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mathogre
8th of March 2010 (Mon), 23:15
Hi! I was at DCA Monday taking photos of planes departing and arriving. At around 11:43AM, an odd looking plane was climbing from the east, as if coming from Andrews. It climbed and was westbound. I was using my XSi with the 55-250mm zoom, shutter priority of 1/800s. The photo below is the best of the bunch, though I have others. This is a 100% crop.

It looks as if it says United States of America across the upper part of the fuselage. The body and engine layout looks like an older 747. At first I thought it might have been one of the Air Force One 747s, but it was not escorted (not that it would need to be if the President wasn't in it). Also, the paint scheme isn't the same as for the Presidential aircraft, at least as far as I know. There's also this thing behind the front hump that appears to be an air inlet. It isn't an anomaly of the photograph, as it appears in all of them. A bit of Googling lead me nowhere.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

http://homepage.mac.com/mathogre/.Pictures/01/IMG_2448_crop.jpg

96extcab
8th of March 2010 (Mon), 23:33
Looks to be a Boeing E-4 to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_E-4

RadAL
8th of March 2010 (Mon), 23:41
interesting plane... must be rare to see.

WaFp
9th of March 2010 (Tue), 00:10
Looks to be a Boeing E-4 to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_E-4

winner, winner, chicken dinner!

sixsixfour
9th of March 2010 (Tue), 00:14
yep, a Boeing E-4B Sentry.

96extcab
9th of March 2010 (Tue), 00:19
Woohoo....I won!





Now what is it that I won again.....

mathogre
9th of March 2010 (Tue), 08:07
W00t!!!! Thanks for the info! Gold stars for you folks. :cool:

Odie23
9th of March 2010 (Tue), 21:04
interesting plane... must be rare to see.


Not really. I can't/won't give out the exact frequency of arrivals & departures out of ADW, but I will say you have a few chances every month to catch an E-4B either coming or going.

Odie

SnowManZ
9th of March 2010 (Tue), 21:48
not too rare, it beats up the pattern at Tinker AFB in OKC on a fairly regular basis.