A little presidential trivia for Presidents’ Day
February 18, 2008 by Evan Sparks
President Lyndon Johnson takes the oath of office aboard Air Force One on November 22, 1963.
In honor of Presidents’ Day, enjoy a little trivia. Have I missed anything interesting in this list? Add it in the comments.
- First president to fly in an airplane: Theodore Roosevelt, who flew in a Wright bros. biplane in 1910, a year and a half after leaving office.
- First president to fly in an airplane while president: Franklin D. Roosevelt, who made a three-day flight by Boeing 314 Clipper to Casablanca in 1943 to meet with Winston Churchill.
- First president to fly a plane: Dwight Eisenhower learned to fly in the late 1930s as a military officer, even though was never a military pilot. The George Bushes were also pilots.
- First president to fly on “Air Force One”: Eisenhower, for whom the designation was introduced following a 1953 incident in which a civilian flight with the same number as the president’s Air Force plane entered the latter’s airspace.
- First president to use a Boeing 707 equivalent as Air Force One: Eisenhower, in 1958.
- First president to use a Boeing 747 equivalent as Air Force One: George H. W. Bush, in 1990. Ronald Reagan’s administration commissioned the VC-25 program.
- First president to use an official helicopter: Eisenhower, in 1957.
- First president to use the current SH-3 Sea King as “Marine One”: John F. Kennedy, in 1961.
- First president to campaign by plane: Kennedy, in 1960. His campaign plane, nicknamed “The Caroline” after his daughter, was a Convair 240 that had been purchased by his father in 1959.
- Last president to fly commercial while president: Richard Nixon, who flew United from Washington to Los Angeles in 1973 as a fuel-efficiency gimmick. The flight’s call sign was “Executive One.”
- President who deregulated the airline industry: Jimmy Carter, who signed the Airline Deregulation Act in 1978.
Photo credit: LBJ Library Photo by Cecil Stoughton
