“The runways were removed at Bolling and buildings now occupy that space, but there is a heliport there.”
Thanks, didn’t know as they are the only close military landing capacity that could have been used. After reading your entry, I found out that the runways for Bolling/ Anacostia became history because they conflicted with airspace for civilian airports.
There are some abandoned airports in Maryland, about 15, but I can’t find any current info on them to find if there is space to create a runway to support AF1 due to housing growth and land ownership/buildings. Outside of that, I don’t know how to make the landings absolutely safe.
The aircraft is heavily designed to take a hit and stay in the air. There was talk in the thread about an engine shutdown. Most of the new aircraft coming out are two engine aircraft. Having four on AF1 is their way to solve an engine shutdown. And the engine used on AF1, the general electric CF6-80C2B1, is specially designed with anti-stall systems in the form of bleed bands to assist the working thrusters during takeoff and landing.
This hot rod is well equipped. Course a sam hit isn’t going to be real good for it. But it can take a whollop and stay in the air. The armament is what causes the great weight on the aircraft and increased runway needs..a minimum of 12K feet.
That’s a little over 2.25 miles of runway and fully loaded the aircraft actually needs 11,800 feet to get airborn. Fuel used, and jettisoned to make weight, helps shorten it for landing.
rwood
Thanks. I had another thought... if the 747 was approaching a landing at around 180 mph, would a passenger even be able to see a smallish drone hovering nearby? I don’t think a drone would be able to follow along at that speed.
“The aircraft is heavily designed to take a hit and stay in the air. There was talk in the thread about an engine shutdown.”
There is a big problem should one or more AF1 turbofans on the same side ingest a drone and then disintegrate and fall off the wing, possibly causing the airframe to become uncontrollably unstable and flip over.
See Yukla 27 AWACS crash:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Alaska_Boeing_E-3_Sentry_accident