Photos Show How Air Force One Has Changed Through the Years | Invesloan.com

Nicknamed “Sacred Cow,” the aircraft operated from 1944 to 1961, flying Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

It featured an elevator shaft for Roosevelt’s wheelchair, an executive conference room with a bulletproof window, and an electric refrigerator, which was a rare luxury for planes built in the 1940s.

Eisenhower’s Boeing 707 Stratoliner, nicknamed “Queenie,” featured a section for telecommunications, room for 40 passengers, a conference area, and a stateroom.

SAM 26000, a customized and modified version of a civilian 707-320B airliner, was known as a Boeing VC-137C. It included a living room, bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen.

The plane’s design featured an American flag on the tail and presidential seals on the nose.

It marked the first and only time a presidential swearing-in ceremony took place on an airplane.

The small alcove was decorated with a globe decal on the wall and curtains lining the windows.

Nixon stood behind the plane’s bar while meeting with military and civilian leaders en route to Vietnam.

Presidents would occasionally make their way back to the rear cabin to chat with reporters.

Ford is pictured with Candice Bergen, the first female photographer to shoot a behind-the-scenes story on an American president.

Carter talked to reporters on his way back from a trip to Europe in 1978.

In 1983, Reagan met with Secretary of State George P. Shultz and the national-security advisor designate Robert McFarlane in a meeting space that featured a magazine rack, teal chair, wood-grain table, and photos of him and the first lady, Nancy Reagan.

The photos showed Reagan toasting with a champagne glass and waving while boarding Air Force One.

The meeting room also included a television set.

The presidential office was updated with a stately desk, gray carpeting, and leather chairs.

The staff area featured plenty of phones for official business. Air Force One is also known as the “flying Oval Office.”

The annex is pictured in executive configuration, with seating for meetings.

Clinton met with a delegation from North and South Dakota in 1997 to address flooding in the area.

Clinton met with members of Congress to discuss nuclear-waste management in 1999.

The plane flew 444 missions and logged over 1 million miles, according to the Bush White House.

Bush insisted on returning to Washington, but the Secret Service refused since they were unsure if more attacks were coming.

In a 2016 interview with Politico, Bush’s assistant White House press secretary Gordon Johndroe described Air Force One that day as “the safest and most dangerous place in the world at the exact same time.”

The president’s suite included a small bed, a couch and carpeting in light pink, and a desk with a brown leather chair.

The hallway was lined with a beige couch with side tables and lamps on either side.

The plane has 85 phone lines as well as encryption and scrambling devices to ensure secure communication, CNBC reported.

Food and drinks are provided by the plane’s galley kitchen.

Obama met with his chief of staff, Jack Lew, his senior advisors David Axelrod and David Plouffe, and former President Bill Clinton in the senior staff room in 2012.

The carpeting was updated to a subtle star pattern, which also appeared in the conference room.

The chairs featured a subtle polka-dot pattern, and the tables folded down to make more space.

Journalists can wander the rear cabin freely, but they aren’t allowed to walk forward to speak to the president — the president has to come back to them.

As part of the Air Force’s Presidential Aircraft Recapitalization program to update Air Force One planes, Trump proposed a red, white, and navy-blue color scheme for the new models.

Instead, President Joe Biden selected a baby-blue color scheme similar to the current model.

The new VC-25B Air Force One planes are expected to be ready by 2027, according to the Air Force. The long-delayed project has already cost Boeing over $2 billion due to various manufacturing and supply-chain issues.

Plain beige carpeting continued down the hallway.

Biden took his first overseas trip as president in June 2021, visiting Europe for the G7 summit.

Trump signed a proclamation establishing the name change in his Air Force One office in February 2025.

The luxurious plane previously functioned as a Qatari private business jet. It features a large primary bedroom with loveseats and an en-suite bathroom, guest bedrooms, office space, a dining room, and a salon lounge with plush couches.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a May 2025 briefing that the Qatari royal family donated the jumbo jet to the US Air Force and that it was being “retrofitted to the highest standards” to serve as Air Force One. Some estimates have put the cost of upgrading the jet for the office of the president at $1 billion, but the US Air Force secretary said in June 2025 that it will cost less than $400 million to retrofit.

Trump, who has pressured Boeing to deliver its new Air Force One planes sooner and criticized the project’s “failure” to complete them on time, said he’d be “stupid” to turn down the Qatari plane, worth an estimated $400 million. In July 2025, he said the plane could be ready as soon as February 2026, but that deadline has since passed.

After departing to Davos for the World Economic Forum in January, Air Force One returned to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland shortly after takeoff.

Leavitt told reporters that the crew identified “a minor electrical issue” after takeoff and returned to the airport out of an abundance of caution.

Trump then boarded a C-32, a militarized Boeing 757 jet often used for flights into smaller airports.

Leavitt also joked about the Qatari Air Force One jet sounding “much better.”