Airforce One

[LJDRVR]

I don't know of any specific incidents, (I think maybe somebody ran a VC-137's main gear into the mud a few years back at a civilian field.) but I can say the AF1 crew has had a decades long reputation of blocking in to the second. I think the plan is to land several seconds ahead of schedule, as it's easier to slow things down than speed them up. I think this is one of the main reasons they still fly with a NAV. One of my old bosses was a steward on AF2, he says the crew used to put money into a hat and bet on the clock position of the nosewheel valve stem when stopping at the destination.

 

[9_Driver]

Nosewheel Roulette

One of my old bosses was a steward on AF2, he says the crew used to put money into a hat and bet on the clock position of the nosewheel valve stem when stopping at the destination

Yep - it's called "playing the wheel", "nosewheel roulette" or "nosewheel bingo." Big in the [former] C-9 airevac community as well. The real creative crew chiefs would actually number the lug nuts on the wheel with grease pencil and see who would win the kitty at each stop. Ah the days...

An AF pilot who flys a transport categoty jet and meets certain minimum requirements may apply to the unit at Andrews. The requirements are typically very restrictive, and include a minimum amount of flight time, a certain rank, Instructor Pilot qualifications on whatever they're flying, and certain advanced education requirements.

An interesting addition to this is that now AFPC at Randolph (the personnel folks) must "release you" to even submit a package to the folks at Andrews, so it's not "pick of the litter" like it used to be. They still hold a pretty thorough interview board that all applicants must go through, but instead of being able to reach out into the AF and be able to pick who they want, they now get to choose from the "pool" of folks that AFPC decides can put in packages (not based on quals mind you - based more on manning issues it seems). I know this first hand - I wasn't allowed to even submit a package since since they need folks for the rated staff pretty bad these days. Hence the decision to head toward the reserve/airline life!