[CitizenM]

I know you said that Photo Ops are done all the time; and that appears to be true. But in my lifetime I have never heard of the plane that carries the President (Air Force One or the backup) ever doing this before. So why now?

And...who the heck pays the costs for this plane to do a Photo Op? Gotta cost a pretty penny...for the taxpayers. So much for "tightening our belts," as Obama declared we should do. Guess PR is worth anything, including loss of worker's time, frightening half of New York, creating confusion there and around the country, etc. Obama and his staffers and/or those who approved this ought to pay some price for this disturbance.

Wonder how many mouths those dollars could have fed if Obama had shared the wealth and distributed the money for fuel and plane personnel instead to those people who he promised would get $$$ from his policies. Seems pictures would be worthless to them!

[Never on my watch]

“But in my lifetime I have never heard of the plane that carries the President (Air Force One or the backup) ever doing this before.”

Here is Air Force One over Mount Rushmore:

http://www.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/021126-O-9999G-023.jpg

No population to panic there.

“Gotta cost a pretty penny...for the taxpayers.”

Yes very expensive, but this is usually done coincident with annual training requirements.