Title: Angel Trouble
Characters: Jed, Abbey, CJ, Toby, Ron, others
Category: Drama/Angst
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I don't own the WW characters. Sorkin, Wells and NBC do. I'm just having some fun.
Spoiler: "Angel Maintenance"
Summary: Trouble on Air Force One on a trans-Pacific flight
Chapter 1
The President and First Lady climbed the stairs to Air Force One, exhausted from the two-week visit to the Pacific. Waving to the crowd, they quickly disappeared into the body of the aircraft. Abbey immediately went to their bedroom while Jed got a quick phone briefing from Leo before retiring for the night.
Official visits in Japan, Thailand, and Australia had taken its toll on the entire traveling party and the thought of a twenty hour flight and ten time zones back to Washington was not a pleasant one. But at least they were traveling aboard a flying palace. Nothing else would do for the Leader of the Free World.
The current Air Force One was built by Boeing aircraft and delivered to President Bush toward the end of his Presidency in 1990. So the plane was barely ten years old. Not at all old for a plane that only flies when the President or his designee travels.
Maintenance is much stricter than any commercial aircraft. It's maintained every day, whether scheduled to fly or not. Every 154 days, the plane is taken completely apart and reassembled. Twenty-four hours prior to wheels-up, the fuel is sealed in a tank truck and guarded by sharpshooters. One hour before wheels-up, Air Force specialists drain off a gallon and analyze it for purity and the right levels of octane and water. The wiring is shielded to protect it from a thermonuclear blast: To sabotage the plane requires getting by forty-eight armed members of the Airlift Security Unit or joining the maintenance crew, which takes twelve years following a two-year background check.
So everyone on board had the utmost confidence in the hand-picked crew and the aircraft itself to deliver the President and everybody else on board safely to whatever their destination.