Maintaining The Most Important Plane in The World
Country Club Hills Villager recalls the time in his career spent working in upkeep for Air Force One.
By Frank Ross, Daily Sun Staff Writer
We’ve all heard the old adage, “It’s better to be lucky than good.” Turns out Al Coutinho is both.
It paid off in the dream assignment of a lifetime: maintaining the most pampered aircraft in the world, Air Force One.
Relaxed in the Village of Country Club Hills home he shares with his wife, Meg, Coutinho recalled his four years maintaining the presidential fleet of aircraft during his 38-year Air Force career.
“Every day, an average of 13 distinguished visitors come through Andrews,” he said. “You’re talking about presidents, vice presidents, world leaders like (Egyptian president Anwar) Sadat came through, and we took care of all their airplanes,” he said. “I had a window out to the flight line, and what I saw every day was going to be on the news at night. It was just a great job.”
Although the focus of the post is on Air Force One, Coutinho’s responsibilities included an entire fleet of 33 aircraft required to support official visits abroad with backup planes and a 400% parts redundancy to assure minimal down time. He served at Andrews during the Carter presidency.
“Everyone wants to know what it costs to fly the president, but it’s impossible to put it all together because it’s such a high number, and it’s hidden in so many ways,” he said. “For example, when (President Donald) Trump went to Europe last year, it took 27 airplanes.
He explained the number of aircraft adds up when planes are required to transport the cars and security vehicles for the motorcades, advance teams for each city and security vehicles for the motorcades, advance teams for each city to be visited, the media, support staff, and the presidential helicopters. In addition to Air Force One, the National Airborne Command Post is required when the president travels outside the U.S. This aircraft is a modified 747 with a 5-mile-long antenna they deploy in-flight to enable communications with the Ohio Class nuclear submarines throughout the world.
“It’s a logistical miracle, the amount of stuff that goes with them,” he said. “The security procedures were amazing.”
Before arriving at Andrews, Coutinho hadn’t imagined the enormity of his new assignment.
He attended Manhattan College in New York City, where he was the yearbook photographer and Meg was his editor. They married in 1973, and he joined the Air Force as a Second Lieutenant right out of college and ROTC. After Maintenance Officer School in Illinois, he was assigned to Travis Air Force Base in California. He spent the next four years working on big cargo aircraft like the massive Lockheed C-5A Galaxy and C-141 Starlifter, in logistical support of the Vietnam War. He learned quickly on a base where 15-20 cargo aircraft a day are launched. The Aerial Port is the largest in the world with a mile long warehouse to support the operation.
At the end of his hitch at Travis, Coutinho was at a point in life when he realized there were career decisions to be made. He was married with a new baby, and there was a good chance he would receive a “beach assignment,” such as Guam or another remote island base. He was considering getting out and had written his letter of resignation in 1976 when an Assignments Officer asked him I he would like to be assigned to Andrews Air Force Base, located outside Washington D.C. – an hour from his parents’ home.
“Andrews Air Force Base is such a special place because it’s set up to receive international dignitaries with security, and the aircraft are kept in special air conditioned hangars,” he said.
Among his many momentous experiences, Coutinho has a newspaper clip from the Base Newspaper that shows him greeting Pope John-Paul II. Of the countless number of official visitors he facilitated, the only one he had an interest in meeting was Pope John Paul, who visited in 1979, due to his Catholic faith.
After his four years at Andrews, he left the Air Force in 1980 for an opportunity to join General Electric Aircraft Engines in Cincinnati, where he worked on commercial aircraft engines supporting international airlines, the F16s in Turkey and Israel and new engines for the Navy F14 and “Topgun”. He also served as a reservist at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton where he worked as a System Program Manager for the C-130 aircraft. When the Logistics Command and Systems Command were combined into the Air Force Material Command, he was assigned to write the implementation manual. The purpose of the amalgamation, which involved 150,000 personnel, was to solve funding issues for billions of dollars in acquisition, development, deployment, maintenance and spare parts for new aircraft. He helped write the manual for all the bases under this new system and retired in 2009 as a lieutenant colonel.
“The concept was assigning responsibility for an aircraft to one person, from cradle to grave,” he said. “That way, if there was a problem with funds, only one person was accountable.”
Looking back over his life, Coutinho lamented his departure from Andrews.
“It was a dream assignment,” he said. “I would have stayed there for 20 years if they would have let me, but they want you to share the good assignments.”
Coutinho recently began lecturing about his Air Force One experiences at the Enrichment Academy, and 60 people signed up for his first class. His next presentation is scheduled for 3 p.m. today at Eisenhower Recreation Center.