The vice president of the United States generally does not fly on board Air Force One with the president as a precaution to ensure the continuity of government. Instead, the second-in-command uses a different plane, known as Air Force Two.
One of these vice presidential jets is open to the public. The VC-9C, which served vice presidents and other government VIPs from 1975 to 2011, can be viewed at the Air Mobility Command Museum in Delaware.
Vice Presidents Walter Mondale, George H.W. Bush, Dan Quayle, Al Gore, and Dick Cheney used the plane as their primary Air Force Two. First ladies Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Laura Bush also traveled on board.
I visited the Air Mobility Command Museum in May to tour the historic Air Force Two. Take a look inside.
For 36 years, the VC-9C transported vice presidents, first ladies, and other VIP passengers.
The VC-9C originally served first ladies, Cabinet members, and high-ranking government officials, and was modified in 1982 to serve as the vice presidential plane.
The VC-9C also occasionally flew as Air Force One when Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush needed a jet capable of flying into smaller airports.
It remained in presidential service until 2009 and continued to fly other VIPs until its retirement in 2011.
It’s now on display at the Air Mobility Command Museum, located on Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
The VC-9C, a McDonnell-Douglas DC-9-32, measures 119 feet and 5 inches long with a wingspan of 93 feet and 5 inches. Its blue-and-white livery was the same color scheme chosen by first lady Jacqueline Kennedy for Air Force One.
Positioned near the entrance to the Air Mobility Command Museum, it’s the first plane I saw while walking into the museum from the parking lot.
I boarded the plane through a set of stairs near the tail.
Of the Air Mobility Command Museum’s collection of 39 historic aircraft, about 15 are open to the public for exploring, operations manager Michael Hurlburt told Business Insider.
Some planes are open for self-guided tours, while others are only accessible on the museum’s open cockpit days, held every third Saturday of the month between April and October.
Admission to the Air Mobility Command Museum is free.
The first stop on my tour was the galley in the back of the plane, where flight attendants prepared meals for VIPs.
Meals were usually cooked ahead of trips at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, home of the 89th Airlift Wing that handles presidential transportation.
The other countertop in the galley was transformed into a museum exhibit with models of presidential aircraft through the years.
The display included models of the first presidential aircraft from 1944, nicknamed the “Sacred Cow,” all the way through the Boeing VC-25A that President Donald Trump uses as the modern Air Force One.
I moved forward into the seating area where staff members and other passengers sat during official trips.
The seats were upholstered in blue and grey colors.
The original seats were upholstered in an orange-and-red houndstooth pattern.
The color scheme was updated in the 1990s.
The stateroom featured more spacious seating areas for the vice presidents, first ladies, and other VIPs.
The stateroom included a couch, a dining area, a TV, and a stereo system with a CD player.
The vice president or other principal VIP usually sat in the first-class swivel chair on the right.
Seals representing different government offices were switched out depending on who was on board.
When transporting the vice president, for example, crew members affixed the seal of the vice president to the plane’s door and the wall above the VIP seating area in the stateroom.
The stateroom included two phones.
One phone was used to communicate with other areas of the plane, and the other was a line for secure communications.
The couch could fold down into a bed for long-haul flights.
It wasn’t as luxurious as the private staterooms and lavatories that presidents enjoyed aboard Air Force One planes.
Near the front of the plane was the communications compartment, which contained a laptop, a fax machine, and other secure transmitters.
The communications compartment, added to the plane in 1982, was staffed by a communications system operator, or CSO.
Across the aisle from the communications compartment, Secret Service members sat in additional seats behind the flight deck.
Another seal was affixed to the door of the plane where vice presidents would usually board or disembark.
The flight deck featured seats for the pilot and copilot.
The VC-9C featured two engines, each with 14,500 pounds of thrust. The plane’s maximum speed was 575 miles per hour.
The use of the VC-9C spanned six presidencies, encompassing a significant period of American history.
As part of its display, the Air Mobility Command Museum chose to highlight notable passengers from one year of the plane’s service.
“We just chose 1999, roughly in the middle of its service life, to see who flew on it,” Hurlburt said.
That year, the distinguished visitor list included Vice President Al Gore, first lady Hillary Clinton, President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, and Secretary of the Air Force F. Whitten Peters, among others.
“There’s a long list of dignitaries that flew on this,” he said.
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