New: Air Force One page

At last, with the fantastic help of Peter Sharkey, I’ve created a page for Air Force One. You may recall that there is already a page for the 3D model of Air Force One, but the new page includes a full history and photos of all the different versions of the airplanes of the chief executive, from Sacred Cow to SAM 29000.

Don’t forget that you can keep an eye on Pete’s work on Wingnut’s Workings.

EDIT:  Weirdly, I happened to be watching Stephen Fry in America episode 7 (because I’m cultured, you know) and he visited, among other places, the Air Force moth ball facility in the desert. I immediately picked out one of the 707-based Air Force One aircraft among the planes, altho the tail number was obscured by sun.

The triumphant return of Peter Sharkey

After taking some time to have a family life earlier this year, Pete Sharkey is hard at work again on 3D models. This time, he is creating a more detailed model of Air Force One than the current one. See it progress on Wingnut’s Workings. Thanks Pete!

Gigantic pics

After scouring the Web for White House photos a measley few hundred pixels across, it’s a breath of fresh air to find John Bailey’s Flickr photostreams for White House Events and Washington DC available at more than 4000 pixels across. There are also marvelous photos of the interior of Blair House, Air Force 1, Marine 1, and various other subjects.

For the largest images, click the ALL SIZES icon, then click the Original link.

And remember to keep an eye on the Flickr White House photostream.

Air Force One and other 3D

I added a page for a fine Air Force One model created by alphaMedia Models and posted to Google’s Sketchup forum.

I’ve also added several other images, including 3D views of the West Wing and East Wing from the Life special issue on the presidency in 1968.

Presidential television

The History channel is running various president-related programs in the next 24 hours, including:

• The White House: Behind Closed Doors
• The Presidents (a series)
• Modern Marvels: presidential transportation
• Secret Access: Air Force 1
• Civil War Journal
• A Presidency Revealed (a series including JFK and FDR)
• UFO Files (Cleveland was abducted by aliens)
• Star Wars Tech (presumably about Reagan)
• Batman Unmasked (Harding fought crime in a black cloak and cowl and became the inspiration for Batman; the “playboy president” persona was a ruse).

UPDATE: At 8 AM and 2 PM on Thu, they’re also rerunning their excellent doco on Fort Knox. The history and architecture of the bullion depository is really fascinating.

White House: Behind Closed Doors

The History Channel sneaked up on me and aired Secret Access: Air Force One and The White House: Behind Closed Doors tonight. I managed to record them, but if you missed them, you can still order the DVDs (SA: AF1 and WH: BCD).

Other presidential places

I mentioned at one time that I’d purchased Oneobservatorycircle.org and planned to do at least a few pages on the vice-president’s residence (Wonkette recently posted some really juicy photos called—in typical Wonkette fashion—”Inside the Monster’s Lair“), but I’ve also begun wondering about adding just a couple of pages about Air Force One (for which there are a good number of photos and even a pretty good diagram) and Camp David (for which there are some photos, but not a lot). I know these locations don’t have the allure of the White House, but they seem like logical extensions of the WHM.

I’m personally kind of curious about the old Mayflower and other presidential yachts, too, but I don’t think much in the way of photos or diagrams of them exist. I’m not very interested in Marine One or the presidential limos, since they are so small and utilitarian, but I know that some pretty good diagrams exist.