BANGOR, Maine — The mammoth jet airplane popularly known as Air Force One caused more than a few double takes as it taxied around Bangor International Airport on Monday afternoon.

Drivers waiting for the light to change at the intersection of Maine Avenue and Hammond Street remained stopped even after getting a green light as the Boeing 747-200B series VC-25 with the blue nose, red, white and blue color scheme and American flag on the tail touched down at BIA and taxied to the opposite side near the Maine Air National Guard Base.

President Barack Obama made several stops in New Hampshire and Massachusetts on Monday as the presidential campaign season begins to heat up.

“Generally, what happens is they’ll offload the president and his personnel there and the airplane will continue up here and wait, just in case,” said Tony Caruso, BIA’s interim director. “They brought it up here to wait out the night and I guess it’ll leave here tomorrow sometime.

“It’s rare, but not unusual. We’ll get Air Force Two as well and other higher-level dignitaries come through here on a routine basis,” Caruso said. “A lot of times it’s just a routine, tech type of stop. This was somewhat shorter notice for us, but nothing out of the ordinary.”

Caruso said BIA’s 11,440-foot runway and proximity to the Maine Air National Guard Base make it a staple stop on the list of possible destinations for Air Force One and military planes.

“They know we can handle any aircraft and we have the Guard facility here to facilitate Customs [and] Border Protection, so we are on their regular flight plan list, I think,” Caruso said.

Air Force One is the official air traffic control call sign of any U.S. Air Force aircraft carrying the president. Technically, when the president is not on board, the 747 airplanes he uses are called either SAM 28000 or SAM 29000.

Caruso said BIA personnel usually don’t have to do too much differently or elaborately just because the president’s plane is parked on the tarmac.

“For the most part, we try to keep it fairly far away from being obvious or front and center,” he said. “We don’t beef up our security unless it’s requested. The airport is pretty much self-contained from the runway.”

While no fanfare or advance publicity accompanied the arrival of the distinctive 747, it still managed to draw a crowd.

“We have a small cadre of people gathering along the fence to look,” BIA marketing manager Risteen Bahr told Caruso in his office. “They’re starting to make a little traffic jam up there, and it continues to get bigger.”

Caruso just rolled his eyes and smiled.

“Certainly any time you see a plane like this come to your airport, it’s always exciting,” he said.

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159 Comments

  1. Not that this story has anything to do with Tony’s work performance but given the subject, it is time the city of Bangor took away the “interim” in Tony’s title. He is a great man for the job.

  2. It’s nice how the fact that it’s not Air Force One when the president isn’t aboard is in the article, but that didn’t stop whoever wrote the headline.  It brings back all kinds of nostalgic memories of being sabotaged by my own editor when I was in the game.  Good times.

    1. I was thinking the same thing Ben…if I am reading the tail numbers correctly its call sign would have been “SAM29000”.

      But hey…it generates click and that means $$$$ for the BDN.

      1. It’s a military jet, operated by the Air Force. When the president is not annotated on the flight plan, it’s call sign will not be the tail number of the aircraft as it would on a civil aircraft. The operating unit has it’s own “static” call sign.  

          1. This is from your source:
            On a training flight (yes, they do those) they would most likely use the 89 Airlift Wing callsign–Venus–and would probably be “Venus 28” or “Venus 29”.

          2. This would not be classified as a “training flight”. And the SAM 28000 or SAM 29000 IS a call sign for this plane which you said in your initial post wasn’t the case.

            This is the sentence BEFORE the one you referenced above, “If they are flying a mission when the President, Vice President or the
            President’s family is not aboard, the callsign would be “SAM 28000” or
            “SAM 29000″ (SAM=Special Air Mission).”

            That sentence was followed by this one “On a training flight (yes, they
            do those) they would most likely use the 89 Airlift Wing callsign–Venus–and would probably be “Venus 28” or “Venus 29″.”

          3. I’m not going to argue with you for it seems you have a career in professional military aviation, but at least from my vantage point seeing how I have a 30 + year career in  military aviation, I feel it’s fair to assume I know how to file a flight plan. This aircrew filed a flight plan for the day that was in support of the POTUS. It was coded as such, so the FAA will give the aircraft priority as long as it is in support of the POTUS, whether POTUS was on it or not. On the flight plan, it had a stopover built in at Bangor. The flight plan stays active the whole time. Only one call sign remains with that flight plan. The only way the call sign will change is if the pilot closes the flight plan out that brought them to N.H. and files a new one with a different call sign and I doubt that would happen because it’s extra work, and as long as they are in support for that particular mission, which they were, then they remain under that flight plan and call sign.

          4. No one is arguing with you. You made some statements that are not supported by facts.

            I think we can agree that Air Force One was the call sign until the President disembarked in NH. The pilot in command then would have changed the call sigh to SAM29000 (or SAM280000) as the plan was still in support of the POTUS and continued onto BIA. That call sign and the flight plan associated with it remains until closed out by the pilot in command.

            Isn’t that the way it is supposed to work?

          5. Changing call signs with the FAA while remaining on the same flight plan is something that is not normally done. It is cumbersome at best under the current system that the ARTCC’s work under. I’m not saying it is impossible, but it is not a normal practice . Thats not to say it doesn’t happen with this case.  It may and I could be in error, but  if it’s a practice in this case, it’s way out of the ordinary just because of the gyrations involved between approach controls and the controlling ARTCC.

    2. For all intents and purposes, it’s air force one. Yes, it’s just a call sign, but this is THE plane the office holder rides in. It’s still pretty darned cool if you ask me.

        1. It’s not like the President owns the plane, and really the President doesn’t make all that much…pay is about 400k…sounds like a lot until you realize all time they put in, and all the crap they take…that’s why every president ages considerably during their presidency…I wouldn’t want that job for nothing. But let me guess, you would and you could do a better job.

          So Yea, it is pretty cool.

          1. LMAO…..thanks for proving my point lapdog

            cool like a monarch

            personally, I think we should discharge the office of the president entirely.  We have 50 state governors, let them do the job…

            sic semper tyrannis

            the revolution is upon you, best get to preparations my friend

          2. Interesting you would quote what John Wilkes Booth shouted from the stage of Ford’s Theater after shooting President Abraham Lincoln in the head.

          3. Interesting indeed.  Lincoln was a tyrant.  He destroyed America with his despotic hand and we’ve paid the price ever since.

            What is truly intersting is how you will undoubtedly call me a supporter of slavery because I detest Lincoln and the damage he rendered upon this country.  

            I can only chuckle at such adolescence in intellectual understanding and the complete indoctrination in falsehoods you have been led to believe by others, simply because “they said so” and those before them said the same…of course those who win the war get to write their own version of history, a version you have swallowed hook, line, and sinker… only to now support a new system of slavery, where the debt of our central bank (courtesy of the likes of Lincoln and his debt financing of his immoral and unjust war) casts innocent toddlers and the unborn into a caste of servitude from which they will never recover.

            So good for you, you’ve replaced one form of slavery with another….and even better, your enslaving your own posterity to debt, while laughing all the way to the bank that your kids will one day detest, perhaps even dissolve, if they know what is good for them.

            When are you progressive, big government democrats going to get it?   We’ve got your number, there’s MILLIONS of us out here, we’re all around the world, and we’re NOT going away.

          4. I know…perhaps I should loosen it so I could then at least accept debt slavery and wealth transference via fiat currency at the level you immoral chimps choose to endure…

            Oh well, I guess I’ll just keep on keeping on with my stetson made from endangered gazelle hide out of Africa…

          5. jtc….

            1) the Civil Wat was not about ending slavery,

            2) President Lincoln preserved the Union by prosecuting the bloodiest war in U.S. history.

            3) no one “won” the Civil War in the true sense of the world. We preserved the country as we know it but lost a generation doing it.

            4) Not even sure how you come up with “you progressive, big government democrats going to get it?” from my post. By the way, I am a registered republican with strong Libertarian leanings,

            5) “We’ve got your number, there’s MILLIONS of us out here, we’re all around the world, and we’re NOT going away.????

            Not sure what country you live in but in the United States we get to vote for President every 4 years, Representatives every 2 and Senator every 6 (on an alternating schedule) so if We The People don’t like them or disagree with what or how they are representing us we can change them and can turn them out of office.

            We tried the route of armed rebellion in the 1860s and I believe most thinking people would agree that the ballot box is the best place to protest.

          6. I think agreement on that point has been evolving a bit JD.  Maybe right now it is still most that agree with that point but I do believe that many if not most are starting to questoion the validity of our present system.  As the consensus changes your point may also become less and less true.

          7. And then what happens when our so-called President makes up the law as he goes along? If he gets reelected it will only be by means of fraud, deception and pandering. If that happens we WILL repeat the 1770’s, not the 1860’s and Obama and his ilk will be the Redcoats.

          8. “And then what happens when our so-called President makes up the law as he goes along?”

            Examples….and before you use the “Executive Order” line please know that ALL Presidents use Executive Orders. One of the most controversial Executive Orders of all times was President Truman’s 1947 order to desegregate the U.S. military.
            ~~~~~
            “If he gets reelected it will only be by means of fraud, deception and
            pandering. If that happens we WILL repeat the 1770’s, not the 1860’s and
            Obama and his ilk will be the Redcoats.”

            Oh please…go back and read some U.S. history and you will discover some very interesting facts. Did you know that during the 1930s a group of people raised a substantial amount of money (in the 10s of Billions of dollars) and tried to enlist the assistance of a popular retired General to lead a coup d’état? There goal, to form a fascist government.Or look at President Garfield’s attempt to form a cabinet and reunite the Republican party. You might find some interesting parallels between the 1881 brokered convention and the 2012 primary season.
            ~~~~~
            We “survived” FDR….we survived Nixon and Carter and we will survive Obama…

          9. Obviously I didnt mean that literally we will repeat the 1770’s, only that the same sort of thing will take place. Mark my words, if Oblamer gets reelected he will attempt to override the 2nd amendment and come for our guns so that he then can do whatever he wants to us. As the saying goes, he can have my gun when they take it from my cold, dead hands. I plan to go down swinging against this tyrant if he tries it as do tens of millions of patriotic Americans. That is what I meant.

          10. Perhaps so. Not every post can be perfect. I just figure if this President was willing to send AK-47’s to Mexican drug cartels to exploit the ensuing violence in his first term, he will resort to even more desperate and illegal gun-control measures if he gets a second term.

          11. It began when Oblamer and Holder took office. If your intent was to deflect blame onto Bush, Operation Wide Receiver was quite different from FNF. First off, nobody was murdered with WR weapons. The Mexican government was aware of WR and helped to track the weapons with the tracking devices that were installed in the weapons. Under FNF the Mexican goverment was never informed and couldnt track anything. Those are just a few of the differences between Fast n Furious and Wide Receiver. The bottom line is Obama got a USBP agent and hundreds of Mexican citizens killed. Bush never did anything like that. So I guess maybe you folks are once again totally wrong with the “blame Bush” agenda. Kinda tough to defend Oblamer when you dont know the facts about Fast N Furious. Maybe you need to do some reading on the subject before you look silly again.

          12. Lincoln was a great republican, which in this day and age is an oxymoron.His compassion isn’t to be found in the new republican party which is bend on seeing that the rich get ever richer and the poor..well, they will always need a scapegoat.

          13. since apparently you needed help, glad I could help you…it is my business to help those that don’t have the capacity to help themselves

          14. That was already tried, it was called the Articles of Confederation.See how well that worked!

          15. he sux as a prez -not realy a prez but a seiu union community hax leader -this election resets the constitution goodbye progreesives

          16. his is overpaid for what he does. don’t forget that he continues to get that pay till he dies no matter what. he golfs more than he works.

    3. I get your point. However, if you were one of the people driving by who spotted the plane, I’m sure you would have said OH MY GOSH IT’S AIR FORCE ONE!  And that’s what the story is about, that the plane itself was out on the runway.

      1.  It came in low and slow over my house and I looked up and said “Holy Crap! It’s Air Force One”

        1. What time did it come in? I heard unusual air traffic but because of cloud cover, couldn’t see anything. I am south of Bangor.

      2.  Well, no, I’d have said “Oh hey, a VC-25,” but that’s because I’m that kind of nerd. :)

          1. Really?  Odd.  I’ve always considered myself better qualified to predict my reactions to specific stimuli than total strangers on the Internet.  I guess that’s old-fashioned pre-singularity thinking.

          1. Why should our taxes cart him around to campaign or any other president. Waste of tax dollars and same goes GWBUSH. If the president was doing something for our country fine. But if not then let him buy a ticket like the rest of us do!!!!!!

    1.  Our tax dollars need to get the Air Force some new fonts.  Is that Times New Roman?  Scandalous.  This is the 21st century.  We need something with a little zaz for the airplane that represents our public face to the world. :)

    2. I read the comments just to see what the haters would say. Thanks for not disappointing me. You realize that we (the people) demand that a sitting president, no matter which party, travels by Air Force One?   And that every first term president has sought re-election. Don’t be too upset. He’ll be taking the plane back to Chicago in about five years.

      1. …and exactly when did we “demand that a sitting president, no matter which party, travels by Air Force One”?

        and I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to take the plane after he is finished in office…it’s just the type of swindling, crook the lowlife is in the first place

        1. Presidents have been flying since FDR, but Eisenhower was the first to use the Air Force One callsign.  Since you asked.

          1. Air Force One touches down in Bangor and the Hell Hath No Fury Posters go Ape.  

            One even brings Lincoln into the picture – slavery and Progressives.  And, even Tony, the interim BIA head, and his future with the airport. 

            Picture wouldn’t have been complete without one  unleashing his bile on the president.

            Amazing how  Wake Turbulence affects so many people. 

          2. Let’s see you back up your accusations, before you repeat yourself again. Tell us one lie.  How is he a crook?  And prove his immorality.  Don’t be a Issa or Grassley – tell the truth. Don’t hide behind a pack of lies.

          3.  How about enforcing his own immigration program with total disregard of the laws.What about holder lying to congress with documents proving he lied.What about Naplitano telling the united states she and the great divider  will not be following immigration laws.How about mandating every u.s citizen must purchase what he decides.

          4. The immigration policy of the United States has been a joke since at least the 1980s…nothing new there.

            Actually we don’t know if the AG has lied or not as the President exercised the privilege of Executive Privilege. One of the problems we have in this country is playing “Gotcha” politics. Executive Privilege has been used by close to every single President since Reagan at least. So why is President Obama’s use of it any more or less troublesome than say President Reagan or President Clinton for example.

            The Secretary of Homeland Security has not broken any laws that I am aware of. What she directed is ICE will no longer provide the immigration status of aliens stop by local police. I don’t agree with the policy but it is not a violation of law. The federal government believes that immigration law is the purview of the federal government, not state or local government. Again, I believe the federal government has made a grave error by not enforcing the laws we have on the books.

            We will know on Thursday what the SCOTUS believes…my money is on the Affordable Healthcare Act “individual mandate” will be found unconstitutional.

        2. No vulgarity, racial slurs, name-calling or personal attacks.
          Apparently, a person like yourself being of such high stature is immune from rules of the board. 

          You evidently know how to swindle your way past  such rules, as crooks and lowlifes usually do.

        1. Nice fantasy. Let’s see, Obama has been a much less liberal president than promised… so you figure that the people who voted for him (by a margin 9.5 TIMES more votes than both of GWB’s “victories” combined I might add) are going to vote for Willard M. Romney next time? Makes zero sense. 

    3. You haven’t seen the tip of the iceberg. There is a lot more flying time involved with all this than meets the eye. Very expensive. 

    1. A C5 Galaxy is much more impressive… A 747 is a tinkertoy compared to the C5.. When they come in they look like they are floating..

        1. When I was in the Navy I was on the Ascension Island, C5’s, the Airforce let us tour them, nose to tail, and I mean tail, they have a ladder going to the tail inside.. We had the wimpy P3 Orion…LOL

  3. along with 12 fighter jets from different countries and some are armed. missiles exposed

    1. Okay, I’ll bite.  Which twelve countries are sending fighter jets with missiles exposed to escort our president? I’m so ignorant on this stuff, I didn’t even know THAT was happening.

      1. I went over to the back of the airport, where everything was parked  4 were french the rest (8) didn’t have names anywhere to be seen, so I don’t know… all they had was a square with 4 squares inside them red and white. and yes some were armed.. there we also 4 large foreign support planes.  I didn’t say from 12 different countries. and yes some were armed.. with missiles exposed..  you tell me

        1.  Anyone else out there seen OUR President’s plane escorted by a foreign fighter plane?

          1. never did I say foreign planes escorted af1…..
            Go look for yourself.
            Go straight down the road where cars by us is located, thats the back side of the airport

        2. The French came in yesterday and mentioned their engineers would be flying in, according to the discussion between one of the pilots and the tower I heard on the radio yesterday afternoon. There was no indication their presence had anything to do with President Obama.

        3.  correct you did not say 12 different countries instead your original statement was vague, ambiguous and fraught with implications for the conspiracy minded among us.  Don’t be surprised if you see your comment show up in one of those chain emails sent around by the conspiracy nuts, claiming that eyewitnesses report that Obama was using foreign jet escorts in preparation of leading a foreign coup.  And since your orginal comment could have been interpreted as 12 jets from two or more foreign countries (you used the plural so at least two) don’t be surprised if the chain email identifies them as jets sold by Obama to Kenya as part of a scheme for him to become the head of a new world wide Muslim sultanate.  I could go on but you get my drift.  Here’s hoping Donald Trump is not a BDN reader.

        4. There are transient aircraft in and out of that airport all the time.  Do you work there and know when they come in and why they’re here? 

          It’s kind of hard to tell just looking through the fence isn’t it?

  4. Did I read that right, just because the President is landing and I am at a traffic signal far enough away, I have a green light but I still need to wait. Unless the President had bath salts, nobody really cares. If someone wanted to cause chaos, they wouldn’t do it at a green light. What the police should have done is stop people when the light was red. Maybe this is why people run red lights and hardly move when it is green, it creates confusion.  

    1.  I read it to mean that people remain stopped on their own, to catch a glimpse of the plane. Not that the police stopped them.

    2.  For goodness sake, they are talking about people being stunned and forgetting to go so they can see it…no cops, no fan fare, no nothing. Just people at the light a little shocked to see Air Force One. Geez, some folks will take something kind of exciting for some of us and mess all over it.

      1. Oh for goodness sake the wording in the article at the time was not clear. 
        To please the perfect people my comment will now read:
        People stopped at a green light in Bangor, that’s nothing new.

    1.  Depends on the model and the seating configuration installed.  In a typical three-class setup as many airlines use, a 747-200B – the model on which the Air Force VC-25 is based – seats around 410 passengers.  Mind you, those passengers generally don’t have a pressing need for the kind of security, communications, and information-handling equipment the President of the United States requires, even in business class. :)

  5. Some one from Face Book posted….

    Obama is visiting Governors restaurant and advising them that their Federal Reserve Deficit Sundae is not big enough……….

  6. AF1 was prolly diverted to BIA. Durham, NH wouldn’t let the messiah land there unless he paid the landing fees.

  7. “Boeing 747-200B series VC-25 with the blue nose, red, white and blue color scheme…”

    Um, exactly where is the “red” in the color scheme (the flag on the tail doesn’t count)?

  8. One would think that the Secret Service probably would not want jack wagon to release to the media when who or what is leaving at what time or  “so we are on their regular flight plan list, I think,” Caruso said.” Seriously, bad decision to open your trap. If you had to say anything then something along the lines that the plane requested landing and that it landed without an problems. Any questions in regards to Air Force One should have been referred to the Secret Service. Man…people and there need to be in the paper

  9. How can we connect this to Woodrow Wilson?? Was George Soros hidden on board?? Was that Van Jones at the Ground Round???  For the answers to these and many other questions be sure to read “The Blaze”

    1. thanks

      and to round out the commentary, check out “mother earth news”, they’ve got some great articles on how to survive in a bleak world of freedom, sound money, personal liberties….yada yada yada

  10. Did the Concorde cause this much excitement when it was at the BIA airport and allowed people to tour it?

    1. I can remember Garland Street Jr High (Cohen for you young people!)  letting all of the students on the front lawn to watch the SST just fly over in the 70’s, so yeah.

      1. That was at the same time of Fifth St Jr. High, [don’t know what it is called now.] Many moons ago.

  11. Wonder why it did stay the old Pease AFB which only five miles away?? That could have the taxpayers a few thousands.

  12. I was waiting for Obama to do one thing he said he was going to do ( not the warped version either), not wait for his plane to waste money flying here.

  13. $180,ooo an hour to fly that thing and his campaign pays an ‘undisclosed’ portion of it. Downtown Boston was shut down for hours so 25 people could attend a $40,000 a plate fundraiser at a bistro, then off to Symphony Hall for a $250-$2500 a ticket ‘do’. Then a trip to Weston (closing down the Mass Pike and the transit train that runs beside it for 40 minutes each way) to attend a $17, 900 per plate money grab. 
    $200,00 police overtime bill for a $3.1m fundraiser, and his campaign isn’t paying for that protection bill?
    Mass has only 11 electoral votes. There was no reason to inconvenience a city for votes that he already has in the bag.    And it’s said that the Repubs have all the money…….

    1. The problem for Oblamer is that he cant even be sure he has Mass in the bag. He is so unpopular that now even forever blue states like Mass or this hell hole arent a sure thing.

  14. So does this mean that Barry and Michelle Antoinette are having lobster delivered by AF1 now? I know another half a million or so on the taxpayer dime wouldnt bother them one tiny bit while they have the nerve to call Romney rich and out of touch.

      1. We’ll see how many times Mrs. Romney rings up a vacation on the US taxpayer to the tune of half a million bucks while we are in the “worst recession since the Great Depression” according to the Spender-in-chief himself. And if a Republican was in office and wasted this much time and money on vacation and golf while the rest of the country was suffering 17% unemployment, you can bet your Prius they wouldnt get my vote either. Wake up moon bat, your Barry bias is showing again. He is the WORST PRESIDENT in history and is going back to Chicago come November. Maybe you can go with him hun? 

  15. Yawnnnnnnnnn …. really boring waste of ink. 

    Only news worthy bit about this would have been if BDN pointed out how much stinkin’ taxpayer dollars were wasted by NObama jetting around campaigning.

  16. whine  whine   whinw   thats all you people do why don’t you people get a real life   an if you think you can do a better job as pres. that run for that office .   No matter whos pres. you people will whine  an whine just like a spoiled brat because thing did not go  your way . so get a life

    1. You have just convinced me to run for President of the United States.  And when I win, my first official act will be to … deport yo arse … out!!   Speaking of whine, go have yourself a glass of wine, instead and settle your wollydevil arse down!

    2.  A person who is eligible, actually swears the Oath of Office on Inauguration Day, and then follows that Oath, and perhaps goes on to serve the People of the United States of America. Those are my simple criteria for Presidential office. It’d be good if they don’t lie or waste resources also, those would be pluses.

  17. And what did this little trip cost us? All costs and security expenses together with the Bangor end adds to a humongous bill, not coverd in full by Mr. Obummer’s campaign funding.

  18. Air Force One touches down in Bangor and the Hell Hath No Fury Posters go Ape.  

    One even brings Lincoln into the picture – slavery and Progressives.  And, even Tony, the interim BIA head, and his future with the airport. 

    Picture wouldn’t have been complete without one  unleashing his bile on the president.

    Amazing how  Wake Turbulence affects so many people. 

  19. I wonder how many fights the Secret Service got into in New Hampshire and Massachusetts?

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