On December 26, 2018, an amateur aviation photographer named Alan Meloy stepped out onto his front porch in Sheffield, England and looked up and saw some contrails, appearing to be from a large aircraft.

He pointed his camera at it with its zoom lens, and to his great surprise, discovered that the aircraft was a VC-25 (also known as Air Force One) cruising along at 31,000 feet, on a secret, unannounced trip to Iraq. It was so secret, it didn’t even use its AF1 callsign. It used the callsign RCH358 (pronounced “Reach”) which is a generic military transport/cargo callsign.

Mr. Meloy posted the picture online and it was immediately picked up by several news agencies around the world, due to no planned trip being posted by the White House. It was well known the president was en route to the middle east before he even touched down there.

Nevertheless, that is Air Force One. And it produces contrails, even when it’s trying to be secret.

And this question reveals a common misunderstanding. “Air Force One” isn’t an aircraft, it’s a radio call-sign for ANY Air Force aircraft the president is using. (“Air Force Two” would be if the vice president is using it.) The current plane most-often used for presidential transport is the 747-based VC-25, and if it is at an altitude and temperature range at which other aircraft would leave condensation trails, it would also leave them as the photos posted by others show.