Special Elevator for FDR's Air Force One--though It was not called Air Force One then

There are hundreds, if not thousands of interesting military airplanes or military airplane-related things to see at the US Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio, but this may be one of the more interesting ones.

It is an elevator, an elevator made especially to lift President Franklin D. Roosevelt into his Presidential Aircraft, a C-54. It is on display with the C-54 in the Presidential Hangar at the Air Force Museum. And, you can actually see a wheel chair in the elevator just as it would have been when FDR used it. He used a wheel chair, of course, because of polio. The elevator was installed so he would not suffer the indignity of having to be carried up a stairway to get into the airplane.

The elevator beneath this C-54 is special in that it was made just for him and just for this aircraft. People who work with it say the president used that elevator only once.

You may wonder what happens to the elevator structure once it has been raised into the aircraft? If you should ever see it in person look closely, and you can see latches at the back of the elevator frame. They allow the whole structure to fold up once it has been lifted into the aircraft. If you look at the back of the elevator, you can see a tread. So, when the structure is folded, the back side of of it actually merges, if you will, with the rest of the deck to become part of the walk way inside the airplane.

Something you always wanted to know, right? You laugh?

Well, believe it or not tourists who look at the elevator always want to see the latches and like to hear how the whole elevator system works.

Fun!