The first Air Force One is wasting away in the Arizona desert

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 also flight-numbered 8610. The near-tragedy prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to designate a call sign for any aircraft that the President of the United States is aboard. The Columbine II became the first Air Force One.

Today it sits on a patch of desert land, where grass struggles and gopher holes dot the arid ground – baking. And the owner of a Virginia aviation company wants to fly it home.

“It’s an airplane with an incredible amount of history,” Karl Stoltzfus, the chairman of Bridgewater, Virginia-based Dynamic Aviation said. “At the end of the day it’s an airplane that should be preserved for the public to appreciate.”

Stoltzfus and his associates have spent weeks in Arizona inspecting the Lockheed Constellation’s four engines, cataloging and replacing parts, and trying to determine whether it could ever fly again. They think it can, and last week they committed to purchasing the plane. 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. A rancher and pilot named Mel Christler bought it in a 1970 military surplus auction. 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 was getting ready to scrap this airplane [in 1980], and the Smithsonian had been doing some research into aircraft that had carried presidential entourages around and contacted him and asked him if he knew what he had,” Christler’s grandson, Tim Crowley said.

“My grandfather was a World War II veteran. … 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 Wyoming rancher named Harry Oliver partnered with Christler to restore the plane to flying conditions.

“[Christler] said, ‘Harry, I’ve given up. I can’t afford to keep her any longer and nobody seems to be interested in saving her, and I think I’ll put her through the smelter.’” Oliver recalled. “And I told him you know, we can’t do that. It’s a little bit of our history.”

So the pair reassembled the plane in the fall of 1990 and flew it to Eisenhower’s hometown of Abilene, Kansas, in honor of what would have been the 34th president’s 100th birthday.

Ike’s plane hasn’t flown since 2003. This month, Stoltzfus and his colleagues ran the engines for the first time in 12 years. And soon, the Columbine II may fly again.

Air Force One flies past an American flag on its way into Daytona Beach, Florida, in 2004. The U.S. Air Force announced Wednesday, January 28, that a customized military version of Boeing's 747-8 will serve as Air Force One for future Presidents. Click through to see the different airplanes that have served as the President's transportation over the years.

The Douglas VC-54C, nicknamed "Sacred Cow," is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, near Dayton, Ohio. Sacred Cow served as President Franklin Roosevelt's official transportation to the Yalta Conference in February 1945.

President Harry Truman's official aircraft, the Independence, served as the presidential plane for almost six years until 1953.

A presidential plane named Columbine III ferried Dwight D. Eisenhower, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip to Washington in November 1957.

From left, astronaut John Glenn, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, and President John F. Kennedy arrive at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in February 1962. Kennedy was the first president to use a customized Boeing VC-137C as Air Force One. The plane was a military version of the Boeing 707. Code-named "SAM 26000," this jet served presidents for more than three decades.

Following Kennedy's assassination, Johnson was sworn in as the President aboard SAM 26000 -- Special Air Mission, tail number 26000.

With Air Force One in the background, President Richard Nixon delivers a speech at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington after returning from his historic trip to China in February 1972.

President Gerald Ford works while aboard Air Force One in 1974.

President Jimmy Carter waves goodbye as he boards a presidential aircraft on his final day in office in 1981.

President Ronald Reagan throws a football toward the press before boarding Air Force One in 1988.

President George H. W. Bush talks with reporters aboard Air Force One in 1990. The Boeing VC-25 -- a military version of the 747-200B -- served as Air Force One for Bush as well as Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Clinton deplanes Air Force One in Philadelphia in 1996.

President George W. Bush, aboard Air Force One, speaks with Vice President Dick Cheney by phone on September 11, 2001.

Obama steps off Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base in April.

A customized military version of this Boeing 747-8 will serve future Presidents.

U.S. Presidents and Air Force One

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Related: After the Columbine was retired, the SAM 26000 became Air Force One. Click below for pictures of the plane that carried JFK and LBJ.

This Boeing VC-137C is the first custom-built jet to serve as Air Force One. Codenamed Special Air Mission -- or SAM -- 26000, the airliner witnessed more presidential history than any other -- ranging from the tragic to the hilarious. It sits in the Presidential Gallery at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.

SAM 26000 may be "the most important historical airplane in the world," said Air Force historian Jeff Underwood. It supported a mission to open U.S relations with China and flew to secret Paris peace talks during the Vietnam War. But it's probably most closely tied to President John F. Kennedy, who first used it in 1962.

First lady Jacqueline Kennedy and the president exit SAM 26000 in Texas in November 1963, just hours before the president would be assassinated. Five months earlier, the plane had flown Kennedy to Berlin, where he delivered his historic "I am a Berliner" address.

This is likely the most famous photograph ever taken aboard any presidential aircraft. Hours after the attack -- and shortly before SAM 26000 left Dallas -- Vice President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president with the first lady at his side. Federal Judge Sarah Hughes administered the oath, the only woman ever to do so.

At Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, the president's casket was offloaded onto an ambulance from SAM 26000, where it had been placed in the rear of the cabin. "The crew didn't want President Kennedy's casket to travel in the cargo hold," said then-flight engineer Joe Chappell on C-SPAN in 1998. "So they made room for it in the passenger compartment." To create the extra space, Chappell said he helped remove two rows of seats and a separating wall.

The president's brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, was anxious to board the plane after it arrived. Shown here with the first lady, RFK "leaped up" the airline stairs in a rush to console Mrs. Kennedy, according to historian Steven Gillon. He "pushed his way down" the aisle past President Johnson "without saying a word." Johnson "fumed that Kennedy would board the plane without even acknowledging him," Gillon wrote in "The Kennedy Assassination, 24 Hours After."

President Johnson is seen here meeting with Sens. Mike Mansfield, left, and J. William Fulbright, far right. All presidents aboard Air Force One used it to multitask. For example, at a 1964 campaign stop, LBJ gave an impromptu press conference on the plane while he changed clothes.

In 1972, SAM 26000 ferried President Richard Nixon to Beijing on a groundbreaking mission to open U.S. relations with the People's Republic of China. The aircraft was welcomed by a 350-man Chinese military honor guard.

In 1981, Nixon and fellow ex-presidents Gerald Ford, left, and Jimmy Carter, right, flew SAM 26000 to the funeral of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. (Also attending: former first lady Rosalynn Carter.) They felt "somewhat ill at ease" together, wrote Carter years later. Then Nixon "surprisingly eased the tension," Carter recalled. The men bonded. The trip resulted in a long friendship between bitter election rivals Carter and Ford.

Many aviation enthusiasts, aircraft geeks and history buffs see the jet as a national treasure. As Vice President Al Gore put it when he last boarded it in 1998: "If history itself had wings, it probably would be this very aircraft."

Codename: SAM 26000

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