Air Force One becomes the "Spirit of '76"

In December 1972, Boeing delivered a 707 aircraft to the government, specially outfitted to serve President Nixon. It was the fifth and last 707 to enter service for the country to be used as Air Force One. This aircraft was SAM-27000, replacing the relatively aging SAM-26000 that had been delivered 10 years earlier in October 1962. Aircraft carry the call signs "Special Air Mission" unless the president is aboard. Then the call sign changes to "Air Force One."

In the summer of 1971 Nixon had the words "Spirit of '76" stenciled near the nose of SAM-26000 to honor the country's upcoming 200th Anniversary to occur during the last year of his anticipated second term. This aircraft took Nixon on his historic trip to China in February 1972. Then, when SAM-27000 was delivered, it too was named "Spirit of '76." Both aircraft donned "Spirit of '76" until President Carter had them removed. In the 1990s, the 707s were phased out as President Bush welcomed the first 747s, ushering in a more modern history of presidential travel.


SAM-26000 is probably the more notable of the aircraft. It is the jet President Kennedy took to Dallas on November 22, 1963, and the same aircraft that would take his body back to Washington after he was assassinated and where Vice President Johnson took the oath of office before leaving Dallas and becoming president. It also brought Nixon's body back to Yorba Linda for burial in 1994.

SAM-26000 was built purposefully for presidential travel and replaced the earlier 707s, SAM-86790, SAM-86971, and SAM-86972. These were used as backup presidential travel from 1962 to 1972, when SAM-27000 went into service. Then, SAM-26000 became the back-up aircraft, though the earlier ones were used from time to time as a back-up.

Here's a guide to the aircraft and where you can see Air Force One, including the two "Spirit of 76s":

SAM-86970: delivered 1958, Museum of Flight, Boeing Field, Seattle, Wash.
SAM-86971: delivered 1959, Pima Air & Space Museum, Tucson, Ariz.
SAM-86792: delivered 1959, scrapped in 1994
SAM-26000: delivered 1962, National Museum of the U.S.A.F., Wright-Patterson AFB, Dyon, Ohio
SAM-27000: delivered 1972, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, Calif.

John Glenn 1921-2016

People remember John Glenn as a "legend." It would seem the word hardly does him justice.

Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth in space when he piloted Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962, and soon afterward served a very long career in Congress as a senator from Ohio and even ran for president.

In 1958, NASA was formed, and it soon recruited seven astronauts for it's budding space program. Glenn was the last living of the original seven. In 1959, Glenn (far right below) and the other astronauts met with Vice President Nixon and posed for this photo with a model of the Mercury-Atlas rocket/spacecraft designed to deliver the astronauts into space. One of those astronauts, Alan Shepard (second from the right), was the first American in space.

At the age of 77, Glenn returned to space as a payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

Glenn died yesterday after a brief illness. At 95, he was removed from his research mission on the South Pole shortly before he died.

Been There, Seen That: Antebellum New Orleans

It was so humid there was a haze. It was so warm, it felt like the tropics. Put the two together, and if you don’t like that climate, you’re screwed. I, however, happen to love it. And I love New Orleans.

Walking through the French Quarter or standing at the gates of Jackson Square, or riding the St. Charles Streetcar down, well, St. Charles Street, you can’t help but be transported back to a time before the “War of Northern Aggression.”

It is 1852 and the French Quarter looks nearly like it does today. Gas lamps light the sidewalks at night, and cars are replaced by horse-drawn carriages. It’s still hot and humid.

New Orleans in the 1850s was a land of paddle steamboats, muddy streets, and pre-Civil War shenanigans. It was also a bustling commercial center for goods traveling on the Mississippi River.

A young New Yorker stepped off the steamboat onto the wooden dock. He was there to meet his uncle, a local celebrity and man about town. The young man to which I am referring is Abraham Oakey Hall, the subject of my first book. Oakey Hall wrote his own book about his time in New Orleans, appropriately titled The Manhattaner in New Orleans, published in 1850. Here is a pic of my copy of that book, first edition.

A must-see stop on my nerd-based trip to New Orleans was not Bourbon Street, but rather, the old U.S. Mint. There, gold and silver coins were produced before the Civil War. I also got to see the town first hand, a town that has not changed radically since the time Hall was there.

You can read all about antebellum New Orleans and about Hall’s experience there in my book, Abraham Oakey Hall: New York’s Most Elegant and Controversial Mayor.