![]() ![]() The film crew prepared for the shoot by using the aircraft performance manuals tocalculate the acceleration and braking distances for the 747’s weight and the air densityat the airport to establish a maximum speed. "The sequence begins with us onthe runway, then we accelerate to pass camera center at 60 knots," Bishop says. To shoot the portion in which the 747 goesout of control and veers 45 degrees off the runway toward a near-collision, cameramanDavid Nowell planned to reduce the risk by using a time-honored trick and slow the cameradown to half speed: 12 frames per second. "David had a storyboard, like a comic book, whereeach scene is drawn out," Bishop recalls. While the AIA 747 was off getting a $300,000 paint job to replicatethe Air Force One color scheme, Paul Bishop was busy at meetings to map out how thesequence would be shot. In thestory, the crew members lock themselves into the flight deck after hearing gunfire aboard.They plan to deviate to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where special ground units can stormthe airplane and overwhelm the terrorists. In the latter sequence, Paris had to have the big Boeing veer off therunway, out of control, then take off and barely clear a parked C-141 transport. The film involved two primary flying sequences, one shot near the ChannelIslands off the California coast and another at Rickenbacker International Airport nearColumbus, Ohio. Piloting the 747 was Paul Bishop, an AIA captain with more than 25,000 hours, 4,000 ofthem in 747s. Paris, a helicopter pilot who learned his craft during eight years in theBritish Royal Navy, has an eclectic roster of motion pictures to his credit, from Ishtarto Mission Impossible. To obtain seamless realism in the flying scenes, which combine actual flying with shotsof models as well as special effects created on computers, Petersen relied on McNulty’sexperts and David Paris, the man responsible for the planning and coordination of everyflying sequence. McNulty also scheduled the militaryaircraft, a nail-biter of an experience: "I find it to be quite exciting when youorder up a dozen aircraft, and your first day of shooting is on a certain day at 1500hours, and I’m standing there on the tarmac, and at 1500 hours they start to rollin." McNulty acknowledges that there’s a price for such a high level of cooperation.The Air Force got script approval and the assurance of a positive depiction of the serviceand its people. ![]() To get everything right, Petersen relied on researcher Brian McNulty, who recruitedexperts from the Secret Service and the military. The director of Air Force One is Wolfgang Petersen, whosefilm Das Boot, a gritty tale of life aboard a World War II German submarine, establishedhis penchant for exhaustive research and painstaking accuracy. ![]() All the other military aircraft in the film appear as themselves, withthe services’ costs paid for by Columbia Tristar Pictures. The Boeing wide body, registered in the United States as N703CK, was the 54thbuilt and the third to enter the Japan Air Lines fleet after it rolled off the productionline in June 1970. To create a kind of stunt doublefor the presidential aircraft, the producers of Air Force One rented a standardproduction 747 from American International Airways, a charter cargo carrier based inYpsilanti, Michigan, and founded by former drag-racing champion Conrad "Connie"Kalitta. ![]() In the action movie Air Force One, Harrison Ford is castas the president of the United States and Glenn Close as the vice president, but thesurprise star of this movie may well turn out to be an airplane: the Boeing 747-146 thatplays the part of Air Force One, one of two modified 747-200s operated by the89th Airlift Wing at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. ![]()
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