters.) No misfiled flight plans, and everybody has Jolly
Fun.
(Including Jill St. John, who has all the advantages of being shacked
up
in a Paris Hotel with the Secretary of State with having Henry
Kissinger
around))

The scenario unfolds thusly -
Somewhere over the Storm Tossed Atlantic, a sharp-eyed First Officer
('cos everybody knows that the Captains all wear glasses, and are too
busy checkign their Stock Portfolios) spots the VC-25. The spotting
airplane calls ARTCC, and asks if they've seen "Air Force 1." ARTCC
looks up the NOTAM, and
replies that Air Force 1 is a Gulfstream, today. Now, if they askes
if
they'd seem a VC-25, or a USAF 747, I wonder what kind of answer
they'd have received.

At least, that's how I'd do it, if they'd asked me.

--
Pete Stickney