POTUS heading CONUS

[morfis]

An aircraft carrying the president becomes [military service operating the aircraft] 1. In the case of a non-military aircraft, someone already pointed out the Executive 1 callsign.

Overseas, they just prepend the words "United States" or "U.S." to the callsign.

When over Europe they normally use SAM and the aircraft tail number in line with normal ICAO procedures.

 

[DaveNF2G]

That would be sensible if they want to avoid painting a big bulls-eye (figuratively speaking) on the President's aircraft.

 

[morfis]

That would be sensible if they want to avoid painting a big bulls-eye (figuratively speaking) on the President's aircraft.

How so? Unless he doesn't actually travel on the two pigs the media coverage of his trips means that anyone wanting to look for the bulls-eye would be able to do so quite easily.

Air Force 1 is not an ICAO recognised callsign hence when in international airspace rather than US domestic airspace the aircraft the president is on will use a normal callsign (SAM is a n ICAO recognised three letter identifier). In the same way a military aircraft from the UK travelling to the USA will normally use a RFR (RAFAIR) callsign (unless accompanied by a tanker in which case they use RRR (ASCOT)). Once operating from a US base (eg. during Red Flag) the aircraft would be allowed to use a callsign of his choice or one allocated by the controlling authority for the exercise.