Air Force One draws attention everywhere it goes, even the retired version at The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.

And nearly a half-million visitors a year tour the world's most iconic aircraft.  Well, one of them anyway.

Continue reading below or listen to the podcast during my private tour of Air Force One!

***Transcript***
Recorded February 12, 2018
John Lehne: It technically flew seven different presidents. President Reagan put the most mileage on it.

I don't know what the exact number of that mileage is, but he definitely flew a great deal on this plane much more so than any other president. This was the aircraft that took him to Germany for the famous "tear down this wall" speech.

Anything that was classified or I guess you'd call "secret" that was all removed prior to our obtaining the aircraft. There are no escape pods. Additionally, there are no hidden guns or bombs or anything else that can be released from the aircraft, so there's nothing like that and a lot of that are the fantasies in Hollywood that they portray in movies.
The Home of Air Force One: The Ronald Reagan Library
Tom Smith: Welcome to iDriveSoCal, the podcast all about mobility from the automotive capital of these fine United States - Southern California. I'm Tom Smith, and in honor of President's Day, we are sitting underneath Air Force One at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

John: Correct.

Tom: Okay. And that is John Lehne who's the building facilities manager here for the Ronald Reagan Foundation, which runs the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

John: Correct. We are part of the library... the foundation actually supports the library. It is actually run by the government, National Archives Administration. The Air Force One pavilion, which we are sitting in right now with the Air Force One plane, is operated by the foundation. So this is a little unique part of the library.

Tom: So there you have it for the specifics. But what the exciting part is, literally I'm looking up at the belly of Air Force One and it's a pretty cool thing. We got some really neat pictures. John was nice enough to walk me through the plane, little private tour, got a couple of pictures. I wasn't able to sit in President Ronald Reagan's office chair, but I did sit at the conference table and that was pretty darn neat. So, John, thank you so much for that.

Tom Smith sits at Conference table aboard Air Force One.

John: You're very welcome.
How Did Air Force One Get to The Regan Library?

Air Force One at Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Tom: How did this plane get here? When you come to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the Air Force One pavilion, you can see a cool pictorial story that's told on how actually the building was kind of built around the plane.
“It was almost like the ultimate ship in a bottle type of construction.”
John: They put the superstructure, the building up. The plane had flown in a little prior to that, and they disassembled the plane, towed up here in pieces, except for the fuselage was one solid piece.

They did the superstructure of the building, pulled the plane and the pieces into the building and literally put the plane back together inside the building. Stripped the plane, repainted it, shrink-wrapped it, and then they finished the building around the plane.

When they were done with the building, they unwrapped the plane, cleaned it up, polished it up, then put it on display. It was almost like the ultimate ship in a bottle type of construction.

Tom: And the plane landed actually at San Bernardino International Airport.

John: It flew out from Andrews Air Force Base and landed here in California ...