Gasp! And the US Navy keeps ships stationed all over the world!!
Wright Patt is in Indiana? I had no idea.
Have they launched the Delta Blimp?
You see that bad boy heading for the Pacific, it’s time to shut the door your shelter!
I want to know how many time this thing has been sent up.
The E-4B “Nightwatch” fleet is based at Offut AFB, Nebraska, where one aircraft/crew is on alert at all times. However, the platforms deploy, sometimes to transport the SecDef overseas. On other occasions, they deploy to US bases overseas while the President is traveling abroad. If the balloon goes up during the trip, POTUS would be taken to the E-4B, not the VC-25, better known by its “Air Force One” callsign when President is onboard.
E-4B’s also deploy apart from POTUS or SecDef travels, for crew training. Wright-Pat is one of their frequent stops, along with Andrews, Fairchild AFB, Washington and other locations. When I was a civilian at Wright-Pat, it wasn’t unusual to see Nighwatch sitting on the ramp, with the crew pulling alert from their deployed location.
A lot of armchair strategists got excited when the E-4 launched from Wright-Pat on Wednesday morning. As I recall, Wednesday is changeout day for the alert crew and support personnel. Departing from Ohio in the morning would give them plenty of time to return to Offut and handover alert duties to the on-coming crew at midday.
Nothing at all unusual about this activity. As I posted elsewhere, the time to get excited about the E-4 is when you see it rushing to a base and Air Force One or Marine One (with POTUS onboard) heading to the same location in a similar hurry. That would signal a pending transfer of president and similar staff from the VC-35 to the E-4. Never been rehearsed with POTUS onboard (to my knowledge), so if that scenario unfolded, there’s a good change that massive quantities of brown excrement would soon hit the old rotary, air-moving device.
Its a BS Story. The E4Bs have been flying since the days OF SAC. Since Ronald Reagan. there are 4 of them set up as flying command posts out of Offiut AFB Neb. originally designed to run Strategic Assets in the event of world war. They have been around for so long there is a Facebook page called Strategic Air Command with stories of the E4’s from years gone by a long time ago...