Being the president of an association that uses one of the most well-known photo manipulation softwares available, Scott decided to see if he could shave down that hefty pricetag and deliver similar results. Turns out that Scott managed to get the large 747 in front of the Statue of Liberty only after about 2 minutes of fiddling in Photoshop. He used a stock photo of the Statue of Liberty from iStockPhoto.com and the official Air Force One file photo from The White House.
Together, Scott estimates that the job is equivalent to a $360 freezer for an orphanage in Kenya and he’d much rather the government spend that amount of money sensibly than fly the actual 747 very low over New York City. I undoubtedly agree.
Here’s the view from 30 Hudson Street in Jersey City yesterday as a large 747 used sometimes to transport the President flew low over the Lower Manhattan vicinity scaring people and causing companies to evacuate their premises out of caution. The fly-by was a photo-shoot to update the image of Air Force One that the government had on file and the White House has since apologized for their bad judgment.
Here’s something you don’t see everyday. This is an image of the fuselage of Air Force One at the Ronald Reagan Presidential library with its wings completely severed from the body. The plane and its major parts were being moved in this image from June, 22, 2003.
Fox News has posted their video tour of Air Force One online at YouTube (sorry, not embeddable) and it’s basically everything I’ve ever thought of the airplane and lots more. Air Force One really is a mini-city in the sky, with its own telecommunications hub (every possibly kind you can think of), a small hospital, staff that can do just about anything for the President, and rooms for every Presidential task required.
From aboard the plane, the President can address the entire nation via radio or TV and can get information from pretty much everywhere around the globe.
What’s interesting is that Air Force One is completely reconfigurable to any state of a previous President. When Nancy Reagan flew aboard Air Force One with the body of her husband, Ronald Reagan, the plane was brought back to exactly the same configuration that it was when Ronald Reagan was President.
Of course, my suspicions of Air Force One having some of the most advanced weapons-defense systems of any aircraft were correct because it’s said that the airplane can ward off surface-to-air missile attacks. What I didn’t know however was that the plane can protect itself from some sort of nuclear attack. I don’t know how, but if a plane can do that, you can pretty much bet it’s the greatest thing flying in the skies.
