The first Air Force One is wasting away in the Arizona desert - CNN
In December 1953, an airplane named the "Columbine II" was on a flight over New York City, identified by air traffic controllers simply as "Air Force 8610. " With President Eisenhower on board, it nearly collided mid-air with a commercial airliner... The Columbine II became the first Air Force One. "It's an airplane with an incredible amount of history," Karl Stoltzfus, the chairman of Bridgewater, Virginia-based Dynamic Aviation said. The asking price was $1. 5 million, though Stoltzfus would not confirm the final sale price. "We want to purchase it and refurbish it and bring it back to Bridgewater [Virginia] and have it for public display," Stoltzfus said. The Columbine II is the only privately-owned presidential aircraft in the United States. The Air Force never told him that the aircraft he wanted to use for crop dusting was Dwight D. Eisenhower's first presidential plane. He just felt that since it's an important part of our history, that he had to preserve it. ". The plane was never scrapped, but Christler couldn't pull together enough money to restore it. In 1990, a. Source: www.cnn.com
