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To lure the aliens into abducting a presidential clone carrying papers directing them to a super secret negotiation in Area 51 where they would have been robbed of all their valuables, thereby balancing the budget and giving us a technological edge over everyone else for the next 20 years.

Air Force One undoubtedly has different capabilites than the average wide-body that are not known to the general public. We only have a vague idea of the electronic countermeasures and chaff that are used as protection. The new limos Caddy has built for the President are an impressive piece of engineering, and they have probably done a few updates on AF1 as well to rightfully protect our Commander in Chief. Tall buildings can cause all kinds of updrafts in their immediate vicinity, and they probably had other legitimate reasons for doing their tests in an urban skscraper environment. They openly admitted "The photo op was combined with a training exercise to save money, according to another administration official who also spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak publicly about the behind-the-scenes discussions about the flight."

So, they were doing some tests and decided to take pictures with famous landmarks in the background while they were at it. I don't think there were any sinister intentions, just poor planning. Had they come out and said, "Tomorrow, we will be flying Air Force One over your majestic city for a 30 minute photo opportunity," then they might have had to worry about some bonehead hiding out in Hoboken with a shoulder fired missile trying to make a name for himself.

Just my opinions, but I don't think there was much more to this than innocent oversight.

Marty, your use of the term "bonehead" inspired me to link that term to the whole plan.

MartyNeilan wrote:" . . . training exercise . . ."

Haven't I heard that excuse somewhere before???

I just want to know how many times the F-16 pilots had to practice their "lock on" before they called it a day, and who at the Pentagon is in charge of taking the flight data and running the computer simulations from "lock on" to determine what the estimated civilian casualties are if a terrorist hijacking an airplane would actually be shot down over a city.

Good move, using one of the Presidential 747's that serve the fleet (remember, it's only called "Air Force One" if the President is aboard), which is one of the very few Air Force airplanes painted up in quasi-civilian livery.

As usual, following the old adage, it is much easier to get forgiveness later than permission beforehand.