Presidential Mobility - Air Force One | Reagan Library - Simi Valley, CA There’s something about Air Force One that fascinates and draws attention. Even a retired version of the plane at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley attracts nearly half-a-million visitors a year. Download this episode and enjoy a private tour we received while honoring President’s Day. ***Transcript*** Recording date – February 12, 2018 John Lehne: It technically flew seven different presidents. President Reagan put the most mileage on it. I don't know what the exact number of that mileage is, but he definitely flew a great deal on this plane much more so than any other president. This was the aircraft that took him to Germany for the famous "tear down this wall" speech. Anything that was classified or I guess you'd call "secret" that was all removed prior to our obtaining the aircraft. There are no escape pods. There are no hidden guns or bombs or anything else that can be released from the aircraft, so there's nothing like that and a lot of that are the fantasies in Hollywood that they portray in movies. Tom Smith: Welcome to iDriveSoCal, the podcast all about mobility from the automotive capital of these fine United States - Southern California. I'm Tom Smith, and in honor of President's Day, we are sitting underneath Air Force One at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. John: Correct. Tom: Okay. And that is John Lehne who's the building facilities manager here for the Ronald Reagan Foundation, which runs the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. John: Correct. We are part of the library... the foundation actually supports the library. The library is actually run by the government, National Archives Administration. The Air Force One pavilion, which we are sitting in right now with the Air Force One plane, is operated by the foundation. So this is a little unique part of the library. Tom: So there you have it for the specifics. But what the exciting part is, literally I'm looking up at the belly of Air Force One and it's a pretty cool thing. We got some really neat pictures. John was nice enough to walk me through the plane, little private tour, got a couple of pictures. I wasn't able to sit in President Ronald Reagan's office chair, but I did sit at the conference table and that was pretty darn neat. So, John, thank you so much for that. John: You're very welcome. Tom: So it's funny the question on I think everybody's mind is, okay, where's the escape pod? And I already asked John that question... I already asked John that question off mic. He said that's actually the second question that I get asked the most and the first is actually, how did this plane get in this building? And when you come here to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the Air Force One pavilion, you can see a really cool pictorial story that's told on how actually the building was kind of built around the plane. John: Yes. What they did is they put the superstructure, the building up. The plane had flown in a little prior to that, and they disassembled the plane, towed up here in pieces, except for the fuselage was one solid piece. They did the superstructure of the building, pulled the plane and the pieces into the building and literally put the plane back together inside the building. Stripped the plane, repainted it, shrink wrapped it, and then they finished the building around the plane. When they were done with the building, they unwrapped the plane, cleaned it up, polished it up, and then put it on display. So it was almost like the ultimate ship in a bottle type of construction. Tom: And the plane landed actually at San Bernardino International Airport. John: Correct. It flew out from Andrews Air Force Base and landed here in California and then it was ...
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