First ‘Air Force One’ Retires to Museum
The first jet to carry a U.S. president is being retired to a museum after logging 21,000 flying hours, many of them under the name Air Force One.
The blue-and-white Boeing 707, known as No. 58-6970 or “Old 970” for short, had a formal retirement ceremony Monday at Andrews Air Force Base, Md.
One speaker was Col. Joe Sofet, one of the pilots who flew the airplane from the Boeing factory in Seattle to Andrews for its commissioning on May 12, 1959.
Dwight D. Eisenhower made his first trip on Old 970 on Aug. 26 that year. The 707 still sports a pipe rack made for President John F. Kennedy and a hatrack installed for President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Stetson.
Old 970’s new home will be the Museum of Flight in Seattle.
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