Air Force One in Long Beach

I spent most of the day back at the hospital with my mom and dad, but I managed to sneak out for a couple of hours in the afternoon. I was on a special photo mission.

A couple of years ago my daughter played in the All Southern High School Honor Band in a concert at Cal State Long Beach. While waiting for her to come out of a rehearsal one night I noticed the jets arriving at Long Beach flew directly overhead at low altitude. Why is that relevant to today? Read on.

President Obama came to Southern California today, and the plan called for a landing of Air Force One at Long Beach Airport at 3pm. Remembering my experience from the concerts, I left the hospital and headed for CSULB to see if I could get some photos of the world's coolest airplane as it passed overhead. There is a four-story parking garage that gives you an unlimited view of the approach path to Long Beach, so I stationed myself up there along with a couple of other photographers.

While waiting I took this shot of the Pyramid, the CSULB arena:The plane was scheduled to land at 3pm, and if there's one thing you an count on with Air Force One, it's on time. At approximately 2:58 the big plane came into view well in the distance as it lined up for the final approach. It took a minute or so to get within decent photo range and passed almost directly overhead at maybe 30 seconds until 3. Since I was only a mile or so from the end of the runway, the wheels had to touch down right on time.

I got a couple of good shots, despite having to shoot almost into the sun, as it passed overhead:

It's not easy to get a good shot of something going 160 mph, but those aren't bad if I say so myself. Say what you want about the occupant, it's still the coolest looking airplane in the sky.

The announced plans for Obama's trip included a motorcade from Long Beach to the townhall event in Costa Mesa. Consequently, as I drove south back down the 405 I could see people starting to gather on overcrossings to away the motorcade:

Unfortunately, plans were changed and the president traveled by helicopter to Costa Mesa. Looks like there's some more disappointed Obama supporters. Instead of seeing The One, all they got to see was me.