This flew over my head yesterday. Anyone know what it's about?
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Looks like a "green" E4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_E-4

Cool! he was on approach to McConnell and I happened to have my camera handy. Interesting airplane, very expensive looking.

Expensive? You can be sure of that!

If you've seen Dr. Strangelove - Think flying war room

I LOL'ed.

The E-4A was an Air Force command and control aircraft. The 3 As were all converted to Bs, the fourth was built originally as a B. The most distinctive exterior difference between the A and the B is ... the hump.


Must be that time for new paint.






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Cub:

If you look closely, you can see a slight "bump" in front of the cockpit windscreen (halfway down the nose to the radome). That is the air-refueling door.

There is a wire HF-antenna going from the vertical fin to the top of the fuselage. There appears to be the apparatus for deploying a VLF (Very Low Frequency) antenna from the tail cone. The VLF uses a weight (I think I read 50-75 lbs) and about 2 miles of antenna.

When in use, the VLF can transmit through ground and water to submarines (for nuclear launch-control). To do so, the antenna must be near-vertical, so the 747 goes into a tight turn around the deployed weight. It is hanging 10,000 ft below, and nearly stationary inside the turn, while they do a 'turn about a point.'

I'm not sure if the VLF antenna can be reeled-in, or is one-use, and gets snipped-off. I know if it gets stuck, they can snip it off.

Heard in the news last week they finally took delivery of this very aircraft. That took a while!

One of my professors at school was (I think the chief) trainer for these aircraft before he retired. His name is Tom Peterson.