Unlike today’s Air Force One, a modified Boeing 747, the Constellation could not hold the president’s entire staff plus a gaggle of reporters. The aircraft’s transformation included the installation of a mahogany desk that featured buttons to activate a phone that could connect to landlines at airport terminals. Eisenhower used the aircraft for a trip to Korea shortly after he was elected president in November 1952, and the next year the aircraft was converted into a VIP transport for him.
The aircraft that would eventually become the first Air Force One rolled off Lockheed’s assembly line in Burbank, California on December 22, 1948, and was purchased by the Air Force. “The aesthetics of the Constellation are in a class all by themselves-they were the iconic aircraft of that era,” says Stoltzfus. Its name is painted in mustard-color cursive and underlined by an image of a blooming columbine, the state flower of Colorado and a nod to the home of Eisenhower’s wife, Mamie.
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Most of Columbine II is a dull pewter now, except for the belly of its forward fuselage and part of its nose, where its aluminum skin has been polished to a lustrous silver that shimmers under the hangar’s fluorescent lights. Lockheed’s Constellation is the loveliest of 1950s airliners, with a long, tapered fuselage that brings to mind the bottlenose dolphin. Though it’s obvious that Columbine II needs to be rebuilt, the airliner’s deteriorated condition cannot obscure its good looks. “He was using his understated style of diplomacy,” says Stoltzfus. Stoltzfus’ slow and steady approach to the restoration seems to mimic Ike’s character. He started reading about Eisenhower after purchasing the Connie, and he’s come to admire the 34th president. Stoltzfus is an avid student of history in general. Columbine II has found a devoted benefactor in Karl Stoltzfus, who is funding the restoration out of a desire to preserve historic aircraft. That includes the C-47 Miss Virginia, which Dynamic flew to Normandy for the 75th anniversary of D-Day last year (see “Return to Normandy,” June/July 2019), as well as a Stearman biplane and a T-6 Texan, two aircraft types that taught some of the Stoltzfus family to fly. Numerous hangars house King Airs and Dash 8s, which workers have fitted with photographic equipment to measure snowpack in the Sierra Nevada and to take geographical surveys for mining companies.Įisenhower’s former transport is part of a small number of legacy aircraft that Stoltzfus restores out of a sense duty to preserve his country’s aviation history. Hidden away on a pastoral road in rural Virginia, Dynamic is situated on a 750-acre airpark. Serving both government and commercial clients, the company is a one-stop shop for aviation services, leasing and staffing its fleet of 140 aircraft for missions that range from military reconnaissance to data acquisition for civilian organizations such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The driving force behind the ongoing restoration is Karl Stoltzfus, founder of Dynamic Aviation in Bridgewater, Virginia. As could be expected, the aircraft is in need of a nose-to-tail overhaul.
Eisenhower, who flew aboard it in the early 1950s. Named Columbine II, the airplane was the personal transport of President Dwight D. No, this airplane, a 72-year-old Lockheed VC-121 Constellation-the first presidential aircraft officially designated as Air Force One-was waiting for resurrection. Speeches on the peaceful purpose of atomic power had been crafted inside its cabin, and presidential naps taken in its comfy berths.īut this Air Force One was not waiting for the president. The large, four-engine transport had logged thousands of miles. On a sunny day last November, Air Force One was parked inside a hangar 140 miles southwest of Washington, D.C.
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