The President’s airplane is Air Force One.
The helicopter is Marine One.
Is there a boat called Navy One?
Technically, “Air Force One” is the handle of whatever plane the President is flying in, though 99% of the time it is the same super-high-tech Prez-Plane.
As for boats, I have no idea. I haven’t heard of a President ever traveling on a boat since Truman, and they didn’t have Air Force or Marine One in those days.
No more, but here’s a history.
http://home.rose.net/~dingdong/Yachts/Yachts.html
As close as we’ve ever come to a Navy One, anyway.
Peace,
mangeorge
This article from a magazine called Southwest Aviator notes that a Naval aircraft on which the President happened to be traveling would be designated “Navy One”. I don’t know if ships have “call signs” the same way aircraft do.
Ships don’t have call signs. As the previous poster pointed out a navy aircraft would be designated Navy one as the same way the helicopters get designated Marine one.
And any Army or Coast Guard A/C that the Prez would be on would also be “Army One” or “Coast Guard One”.
“_______ One” is a radio call sign; in the US, aircraft in flight identify themselves to ATC by either their registration (“N951SP”) or by the organization they belong to and the flight number (“United 711”). So it’s short for “[Service Branch] Flight/Mission #1”.
IIRC the practice was adopted after one incident when either Ike’s or Truman’s (I forget which one) “Air Force ****” had the same number as a commercial airliner on approach to the same airport.
When no-longer-president Clinton left town in one of the presidential planes, with reg number 27000, that flight was identified as “Air Force Special Mission 27000.”
jrd
And when President Nixon was flying to California aboard Air Force One after resigning, the call sign changed to the “Special Mission” call sign at the exact time that Ford took the Oath of Office.