POTUS in South Africa

[springbok]

POTUS has just landed in South Africa at the Waterkloof Air Force Base on 92-9000,
this is what has arrived in support of the visit to Pretoria and Cape Town....

Waterkloof:
01) C17 01-0189 RCH484 from Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina
02) C17 99-0168 RCH518 From Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska
03) C17 06-6157 RCH517 From Travis AFB, California (Repositioned to Lanseria)
04) C17 00-0179 RCH519 From Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, Washington state
05) C17 08-8194 RCH520 From Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington (Repositioned to OR Tambo)
06) C17 00-0180 RCH522 From Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington (Repositioned to OR Tambo)
07) C17 98-0056 RCH521 From Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska (Repositioned to OR Tambo.)( Update:Has now left OR Tambo)
08) C17 97-0041 RCH250 From Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina (Repositioned to Lanseria)
09) C17 10-0219 RCH253 From Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington (Repositioned to Lanseria)(Left for Diego Garcia)
10) C17 95-0103 RCH242 From Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina (Repositioned to Lanseria)
11) C17 10-0218 RCH476 From Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington (Repositioned to Lanseria)
12) C17 10-0217 RCH302 From Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington (Repositioned to Lanseria)
13) C17 03-3125 RCH477 From Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey (Repositioned to Lanseria)
14) C17 04-4134 RCH495 From Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey (Repositioned to Lanseria)
15) C17 06-6160 RCH305 From Travis AFB, California (Repositioned to Lanseria)
16) C17 01-0191 RCH524 From Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina (Repositioned to Lanseria)

01) CH-46E 157682 showing number 20 from MCAF Quantico, Virginia (Secondary number 4 )
02) CH-46E 157683 showing number 21 from MCAF Quantico, Virginia (Secondary number 10 or 4 )
03) CH-46E 153362 showing number 22 from MCAF Quantico, Virginia (Secondary number 8 )

01) VH-60N 163262 from MCAF Quantico, Virginia
02) VH-60N 163264 from MCAF Quantico, Virginia

01) MD-11 N383WA World Airways (England to Sweden to Romania to Waterkloof)

01) C-32A 09-0017 S97
02) C-32A 99-0004 S44

01) E4-B Doomsday plane 73-1676 HANK 22 ( landed in Swaziland)

OR Tambo:
01) Delta Airlines 767-300 N177DZ


Cape Town:
01) C17 04-4129 RCH485From McGuire AFB, New Jersey
02) C17 08-8192 RCH478 From Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington
03) C17 92-3293 RCH523 From Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina
04) C17 04-4132 RCH500 From Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey
05) C17 10-0222 RCH501 From Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina
06) C17 08-8193 RCH480 From Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington
07) C17 07-7172 RCH479 From Travis AFB , California
08) C17 98-0056 RCH423 From Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska
09) C17 02-1102 RCH858 From Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington
10) C17 00-0180 RCH424 From Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington (Seen at Waterkloof as RCH522 before)
11) C17 09-9207 RCH509 From Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina
12) C17 03-3126 RCH507 From Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey
13) C17 04-4132 RCH508 From Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey
14) C17 07-7175 RCH506 From Dover AFB, Delaware


01) CH-46E 157679 showing number 17 from MCAF Quantico, Virginia (Secondary number 3 )
02) CH-46E 157680 showing number 18 from MCAF Quantico, Virginia (Secondary number 3 )
03) CH-46E 157681 Showing number 19 from MCAF Quantico, Virginia (Secondary number 4)


01) VH-60N 163260 from MCAF Quantico, Virginia
02) VH-60N 163265 from MCAF Quantico, Virginia

[lijk604]

Disgusting! The country is in sequestration and he is using 30 C-17's (in addition to all the other aircraft) to support this trip?
Why doesn't the news media cover this? Oh right, they pander to his administration.

[RomNYC]

Country in "sequestration"?

[PhilDernerJr]

How is it known the the Delta and World aircraft are in support of the Presidential visit?

[MarkLawrence]

Phil - Delta, commercially only flies the B772LR to SA - if I remember seeing right ,the Delta763 went to Senegal first, which is where the President was first and then on to Johannesburg - local connections of mine hinted it was media support - not sure what the World was for but again, they also do not fly to SA regularly. Seeing that it went to Waterkloof (the military base where I think AF1 is too) - I would suspect Presidential support.

Edit: @John - a lot of media are also there because of President Mandela's condition.

[springbok]

Correct on the Delta 767 , arrived from Senegal about an hour before POTUS and has just left for Cape Town, POTUS leaves in about 2 hours. The fact that the MD11 went into Waterkloof Air Force base indicates support for the visit, it's very unusual for a civvy airliner to go into a AFB in this country.
An amendment to the above list is an extra C17 which arrived into Waterkloof a few hours after POTUS (94-0068) and the E4B did not go to Swaziland, it has been photographed in Mauritius which is an island about 4 hours from South Africa.

[springbok]

Interesting to see on the departure from Waterkloof they used a dummy hex code of AE13DF not the normal one for the aircraft of ADFDF9 but still had the AF1 callsign transmitting

[gonzalu]

John, given the recent coverage of the scandals during this administration, I would not call that pandering.

As for all the money spent on trips, I have to be on the side of the country that we are the world's numero uno democracy and good times or bad, we must project our presence and leadership. It is after all what we are all about (as a country) ... so the show must go on.

THat being said, why so many C-17s is seriously questionable. I mean, maybe two or three C-5s with an escort of maybe 2 or 3 F-22s would make up for the performance of the C-17 vs the C-5

Speaking of which, we are not taking into account what most likely was also a deployment of one of our carrier fleets nearby in support of security just in case some idiot thought they could take advantage of AF-1 ... maybe even F-22s or F-16s/15s flying around from nearby bases :)

[captmjk16]

Funny thing is, those Globemasters would be stuck on the ground if not for supporting this joke of an administration flying around doing nothing productive as usual, so I guess the silver lining is that at least some of our pilots can maintain some semblance of proficiency.