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The radio call-sign of any US Air Force aircraft carrying the president of the United States. (If he flies on an Army plane this becomes Army One; if on a Navy aircraft Navy One.) Dedicated presidential air transport began in 1944, though this call-sign was not used until the 1950s and first applied popularly to the Boeing 707 introduced for President Kennedy at the beginning of the following decade. In current practice, Air Force One is the name and call-sign given to one or other of the two extensively modified Boeing 747-200Bs which, since the beginning of the 1990s, have been maintained for use by the President. They have conference facilities, aerial refuelling capability, sophisticated defences (including shielded wiring to counter the effects of nuclear blast, as well as anti-radar and missile protection), and encrypted communications. As a result, Air Force One is an adjunct to US summit diplomacy (as well as presidential travel within the United States) of great symbolic as well as practical significance. |
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