Presidential helicoptor service--?from USA to USMC?

[El Bibliotecario]

The other night I saw a newsclip of John Kennedy getting off his helicoptor--a pimped up glossy painted green and white ship apparently dedicated to such use--and marked US ARMY. I was wondering when the Marines took over the presidential taxi service--and if there was any kind of political horsetrading involved.

[Bob Hudson]

"Until 1976, the executive rotary wing mission was shared with the Army. In that year, HMX-1 was designated the sole source of rotary wing support for the President"

 

That's from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/usmc/hmx-1.htm

[USMC_GAU-21]

Well, it depends on who you talk to, the Army or the Marines

 

Taxi Service.....too funny. I wouldn't go saying that around the marines that do the job. Especially when for every 1 hour the President flies it takes 8 hours of polishing and wiping down the aircraft.

 

r/Gy Dan

[El Bibliotecario]

Thanks for enlightening me. Eight hours of maintenence per hour of use is worse than the ratio for tracked vehicles. But with all that polishing, I bet the inside smells cleaner than most cabs.

[Cobrahistorian]

Thinking about the Army Presidential Flight Detachment got me thinking.

 

I was fortunate to get to know CW4 (Ret) Willie Ruf while I was at Fort Rucker. Since my down-time between phases was spent volunteering at the museum, he and I talked fairly often. Mr. Ruf was one of the Army Presidential pilots and flew Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. He'd flown the Presidential VH-34 they have in the collection there for hundreds, if not thousands of hours. He had an incredible career, starting as a Private in the Infantry before WWII. By Korea, he was a Sergeant Major and then he decided to go to flight school and was one of the first Army Rotary Wing Aviators. He flew a number of tours in Vietnam and was shot down (IIRC) sixteen times, one time actually landing on top of the NVA soldier that shot him down! He retired in 1969 and became a full time Instructor Pilot at Ft. Rucker. He retired again from that in the late 80s/early 90s and since then, every flight school class that came through the museum got a tour from Mr. Ruf. I tagged along on many of them just to hear a bit more from him. I was kinda shocked a couple of times when he turned to me to answer a question or two!

 

He was quite the character and it was pretty amazing talking to him about the VH-34. Little things, like the wooden plank that Ike sat on, to where Kennedy preferred to sit were just a few of the conversations we had. I had some down time between the AH-64D course and SERE, so I went back to work at the museum for a bit. I noticed Mr. Ruf wasn't around as much that spring. Sadly, he passed away after a six month battle with cancer a few months after I graduated.

 

http://www.armyavnmuseum.org/people/p2z/cw4rufw.html

 

 

 

 

Jon