Flying White House

The Air Logistics of a Presidential Tour

FOR the 36 hr. and 20 min. that the President of the U.S. is airborne on his 19-day, 22,370-mile trip, he will be outranked by his Air Force aide and aircraft commander, Colonel William Draper. And every one of those hours will symbolize days of work by Pilot Bill Draper, 39, and his crew in coping with the logistics involved in taking the President to the far side of the world and back.

For the sake of safety and schedule, the full presidential fleet that takes off this week will be made up of four aircraft (plus a chartered Pan American 707 jet for the press); two VC-137A plush versions of the Boeing 707 jet--the President's and an identical spare--and two turboprop MATS Hercules cargo planes carrying six skilled mechanics apiece and a variety of spare parts, including a complete, ready-to-install jet engine. The two cargo planes are assigned a leapfrogging schedule that will keep one of them always one stop ahead of the President. Eight specially trained Air Force police will guard all the planes on the ground. To keep watch as Ike flies over the sea is a string of preassigned Navy vessels patrolling the Atlantic at 500-mile intervals.

Hi-Fi & Seat Belts. The President's flying White House is rigged for the best in comfort and communications. The President himself usually takes off facing forward at a desk in his private compartment; at his side is an ivory-colored telephone that is hooked into a single-sideband radio, enabling Ike to talk to any spot in the world. For classified conversations, his radio operator uses a radio-teletype which scrambles messages that can only be unscrambled at a single receiving point. Also aboard: reclining chairs, sofa beds, tape player, hifi, two galleys, two astrodomes.

Ike's ten crewmen--eight of whom have flown together for at least six years--rightly feel that their assignments are the best in the Air Force, even if they sometimes have to shell out some of their own money on some presidential trips to cover their meager $12-$18 per diem allowance. Trim, reserved Bill Draper is a thoroughgoing professional, a World War II Air Corps transport pilot flying the "fireball run" between Miami and India, personal pilot for President Eisenhower since 1950, when Ike was Supreme Allied Commander of NATO forces in Europe. Copilot is Iowa-born Lieut. Colonel William Thomas, 39, veteran of the Hump and Berlin airlift; navigator is Brooklyn-born Lieut. Colonel Vincent Puglisi, 41. Filling out the rest of the crew are a third pilot (who sits in for Draper or Thomas when either leaves his station), two flight engineers, a radio operator and three stewards (who always check with Draper to make sure that the plane is not headed for turbulent weather before they serve the President his meals). All carry printed cards listing special emergency procedures, and all frequently (and unobtrusively) run through emergency drills. Draper himself makes it a point to review emergency routines with the President, who, like any other plane passenger, fastens his seat belt when the warning goes on.

Weather in the Mountain. Last month Pilot Draper and his crew--as well as Press Secretary James Hagerty and a platoon of transportation, communications and security experts --took off in Ike's plane and flew to each airport on the President's itinerary to familiarize themselves with terrain, runway construction specifications (to make sure that landing strips could support the 248,000-lb. weight of the VC-137A), and to arrange for weather and safety controls.

Draper sees no landing problems except at the high (6,000 ft.) field at Kabul, Afghanistan (which is being constructed for the Afghans by the Russians). Hemmed in by high mountain ranges, Kabul has no instrument-landing facilities, is often socked in suddenly by bad weather. As an extra safeguard, an Air Force C-47 at Kabul will make constant, firsthand weather reports to Draper while he is en route from Karachi. If bad weather does hit, Draper will know about it in plenty of time to skip Kabul and head for New Delhi. Hopefully the party will try Kabul again on the way back from New Delhi to Europe.

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