ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Alongside a road behind the Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport, people on Thursday gathered to get the best view of a giant 747 airplane.
“It was awesome,” said Tyler Unger, who came up from Rushville to see the plane. “It was loud. It was an excitement seeing something that big.”
“It flew over my head,” Thomas Andrews of Rochester. “I saw him parked there so figured I’d come take a look.”
“We were notified by the Air Force that a 747 plane from Andrews Air Force Base was going to be coming into Rochester doing touch-and-gos,” said Greater Rochester International Airport director Andy Moore.
The drills are used to train pilots, getting them wheels up in a replica of Air Force One.
“Just gives the pilots, you know, a good flow and good information on how to work with air traffic control [and] how to work with the different airport organizations like here in Rochester,” Moore said. “[It] allows them to taxi, and take off and land and just get more comfortable operating that size of an aircraft.”
The plane belongs to the U.S. Air Force, and airport officials say they were briefed by the Secret Service about the training Thursday morning.
The important practices make for a one-of-a-kind experience for aviation enthusiasts.
“It was pretty cool, pretty cool,” said Andrews.
“Chills,” said Unger. “…Goosebumps. It was awesome.”
