President Trump reportedly wants to make Air Force One “more American.” His plan to do that? Change the paint job. The robin’s egg blue of Air Force One, however, is already an American symbol. The iconic design heralds the arrival of the president of the United States around the world – and it should stay that way.
The design was originally created by Franco-American designer Raymond Loewy. Loewy, the same man behind other iconic American designs such as Greyhound buses, Lucky Strike cigarette packages, and the Coca-Cola dispenser, was originally approached by former President John F. Kennedy to create an appropriate design for Air Force One. Later, Loewy had a hand in other design projects for the U.S. government and came up with the graphics for the U.S. Postal Service in addition to helping create designs for NASA.
Loewy found inspiration for the presidential plane at the National Archives, specifically, in the first printed copy of the Declaration of Independence. He used the same uppercase Caslon typeface found in that document to spell out “United States of America” across the side of the plane.
The rest of the design was simple and tasteful. The polished aluminum fuselage was left exposed, the body of the plane included markings in two shades of blue completed with the presidential seal on both sides of the fuselage and an American flag on the tail. Both the president and the press liked the design and, since the early 1960s, it has signaled the arrival of the American president around the world.
Trump objects to the color scheme, which doesn’t include red, and so isn’t red, white, and blue. But the subtler color scheme has itself become an American brand simply by persisting through two generations of history-making trips.
It announced Kennedy’s arrival in West Germany for his famous “I am a Berliner” speech, Johnson’s visits to troops in Vietnam, Nixon’s famous visit to the People’s Republic of China, Reagan’s landmark summits with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as the many visits in recent years including Trump’s current trip to Europe and his summit with Kim Jong Un in Singapore earlier this year.
Besides, the new Air Force One won’t be completed until after Trump’s first term. If he’s not re-elected in 2020, he won’t get to fly in the new paint job anyway.
The flying White House, as Air Force One is sometimes known, is already American. Like the classic exterior of the presidential residence, the airborne version should not lose its well-known and well-loved look on a whim.
