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Old 02-12-2009, 10:40 AM
Joan.of.the.Arch Joan.of.the.Arch is offline
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Pelosi does not own a jet. She does ride in one. Use of a military jet to transport the Speaker of the House between Washington and their home state began as a security measure after 9-11. The purpose was to protect the Constitutional successor to the presidency. Speaker of the House Hastert was next in line after Cheney, just as now Pelosi is next in line after Biden. (She was next in line after Cheney for months before the change of administration, of course.) The military air transport began with Hastert, and now Pelosi is the second Speaker of the House to have it.

I don't know beans about jets, so I cannot tell you whether the jet Pelosi is given protective transport in is "big, bigger, or biggest." What makes a jet "bigger" anyway? The number of passenger seats it has? Whether it is equipped with a bar or toilet? The number of engines? The power of the engines? The speed it can achieve?

My understanding is that the Air Force has said that winter trips in the jet they had used to take Hastert to Illinois could be less secure when taking the new Speaker of the House to California because winter headwinds could mean that more fuel than the plane can carry is needed. This could make needing to stop for fuel necessary. That was never an issue when they only had to fly to Illinois, not to California. The Air Force has recommended that a bigger jet be used in winter in case of winter headwinds....So maybe that is where the idea of Pelosi having a bigger jet comes from. At any rate, I would guess that the Air Force is pretty good at knowing what is necessary to protect their jets (and humans in them!) and that being on the ground with a Speaker of the House may be seen as riskier than being in the air with her. They did, in fact, keep the president in the air as much as possible on 9-11. I'm sure it is all protocol that was thought through years ago, but only extended down to the Speaker of the House when it became clear that, yes, Washington DC really could be hit by terrorists.
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