Executive One

[tyketto]

[quote=“sykocus”]

@tyketto

The bigger question is what if the President is a pilot himself and went on a plane ride on his own, or piloted his own plane (Independence Day[/quote]

), what would his callsign be? Still Air Force One?

BL.

If he were flying an air force plane then yes, it should be. Usually in air force when the commander of a unit is flying he uses the callsign of that unit and a 1. For example one place I was at had a squadron who were called the “striking snakes” and they used the call sign snakeXX. When Snake01 was flying it usually meant the squadron commander was up. Each service has a “generic” call sign: A for air force, VV for navy, VM for marine, C for coast guard and R for Army. It only makes sense that when the commander in chief of the military is flying he’d take the “1” for that particular service.

Thanks for the explanation. That makes absolute sense.

Once air force one was flying though our airspace and people kept referring to him as steak sauce.

That’s bad! But I’d rather he be mistaken for steak sauce than everyone thinking he’s AF1 (and piss off AFR)!

How funny with the strip. I don’t know how long ago this was printed (and I assume you’re either working at the Birmingham TRACON or at ZTL or ZHU), but is it me, or is that particular VC-25 not RVSM-capable? or was this printed before dRVSM went into effect?

Good to know that even if you are A1, you’re not immune to flying SIDs out of an airspace.

BL.

[sykocus]

@tyketto

Thanks for the explanation. That makes absolute sense.

Once air force one was flying though our airspace and people kept referring to him as steak sauce.

That’s bad! But I’d rather he be mistaken for steak sauce than everyone thinking he’s AF1 (and piss off AFR)!

How funny with the strip. I don’t know how long ago this was printed (and I assume you’re either working at the Birmingham TRACON or at ZTL or ZHU), but is it me, or is that particular VC-25 not RVSM-capable? or was this printed before dRVSM went into effect?

Good to know that even if you are A1, you’re not immune to flying SIDs out of an airspace.

BL.

To be clear everyone called him Air Force one on the radios/landlines, but “behind the scenes” he was referred to as steak sauce, e.g. “you got that steak sauce strip over there?” Our airspace butted up to the west side of ZTL and BHM Approach, but only went up to fl230 so we never worried about RVSM. This was probably about 4-5 years ago so RVSM might have been it in it’s “trial” stages. Also because our airspace didn’t include any thing in the RVSM stratum the flight data processor might have been programed to print out an equipment suffix other then Q or W. It didn’t strike me as strange to see him as a /E because at that point i my career I don’t think I had even heard of RVSM.

[globemaster]

[quote=“tyketto”]

@sykocus

@tyketto

The bigger question is what if the President is a pilot himself and went on a plane ride on his own, or piloted his own plane (Independence Day[/quote]

), what would his callsign be? Still Air Force One?

BL.

If he were flying an air force plane then yes, it should be. Usually in air force when the commander of a unit is flying he uses the callsign of that unit and a 1. For example one place I was at had a squadron who were called the “striking snakes” and they used the call sign snakeXX. When Snake01 was flying it usually meant the squadron commander was up. Each service has a “generic” call sign: A for air force, VV for navy, VM for marine, C for coast guard and R for Army. It only makes sense that when the commander in chief of the military is flying he’d take the “1” for that particular service.

Thanks for the explanation. That makes absolute sense.

Once air force one was flying though our airspace and people kept referring to him as steak sauce.

That’s bad! But I’d rather he be mistaken for steak sauce than everyone thinking he’s AF1 (and piss off AFR)!

How funny with the strip. I don’t know how long ago this was printed (and I assume you’re either working at the Birmingham TRACON or at ZTL or ZHU), but is it me, or is that particular VC-25 not RVSM-capable? or was this printed before dRVSM went into effect?

Good to know that even if you are A1, you’re not immune to flying SIDs out of an airspace.

BL.

steak sauceplease drop to flight level 250 notify tower what you want on your steak after landing. ok not ever atc, and not pilot yet would that be proper comms on atc freqs??

[tyketto]

@sykocus

To be clear everyone called him Air Force one on the radios/landlines, but “behind the scenes” he was referred to as steak sauce, e.g. “you got that steak sauce strip over there?” Our airspace butted up to the west side of ZTL and BHM Approach, but only went up to fl230 so we never worried about RVSM. This was probably about 4-5 years ago so RVSM might have been it in it’s “trial” stages. Also because our airspace didn’t include any thing in the RVSM stratum the flight data processor might have been programed to print out an equipment suffix other then Q or W. It didn’t strike me as strange to see him as a /E because at that point i my career I don’t think I had even heard of RVSM.

Oh, I agree, everyone refers to the right callsign, especially on frequency, but it’s just funny that you thought of steak sauce (justifiably so!).

Makes sense for you as well if the strip is some 5 years old, because RVSM started in the US and Canada 3 years ago on Tuesday (1/20/2005), so back then, RNAV was really beginning to take off (pun intended).

BL.

[erisajd]

@wazzu90

More likely CNN and Wikipedia were both wrong.

The press, wrong on aviation issues? Say it ain’t so - hahahhahahahaha