Doomsday Plane Lore

When I was reading Time magazine’s recent cover story on Bob Gates, I was getting a sense of déjà vu.  (Not déjà vu “all over again,” just plain old déjà vu.)   The story’s opening graph used so-called “Doomsday Plane” as a metaphor for Gates.   The big blue-and white Boeing 747, with its distinctive camel’s hump on the forward fuselage has been used by every defense secretary since William Perry for routine overseas travel.  Then I remembered where I had seen that allusion before.  That’s exactly the same way the New Republic kicked off its profile of Gates last November.

Both articles labeled the Doomsday Plane a “cold war relic,” and drew a pithy comparison between the aging Air Force 747 and the crusty old spymaster Gates, both cold warriors still spry long past the demise of the Soviet Union.

Apparently, when it comes to the doomsday scenarios, first time travelers on the plane never metaphor they didn’t like.

The New Republic: “Today, the Doomsday Plane feels like a cold war anachronism. And, until recently, so did Robert Gates.”

Time: “Like his fellow Cold War survivor the Doomsday Plane, Gates has come to embody power, control and an astonishing longevity.”

Both cover stories revel in the apocalyptic imagery of the Doomsday Plane as an airborne command center, poised to open up a can of “Mutual Assured Destruction” on anyone imprudent enough to attack the United States with nuclear weapons.   And both magazine articles, to some extent, exaggerate for dramatic effect the reality of the venerable E-4B 747s, which these days are more of a high-flying VIP limo service, than a tool of nuclear Armageddon.

As someone who has flown the E-4B many times in the past decade, let’s set a few things straight.  Beginning with Times assertion that ” The plane is so heavy that it needs refueling in midair on long flights.”  The plane is outfitted with a lot of not-so-state-of-the-art equipment, but it’s no heavier than your average passenger 747.   Unlike its commercial cousin it can be — and routinely is — refueled in flight, but that’s to maintain crew proficiency conducting the tricky aerial ballet required to get the refueling probe into the nose hole of the jumbo jet.   (If you have ever seen this it comes across a lot like a clumsy high school mating ritual, in which there is a lot of poking around, and a few misses before the two planes are joined in consummation of the fueling act.)

The E-4B “doomsday” mission has long been mothballed.  In theory is was the last leg in a triad of command and control options to launch U.S. nukes if the Soviets wiped out Washington and Cheyenne Mountain in a first strike.   These days even Cheyenne Mountain is manned by only a skeleton crew, although operations could shift there from Peterson Air Force base in 24-to-48 hours, I am told.   After September 11, the primary place from which orders would emanate, the National Military Command Center, has been further hardened and moved to the sub-sub-basement of the Pentagon.

Could missile launch codes still be sent from the old E-4Bs?  In theory, yes.  But the planes have not had significant upgrades in years.   They only got airborne internet service a couple of years ago.  And when the Secretary of Defense is traveling, all those cool-looking consoles are filled with civilian and military staffers.  The Air Force crew consists of pilots, communications specialists, personal security, and flight attendants preparing and serving meals, not missileers.  (There’s not much of a galley on the big plane, by the way, and the crews do a great job in very tight quarters.)

It’s far more likely one of the 747s designated Air Force One would serve as the airborne command center in the event of the unthinkable.  They have all the same “hardening” against electromagnetic pulse, in-flight refueling capability, plus the latest of everything.  (They don’t however have the cool escape pod depicted in the Harrison Ford movie Air Force One, nor is the thin metal skin of the fuselage bulletproof, a plot devise used in the movie to explain the how hundreds of rounds of automatic weapons fire could be expended without affecting the pressurized cabin.)

The main reason Defense Secretary Perry tapped the E-4B as his primary plane back in 1994 was for its communications, which was spotty on the VC-137s, old Boeing 707s that had served as VIP planes.  (One of those planes, tail number 26000 was the plane that brought JFK back from Dallas, when LBJ was sworn in as President was still in use when I was traveling with SecDefs.)   Perry also liked the “legs” of the bigger plane, allowing flights to Europe without what used to be a standard stopover in Shannon, Ireland for refueling on the ground.  That big lump on the front houses communications antenna and other equipment.

If you’re interested in more fun facts to know and tell about the “Doomsday Plane” in recommend Wikipedia, which has links to the official Air Force fact sheet on the plane

Tags: Doomsday Plane, E-4B