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How Air Force One Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from House top works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is Charles W.
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Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, Colonel Chuck Admiral Flight Coordinator. I'm a potato
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Speaker 1: peeler camp counselor camp counselor. Charles W. Chuck Bryant with
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Speaker 1: me as always. How you doing, Chuck? Hey, it's November.
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Speaker 1: I know, happy November. November one? Right, yeah, yeah, which
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Speaker 1: is the first day in November. Just get any trick
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Speaker 1: or treaders? No? Nothing. I have two sets of steps
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Speaker 1: that lead up to my front door. And apparently kids
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Speaker 1: are fat and lazy these days in diabetic Did they
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Speaker 1: like y'all throw something down here to the street? Now? Now? Um,
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Speaker 1: we we left after a while. We just don't get
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Speaker 1: anybody who comes to our house. Did you get candy? No?
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Speaker 1: Not this year? We well we had before and we
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Speaker 1: just we sat there and ended up eating all of it.
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Speaker 1: And no one comes to our house either, So that's
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Speaker 1: good at all? Why oh, like our neighbors don't It's
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Speaker 1: sort of like as you come around the bend coming
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Speaker 1: from the other way, from the Decatur side, that's sort
1:20
Speaker 1: of where it ends the trick or treating, Like the
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Speaker 1: bend in the road just it like approaches Memorial Drive
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Speaker 1: and people it just gets scary and there's a bus
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Speaker 1: stop and people turn their lights off. My neighbors are old,
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Speaker 1: they don't get into it. So I think that's just
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Speaker 1: sort of the Demarcasian Did you guys get candy? No,
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Speaker 1: we never, I mean we never do because so basically
1:41
Speaker 1: it stinks. Man, I'm ready for Like, did you dress
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Speaker 1: up at all well for that stupid show? I did? Oh, yeah,
1:48
Speaker 1: that's right. You dressed up as Paul Stanley in a
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Speaker 1: three piece suit. Yeah. Looking good. I think if you
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Speaker 1: asked me, we should post that picture. Yeah, my post one. Okay, Chuck, Yes,
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Speaker 1: you know Jay Carney is a family friend of my family's.
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Speaker 1: I did not know that. Well, he's not. I actually
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Speaker 1: got what I'm about to read off of the White
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Speaker 1: House website. Okay. I couldn't mislead you. I started to,
2:12
Speaker 1: and I just stopped. Um, it's so far. It's been
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Speaker 1: a typically busy week for President Barack Obama. Monday, he
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Speaker 1: went to Las Vegas, delivered some remarks, went to l A.
2:26
Speaker 1: Probably pulled a slaughter too, Probably you have to if
2:29
Speaker 1: you go to Vegas, everybody's like get out of here. Um.
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Speaker 1: And then he went to l A, stay in l
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Speaker 1: A overnight. Right about now he is doing the tonight
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Speaker 1: show with Jay Leno. Should be on tonight, UM. And
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Speaker 1: then he goes to San Francisco, Denver, and then he
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Speaker 1: heads back to um d C Wednesday so that he
2:54
Speaker 1: can meet with the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic
2:56
Speaker 1: Petter Neckas. There is a lot of Flyn more Porton
3:00
Speaker 1: than Jay Lenno. Yeah, oh yeah, you're a Cocoa fan,
3:03
Speaker 1: aren't you? Te Coco? Yeah. I mean even if Conan
3:06
Speaker 1: Membrian didn't exist, I would still think JNS bad. Did
3:10
Speaker 1: you ever see uh night Shift, I think is what
3:12
Speaker 1: it was called about, the late night the first late
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Speaker 1: night work between and UM and they've let him. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that was good, It was real good. Okay, Well, aside
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Speaker 1: from that part, yes, you're absolutely right. That's a lot
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Speaker 1: of flying and every step of the way. Mr President
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Speaker 1: Barack Obama is going to be a board a luxury
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Speaker 1: decked out seven seven with a tail number of either
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Speaker 1: twenty eight thousand or twenty nine thousand. You know how
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Speaker 1: I know that because it's written right here in this
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Speaker 1: wonderful article. Yes, this article called how air Force one
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Speaker 1: Works on how stuff works dot com. Uh, if you're
3:50
Speaker 1: not familiar, you know a lot of people think like
3:53
Speaker 1: we just this is our job podcasting. They don't, but
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Speaker 1: they don't put that together with the site. You should
4:00
Speaker 1: visit the site. And we work for a website called
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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. If you don't, now the
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Speaker 1: mystery is solved and air how air Force one works
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Speaker 1: is on fad site and we say that three that
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Speaker 1: said that three hundred and seventy five times, but people
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Speaker 1: still don't get it. It's true, Like what's your email address? So, Chuckers,
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Speaker 1: you want to do some history first? Oh? Why not?
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Speaker 1: You have you? Before you um read this article? Had
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Speaker 1: you heard of Air Force one? I had heard of
4:26
Speaker 1: air Force Line. I had not heard of the guests
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Speaker 1: where to No, let's let's start it out, because the
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Speaker 1: presidential air travel is fairly new, right. Yeah, Up until
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Speaker 1: World War Two, it wasn't very practical to fly around
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Speaker 1: and one might even say dangerous, and you were cut
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Speaker 1: off because mainly because you were cut off from communications
4:47
Speaker 1: actually telegraph like, no, I want that bill push through exactly.
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Speaker 1: But in n f DR said, you know what, I
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Speaker 1: want to take my wheelchair up on this bowing three
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Speaker 1: fourteen and uh, I want to take a little trip
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Speaker 1: to Casablanca. And that was the first presidential flight. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and he he actually took that flight for practical reasons.
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Speaker 1: It was because the Germans. The Germans had the Atlantic
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Speaker 1: completely under lockdown base and want to take a boat
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Speaker 1: in those days. He was like, no, I'm not going,
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Speaker 1: so I'll just fly and it went smashingly and from
5:24
Speaker 1: that point on everybody said maybe the president should fly.
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Speaker 1: They said, this boating thing snakes, we should fly places.
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Speaker 1: It's much more efficient. Even a flying boat wouldn't do.
5:35
Speaker 1: We just want to flying planes, right. Um, So coming
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Speaker 1: up next, there were I've got six planes before the
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Speaker 1: new set. That was number one. Number two was a
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Speaker 1: C eight seven, a Liberator Express and it was pretty
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Speaker 1: much a BET twenty four bomber that was you know,
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Speaker 1: tricked out civilian style. There were there was padding on
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Speaker 1: the armrest exactly, and that was called the Guests Where too.
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Speaker 1: Just the worst plane name ever. Yeah, Well it's a
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Speaker 1: pretty like typical forties, like engineer. It's like a Colonel
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Speaker 1: John Paul's staff name the guess where too? It's pretty bad.
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Speaker 1: The third plane, well, another C eight seven crashed and
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Speaker 1: they said, you know what, this might not be the
6:19
Speaker 1: best plane because we don't know exactly why it crashed.
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Speaker 1: We don't want to put the president in there. So
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Speaker 1: then they configure to see fifty four Skymaster for that
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Speaker 1: same president because he was president for like sixty years.
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Speaker 1: And Um it had sleeping quarters, a radio, telephone, retractable
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Speaker 1: elevator for his wheelchair, and it was named the Sacred Cow.
6:41
Speaker 1: Better name, better than the guests where too? It's up there? Okay,
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Speaker 1: I mean it's okay. It definitely reminds me of our
6:49
Speaker 1: grarian past. Yeah, all right, am I covering history here?
6:54
Speaker 1: You got the Truman Show. Next, Um took over the
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Speaker 1: Sacred Cow, replaced it the d C six called the Independence. Now,
7:03
Speaker 1: he was from Missouri, so that makes sense that he
7:05
Speaker 1: would call it the Independence Independence Missouri and its United States.
7:09
Speaker 1: But I also got the impression that he um basically
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Speaker 1: it was a Garish plane. They had like an eagle
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Speaker 1: on the front, all sorts of patriotic decorations and nothing
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Speaker 1: else that had had been decorated up to that point.
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Speaker 1: It's like the statue of Liberty threw up on this plane.
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Speaker 1: I haven't seen a picture of it, actually, no, but
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Speaker 1: I could see Truman being like real enthusiastically. Yeah, that
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Speaker 1: there and that there, you know, go shoot a commy
7:34
Speaker 1: over there. How about Betty Boop up front? So our boys, no, no, something.
7:40
Speaker 1: Eisenhower introduced to propeller planes, upgraded the equipment, including for
7:46
Speaker 1: the first time, air to ground telephone and air to
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Speaker 1: ground teletype, which is the first computer. That's not true, No,
7:53
Speaker 1: Teletype was like facts. It was like the bouncing ball. Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: I think so. That was the fourth and fifth sets
8:00
Speaker 1: of planes. Right, well, hold on, so so far a
8:03
Speaker 1: couple of landmarks have happened, right. Um, they decked it
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Speaker 1: out for Roosevelt. It wasn't just a civilian craft any longer.
8:10
Speaker 1: There was like some fly stuff going on. Truman added
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Speaker 1: a couple of other backup planes that were twin planes. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: which is big. Okay. And then now now we're we
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Speaker 1: on too. Now we're undo Kennedy who in nineteen they
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Speaker 1: finally got with the plan and they got seven oh
8:29
Speaker 1: seven Boeing seven oh seven jumbo jets, and they officially
8:33
Speaker 1: called them Air Force one with their radio called designation. Right,
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Speaker 1: that was Eisenhower. That was Eisenhower. Yeah. During Eisenhower's administration,
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Speaker 1: the Air Force adopted the seven seven and started calling
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Speaker 1: him Air Force one. And then when Kennedy took over
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Speaker 1: and everybody was crazy for all things presidential, Air Force
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Speaker 1: one caught on. It's for the public because he probably
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Speaker 1: went on and said air Force one at some point.
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Speaker 1: But he also redecorated it tastefully in the same way
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Speaker 1: that it's decorated today, which is nice. Yeah, it's I mean,
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Speaker 1: it's timeless because you don't look at it and be like, yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's not it's not the vessel sink of airplanes. Home
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Speaker 1: wonders know what I'm talking about. Um. So Kennedy uh
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Speaker 1: added a more advanced seven oh seven that could fly
9:23
Speaker 1: a little longer, but it was still a seven h seven,
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Speaker 1: like you said, redesigned it to his probably Jackie's taste.
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Speaker 1: Let's get real, and um added a twin plane to
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Speaker 1: that fleet in ninety two, and that was a very
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Speaker 1: famous plane because that flew him to Dallas and then
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Speaker 1: flew his body back from Dallas. I know, the way
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Speaker 1: that it's put in this article is so grim but
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Speaker 1: just dead on. It says that it on November nine,
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Speaker 1: It flew him to Dallas and then brought his body
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Speaker 1: back later that day, which is crazy. You know, you
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Speaker 1: think about him on that flight on the way out there,
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Speaker 1: and then exactly and then on the way back, UM
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Speaker 1: John's and was sworn in very famously aboard air air
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Speaker 1: Force one. That photos very famous. And then the twin
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Speaker 1: seven oh seven flew Nixon to uh, I guess your Belinda,
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Speaker 1: California the day he resigned. Well, that's where his library is.
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Speaker 1: I believe it's your Belinda. Um, but Chuck, something else
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Speaker 1: kind of big happened. That leads us to a very
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Speaker 1: important fact about Air Force one. Midflight, the the flight
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Speaker 1: crew got word that Ford had been sworn in as president,
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Speaker 1: and they changed the call sign for the flight from
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Speaker 1: Air Force one to um SMS a Special Air Mission SAM.
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Speaker 1: And the reason they did that is because the only
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Speaker 1: only the plane that the President of the United States
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Speaker 1: is currently aboard can be called air Force one's. Nixon
10:56
Speaker 1: was no longer president, so it was no longer air
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Speaker 1: Force one. So technically the big plane that we all
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Speaker 1: think of as air Force one isn't even air Force
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Speaker 1: one unless the president is riding in it. But we're
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Speaker 1: going to call an air Force one because that's what
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Speaker 1: people do. Yeah, we're not jerks, you know, but it's
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Speaker 1: it's the call sign for a plane, not specifically a
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Speaker 1: plan that was depressing. I wonder if they announced it
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Speaker 1: to Nixon, like and by the way, uh, this is
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Speaker 1: no longer air Force one, this is sam and twenty
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Speaker 1: seven thousand and Nixon just put his head in his hands. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that was it. I could see that. At least I
11:27
Speaker 1: didn't just crash it. They just jump out there like
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Speaker 1: a long sucker. Good luck. Um. So those are the
11:35
Speaker 1: seven h sevens. They they kept flying all through Reagan, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: first half of the Bush Seniors term, and then they
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Speaker 1: were replaced by seven seven that are around today. That's right.
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Speaker 1: And the article says that could replace him as earlyist
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Speaker 1: two thousand ten, which is the twenty year mark. Not
11:52
Speaker 1: so is when they're looking to replace these now, it's
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Speaker 1: like a delta flight or something. Yeah, so it's either
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Speaker 1: gonna to be another seven four seven eight or a
12:04
Speaker 1: seven eight seven Dreamliner. Dude, that is any plane. I
12:08
Speaker 1: checked it out. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, those are nice.
12:10
Speaker 1: They have a really big bar in it. Yeah. I
12:14
Speaker 1: think that's no, it's the air bus that that Emirates fly.
12:18
Speaker 1: The airbus. Well, there's different configurations, but if you click
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Speaker 1: Dreamliner Bowing seven eight seven Dreamliner interior and look at
12:25
Speaker 1: the Google images, it's, uh, it's pretty mixing. And that's
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Speaker 1: just the standard one. I mean, planes typically are outfitted
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Speaker 1: and appointed very nicely. Well, and let's we're there, so
12:37
Speaker 1: let's go. It is appointed nicely well. Yeah. Tom Harris,
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Speaker 1: who wrote this article, compares it generally to like a
12:45
Speaker 1: really nice hotel, very nice office building. Yeah, but it's
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Speaker 1: a plane instead. Yeah. And there's also Marine one. We
12:51
Speaker 1: don't want to short change the helicopter cousin of Air
12:54
Speaker 1: Force one, which is a Chinook, which is my favorite helicopter,
12:57
Speaker 1: and it's pretty sweet too on the inside. I mean
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Speaker 1: it's like a a smaller nice apartment pretty much. And
13:05
Speaker 1: that is obviously the you know, that's the helicopter that
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Speaker 1: it's the same designation when the when the presidents on
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Speaker 1: army plane, that's Army one. The Marines fly the helicopter,
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Speaker 1: so it's a Marine one. And um, the right now
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Speaker 1: we've got those identical bowing seven if you want to
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Speaker 1: get specific, Um, they have a lot Like we said,
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Speaker 1: they're they're they're decked out differently. We'll get to that
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Speaker 1: in a second, but just being seven forty sevens they
13:33
Speaker 1: have some specs. They are pretty impressive. Well, they're big.
13:37
Speaker 1: They're three stories like all seven forty sevens. Uh. They
13:40
Speaker 1: are as tall as a six story building and as
13:43
Speaker 1: long as a city block guests. Depends on what city
13:47
Speaker 1: you're in, I think it does. You're on, Yeah, exactly
13:51
Speaker 1: in the village. Are you uptown? Um? They each have
13:55
Speaker 1: four general electric jet engines. Uh. Do you want to
13:59
Speaker 1: read the jet engine number? Doesn't even out there? Know this?
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Speaker 1: They are ge uh engines CF six DASH eight zero
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Speaker 1: C two B one jet engines, which are money engines.
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Speaker 1: Each one produces fifty six thousand, seven hundred pounds of thrust, which,
14:15
Speaker 1: as we know from the Anti Matter spacecraft episode, produces
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Speaker 1: five million gs, which a human can sustain indefinitely. Yeah,
14:24
Speaker 1: we should point that out real quick. In in show correction,
14:28
Speaker 1: gees measure acceleration, so in theory, you would speed up
14:33
Speaker 1: really fast and then level out, so you wouldn't be
14:36
Speaker 1: experiencing geese the whole time, like we thought, Yeah, erroneously,
14:39
Speaker 1: and thank you physics people for correcting us. UM. The
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Speaker 1: seven sevens fly up to seven hundred miles per hour.
14:46
Speaker 1: They go as high as forty five FET that's the
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Speaker 1: ceiling maximum. What happens after that they just break apart, disintegrate.
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Speaker 1: I don't think they disintegrate. I just think that's how
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Speaker 1: high they can fly safely. May do something to your body,
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Speaker 1: I don't know. UM. And then they hold fifty three thousand,
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Speaker 1: six hundred and eleven gallons of fuel and a fully
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Speaker 1: loaded UM, fully fueled seven forty seven at least the
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Speaker 1: Air Force one seven forty seven's UM can fly halfway
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Speaker 1: around the world before refueling. We should go ahead and
15:22
Speaker 1: let the cat out of the bag. Then Air Force one, however,
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Speaker 1: can fly forever. Yeah, because you can refuel in flight,
15:29
Speaker 1: just like the big bomber planes. And they thought that
15:32
Speaker 1: would be a pretty swell idea in case the S
15:35
Speaker 1: was hitting the fan on the ground, which it did
15:38
Speaker 1: on September eleven two, one just keep them up there. Yeah,
15:41
Speaker 1: there wasn't that one. The one of the planes United
15:45
Speaker 1: ninety three that went down in Pennsylvania. Wasn't that destined
15:50
Speaker 1: for the White House? I think so? And it was
15:52
Speaker 1: pretty hairy even if it wasn't. They had no idea
15:55
Speaker 1: who was doing water when it was gonna get hit,
15:57
Speaker 1: So they said, just keep bushing the air, and they did,
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Speaker 1: and they could have for a very long time, not
16:02
Speaker 1: just with fuel but with food as well. Yeah, they
16:08
Speaker 1: have the ability to feed one hundred people, and I
16:12
Speaker 1: think they have freezers down below that holds as as
16:15
Speaker 1: much as two thousand meals, So they could have stayed
16:18
Speaker 1: up here for quite a long time two thousand meals,
16:21
Speaker 1: especially if they started throwing reporters out the out of
16:24
Speaker 1: the you know door first ago. That's that's a bunch
16:27
Speaker 1: of meals right there. That's true. Um so, chuck uh.
16:31
Speaker 1: The does not have an escape pod though, well, we
16:34
Speaker 1: don't know that it does or not. The awesome movie
16:37
Speaker 1: Airforce One with Harry Ford, Uh, I have not seen
16:40
Speaker 1: it as it good? Yeah? Yeah, I mean, do you
16:42
Speaker 1: want to see your president kicking terrorists but with his hands? Yeah,
16:46
Speaker 1: like he he fights. Of course, he's like a former
16:48
Speaker 1: like Army ranger or something in the movie. We never
16:51
Speaker 1: get presents like that anymore. You know. Uh, so, yeah,
16:55
Speaker 1: it was. I enjoyed it. Um. So, yeah, apparently an
16:58
Speaker 1: escape pod factors in. Yeah, we don't know if there's
17:01
Speaker 1: one on Air Force one, but there could be. They're
17:03
Speaker 1: supposedly not, but if they're not, gonna tell you that.
17:05
Speaker 1: So I heard that Tom Clancy received a visit from
17:12
Speaker 1: I don't know who it was, maybe the n s A,
17:13
Speaker 1: the c I A, somebody, maybe the FBI came to
17:17
Speaker 1: his house and uh interviewed him because he had hit
17:22
Speaker 1: the nail on the head so closely when he described
17:26
Speaker 1: some classified nuclear sub in the Hunt for Red October.
17:29
Speaker 1: They wanted to know how he knew that, what the
17:32
Speaker 1: interior was like interesting, So it makes you wonder, you
17:36
Speaker 1: know what he came up with for Air Force one. Well,
17:38
Speaker 1: and that's one of the points of Air Force one
17:40
Speaker 1: is there's a lot of classified stuff. So while we
17:42
Speaker 1: know a lot of the parts, um, no one really
17:46
Speaker 1: knows the exact layout in configuration and then people know,
17:49
Speaker 1: but there's sworn to secrecy or have signed on to
17:52
Speaker 1: secrecy exactly. But so let's talk about what we do know.
17:55
Speaker 1: There's four thousand square feet of interior space. That's substantial.
17:59
Speaker 1: That's twice the side in my house. Um, and uh,
18:02
Speaker 1: there's three levels, just like on any but the top
18:07
Speaker 1: level is for communications generally, the mid level is like
18:12
Speaker 1: the living quarters, and most of the bottom level is
18:14
Speaker 1: cargo space and apparently freezers for food. Yeah, although I
18:17
Speaker 1: did see that the president's living quarters, bedroom, bathroom, workout
18:21
Speaker 1: room in office. I heard they were under the cockpit,
18:24
Speaker 1: so maybe the cockpits. I think the cockpits on the
18:27
Speaker 1: third that makes sense. Um, and conference room. The conference
18:33
Speaker 1: room is I mean, they don't have unlimited space, so
18:36
Speaker 1: the conference room is also the president's dining room. And
18:39
Speaker 1: depending on the time of day, you know, some people
18:43
Speaker 1: may be in there, other people might not be there.
18:44
Speaker 1: Maybe a meal, there may be some pretzels on the table,
18:47
Speaker 1: it depends. That's right, up to seventy passengers and twenty
18:51
Speaker 1: six crew in total. Comfortably. I'm sure they could pack
18:53
Speaker 1: more people in there, which means they have four leftover
18:56
Speaker 1: meals at every meal. Yeah, you're right, Well does that
19:02
Speaker 1: add up? Yeah they do. I'm saying you throw a
19:04
Speaker 1: porter out bam, that's three meals a day. Well what
19:07
Speaker 1: if he's reported that eats heavy, Well, yeah, what if
19:10
Speaker 1: he's eating those other four meals. You know, Hunter Thompson
19:13
Speaker 1: flew on Air Force one the next seven or seven
19:16
Speaker 1: yea for Fear and Loathing on a campaign trails because
19:20
Speaker 1: he was a legit journalist, so he was well for
19:22
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone. Yeah, but he got to interview Nixon one
19:26
Speaker 1: on one, but they told him all he could ask
19:28
Speaker 1: him about his football. Did he ask him about football?
19:31
Speaker 1: I'm sure he's probably that's fine with me. Rum diaries out. Yeah,
19:35
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm gonna
19:38
Speaker 1: go see it. I've heard it's an enjoyable mess, but
19:42
Speaker 1: so is Hunter Thompson. Yeah. Um, getting back to Air
19:46
Speaker 1: Force one, the decks you can access up and down
19:49
Speaker 1: with these retractable stairs, and the impression I got is
19:52
Speaker 1: that they're retractable, probably so they can seal off the levels, right.
19:57
Speaker 1: I mean they don't say that in the article, but
19:58
Speaker 1: wouldn't that be the reason out. I don't know why
20:00
Speaker 1: he didn't just come out and say it, but it's
20:02
Speaker 1: their interior stairs. So yeah, if the president needed to
20:06
Speaker 1: just go hang out in the cockpit and get away
20:09
Speaker 1: from terrorists, he was losing the fist fight. I'm sure
20:13
Speaker 1: he could press a button in the stairs just go
20:14
Speaker 1: up and you're stuck on the second level. And there
20:17
Speaker 1: are three exterior entrances as well, but the one we
20:20
Speaker 1: usually see is the photo op obviously when they wheel
20:23
Speaker 1: out the the rolling staircase to the tarmac and uh,
20:28
Speaker 1: I think that's the front of the plane, the front,
20:31
Speaker 1: middle in the middle, you know. Obama apparently like in
20:34
Speaker 1: San Francisco. Uh, there's a child crying on the tarmac
20:38
Speaker 1: and he went right over to it and grabbed it
20:40
Speaker 1: and like calmed it down. I think that was today,
20:44
Speaker 1: and the mother like came up and starts slapping it's
20:48
Speaker 1: my child. I'm a tea party here. Uh. There's a
20:51
Speaker 1: staff area, Josh. There were two galleys, which in this
20:54
Speaker 1: case are like seriously fully functioning kitchens, not the coffee
20:58
Speaker 1: pot and the little rolling thing of frozen meals. Uh,
21:02
Speaker 1: like we said, conference and dining room. And the crew
21:06
Speaker 1: can actually ride and sleep there as well. Yeah, and
21:09
Speaker 1: it's you know, most of the general space for like
21:12
Speaker 1: the reporters and staff. It's like a really really like
21:16
Speaker 1: the nicest first class plane you've ever been on, I know.
21:18
Speaker 1: And that's just where they keep the reporters exactly. So
21:21
Speaker 1: I mean you imagine that the President's sweet is pretty nice.
21:24
Speaker 1: You've been on Elvis's at Graceland, Yeah, that's pretty sweet.
21:29
Speaker 1: You may set off the alarm. She sat down on
21:31
Speaker 1: the bed. Oh really yeah, interesting, the alarms just went.
21:35
Speaker 1: She like rolling around like, oh, this is so lovely.
21:38
Speaker 1: You know, she was pretending like she's gonna sit down
21:41
Speaker 1: and then past like her her center balance and went
21:44
Speaker 1: oh god, and like actually sat down on the bed.
21:47
Speaker 1: That puts her in rare company. Yeah, and which she
21:51
Speaker 1: got kicked off, and they came and she was already
21:55
Speaker 1: standing up by the time they came where like, we
21:57
Speaker 1: don't know what happened. They started going off by itself.
22:01
Speaker 1: That's pretty funny. What else, Josh Extensive Electronics, Big Time
22:05
Speaker 1: eighty five telephones, on board two way radio's facts computer
22:09
Speaker 1: WiFi nineteen TVs phone system is just like secure as
22:14
Speaker 1: it is in the White House apparently, which you know
22:17
Speaker 1: it has to be um I like the medical facility,
22:21
Speaker 1: which is scary, creepy, weird, you know, let's hear it.
22:25
Speaker 1: So there's an onboard medical facility and has a fold
22:28
Speaker 1: down operating table in case of emergency, has um e
22:32
Speaker 1: er equipment fully stocked pharmacy for you know long flights
22:37
Speaker 1: and Um, there's a staff doctor that travels everywhere logically
22:42
Speaker 1: with the president. I imagine he's a surgeon. Like he's
22:44
Speaker 1: probably or she is probably well versed in all fields.
22:48
Speaker 1: When you think, like I would want a field medic,
22:51
Speaker 1: a field surgeon plane, I'm sure it's not just like
22:54
Speaker 1: you know, a good time doctor or anything like that.
22:57
Speaker 1: I'm sure he's like probably has all sorts of like
23:00
Speaker 1: rulish training, like you can pull a bullet out of
23:02
Speaker 1: your chest right or do open heart surgery on the
23:05
Speaker 1: fly if he needs to. Or if the baby you
23:08
Speaker 1: pick up and trying to calm has some sort of
23:10
Speaker 1: poison TOCs and on its skin, exactly knows how to
23:13
Speaker 1: treat that that was an anthrax baby. Uh. Some pretty
23:17
Speaker 1: cool things as far as defense goes, although we don't
23:20
Speaker 1: know much about it because it's not you know, it's
23:23
Speaker 1: classified stuff. We've reached the point where Tom Harris just
23:26
Speaker 1: started making stuff up. He did, Uh it is a
23:29
Speaker 1: defense Uh. It is a military aircraft and is capable
23:33
Speaker 1: to withstand an attack. That's what they tell you. They
23:36
Speaker 1: won't tell you how, No, but it has a thick shielding.
23:41
Speaker 1: I wonder if it's lead but they have has shielding
23:44
Speaker 1: to protect the wiring inside and the communications equipment from
23:48
Speaker 1: an electromagnetic pulse that a nuclear bomb gives off. Alright,
23:53
Speaker 1: UM can send out flares which are pretty cool. Well,
23:58
Speaker 1: that throws off the heat seeking missile exactly. It sounds
24:01
Speaker 1: silly until you start thinking about the heat seeker coming
24:04
Speaker 1: at you. Uh. And it has definitely has an electronic
24:07
Speaker 1: countermeasure which will jam the radar. My feeling is is
24:12
Speaker 1: that this bad boy has a fifty cow and some
24:15
Speaker 1: rockets that can pop out of different places. I'm just guessing.
24:18
Speaker 1: I have no idea with anyone from Homeland Securities listening.
24:22
Speaker 1: If I was a president, I would want some some
24:24
Speaker 1: munitions aboard, and I bet there are, but that's just
24:27
Speaker 1: a guess. And it can it can squirt like an
24:30
Speaker 1: oil slick after it so that any planes on its
24:33
Speaker 1: spin out. Uh. It is a military operation. Every time
24:37
Speaker 1: this thing goes up in the air, UM by classification,
24:41
Speaker 1: they send out a crew at Andrews in Maryland. They
24:45
Speaker 1: check out the runway like every inch of that thing.
24:47
Speaker 1: Before every flight. They send out a plane ahead of
24:50
Speaker 1: time that carries all the cargo, plane that carries all
24:53
Speaker 1: the the motorcade cars SUVs. Um, it's pretty cool. And
24:58
Speaker 1: if you are a sane junkie, that is a C
25:02
Speaker 1: one one Starlifter cargo plane that carries the motorcade. I
25:06
Speaker 1: bet it carries a lot of cars. And if you
25:09
Speaker 1: are trying to fly into Andrews Air Force Base at
25:12
Speaker 1: the time when they're starting to prepare for Air Force
25:15
Speaker 1: one to take off or for Marine one to even
25:18
Speaker 1: show up, they're gonna shoot you down. They're authorized to
25:21
Speaker 1: shoot on site. That's right, and they're not gonna mess
25:23
Speaker 1: around with that. Uh what else, josh, Oh, the football
25:27
Speaker 1: is always on board. That is the briefcase that famously
25:30
Speaker 1: holds the UH nuclear codes and um air an Air
25:36
Speaker 1: Force officer guards this football during the flight to the president.
25:39
Speaker 1: You know, he can eat without it being handcuffed to
25:41
Speaker 1: his to his arm, and then passes it onto an
25:44
Speaker 1: army officer once they reach the ground, passes off the football.
25:48
Speaker 1: That's right. And then lastly that crew. So first of all,
25:52
Speaker 1: the crew on board has two cruis as the flight
25:54
Speaker 1: crew and the steward crew. And um, they quite an honor.
25:58
Speaker 1: Well yeah, they also um screen these people. It's not
26:02
Speaker 1: just like you've been really good. So here's your assignment.
26:05
Speaker 1: Like they also have to go through your background and
26:08
Speaker 1: your family's background, Like you undergo some pretty serious background
26:12
Speaker 1: checks because you're on board this flight with the president
26:16
Speaker 1: and he's pretty vulnerable, including by not just antrax baby,
26:21
Speaker 1: but poison food attack. And where do they get this food?
26:24
Speaker 1: They get it from a local market that's picked at random,
26:27
Speaker 1: that has no idea that these people are are coming
26:30
Speaker 1: or who they are, because they just wear like dockers
26:33
Speaker 1: and maybe like a member's only jacket, right, that's what
26:36
Speaker 1: they wear to go shopping for the food. And they
26:38
Speaker 1: mix it up, like you said, so they never know
26:41
Speaker 1: where the food is coming from. And uh, you know,
26:43
Speaker 1: like I said, it's an honor, it's a rare privilege.
26:45
Speaker 1: And that I love how it in the article it
26:47
Speaker 1: says every president since Truman has formed close relationships and
26:51
Speaker 1: connections with the flight crew. I wonder before that where
26:54
Speaker 1: they just ignored, Hey, but apparently Harry Truman ushered in
27:02
Speaker 1: uh chumming up with these people because because he's from Missoura.
27:06
Speaker 1: He's from Missouri. And when you get the president on
27:08
Speaker 1: board Air Force one, that is when you're gonna find
27:10
Speaker 1: a more relaxed, more human president, especially if you have
27:15
Speaker 1: a good flight doctor. That's right, the end, the end,
27:19
Speaker 1: you anymore, that's air Force one. Remember we work for
27:23
Speaker 1: a website called how stuff Works dot com, and every
27:26
Speaker 1: single article, with the exception of what maybe one or two,
27:30
Speaker 1: every single episode that we record has been based on
27:33
Speaker 1: an article on the site. And if you want to
27:36
Speaker 1: read more about air Force one, especially if you like
27:39
Speaker 1: your how stuff works articles to be filled with conjecture,
27:42
Speaker 1: you're gonna love this one. Just type in air Force
27:45
Speaker 1: one in the handy search bar how stuff works dot
27:48
Speaker 1: com and that's gonna bring up the article and it's
27:50
Speaker 1: aid handy and search bar, which means it's going to
27:53
Speaker 1: be a particularly good listener. Now that's right, Josh, this
27:58
Speaker 1: is gonna be I'm gonna call this bear nice follow up.
28:00
Speaker 1: We did um are now annual reading. You gotta do
28:05
Speaker 1: it twice for it to be annual. Yeah, at first
28:08
Speaker 1: it's just an augural. People say first annual though, this kid,
28:11
Speaker 1: it's just not right. So are now second annual Halloween
28:14
Speaker 1: reading where we read royalty free works of literature that
28:18
Speaker 1: are creepy and people like this one. Yeah, I think so,
28:21
Speaker 1: I thought weld some like well, I didn't like that one.
28:24
Speaker 1: Not one person has said it, not so far at least.
28:27
Speaker 1: So this year we read Baronice by Edgar Allan Poe,
28:30
Speaker 1: and we had a couple of follow ups. Um, you
28:32
Speaker 1: remember at the end we sort of tried to figure
28:35
Speaker 1: out what happened. Yeah, Sean writes in I'm sure you've
28:37
Speaker 1: gotten a few of these as I read the story.
28:39
Speaker 1: Baronice had a kind of epilepsy that left her comatose
28:42
Speaker 1: and in a death like state. From this quote, trance
28:46
Speaker 1: very nearly resembling positive dissolution makes sense. Of course, when
28:51
Speaker 1: you're reading this sometimes it escapes you because you're trying
28:53
Speaker 1: to read it well. So everyone did think she was dead,
28:56
Speaker 1: and she was buried. He didn't hallucinate anything in his mania.
28:59
Speaker 1: He dug her up, ripped out her teeth, and then
29:01
Speaker 1: that act woke her from her trance. Hence the screaming
29:05
Speaker 1: that wounded but alive Berenice and the blood all over
29:09
Speaker 1: our narrator. Pro she didn't wake up buried alive to
29:13
Speaker 1: die a slow, suffocating death. Cohn definitely no more Steak
29:17
Speaker 1: Dinners in her future. That's from Sean. And then the
29:21
Speaker 1: second one, I have to say, the protagonists loved her
29:24
Speaker 1: enough as a friend he would have cut her steak
29:28
Speaker 1: and or chewed it up and spit it in her mouth.
29:32
Speaker 1: This is from Julie and Julie Remember, I didn't have
29:35
Speaker 1: the French translation, and we we had quite a few
29:37
Speaker 1: people send it in, but hers was the best version
29:39
Speaker 1: I thought. Just finished listening to Berenice. Um, thanks for
29:44
Speaker 1: keeping up the creepy short story tradition. I have to
29:47
Speaker 1: admit I was more than a little excited to hear
29:48
Speaker 1: that you didn't know the meaning of the French phrases,
29:51
Speaker 1: because I can finally use my random French degree. Ah,
29:55
Speaker 1: here's the translation of Mademoiselle Saul. It had been well
29:59
Speaker 1: said that all her steps were feelings, and of Berenice,
30:04
Speaker 1: I'm more seriously believe that all her teeth were ideas
30:08
Speaker 1: the ideas. So here's what Julie thinks it means. Mademoiselle
30:12
Speaker 1: Saul was a famous French ballet dancer in the seventeen thirties. Someone,
30:17
Speaker 1: perhaps her great admirer Voltaire you've heard him, probably described
30:21
Speaker 1: her graceful ballet as creating feelings with every step. Ah.
30:26
Speaker 1: I Gaius was so overwhelmed with all the imaginative thoughts,
30:30
Speaker 1: that's the protagonist, which were provoked by her teeth, that
30:33
Speaker 1: he felt like each tooth was a source of a
30:35
Speaker 1: new idea. I think she's right on the money personally.
30:38
Speaker 1: I think all Eddie was showing off and probably pretty
30:41
Speaker 1: tripped out, but that's part of his charm, and that
30:43
Speaker 1: is from Julie. That's nice. Those are too like top
30:47
Speaker 1: nozze seller fan mails. They weren't even fan mails. That's
30:51
Speaker 1: a listener mails. That's right. Yeah, they're no fans. No,
30:54
Speaker 1: they're just smart. Um. If you're a smart person who
30:57
Speaker 1: wants to tell us something you think we'd like to know.
31:00
Speaker 1: We like to know just about anything, so that's cool.
31:03
Speaker 1: Send it in any thought you have any ramblings although
31:07
Speaker 1: we did get one recently. Did you notice it? I
31:09
Speaker 1: can't remember what it was about, but it was a rambling,
31:12
Speaker 1: was it? Yeah? I don't remember what it was, but
31:14
Speaker 1: it was probably from a smart person because it was
31:16
Speaker 1: a stuff you should know a listener. You can tweet
31:19
Speaker 1: to us at s y s K podcast. You can
31:23
Speaker 1: go unto our Facebook, Facebook dot com slash stuff you
31:26
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31:29
Speaker 1: good old fashioned email at Stuff Podcast. At how stuff
31:33
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Speaker 1: video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work
31:44
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