US presidents have traveled by helicopter since the Eisenhower administration, and Marine One, the call sign for the helicopter when the president is aboard, is one of the most famous aircraft in the world. Here, President Dwight Eisenhower (right) and a crew member (center) show the way to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev as they prepare to board a helicopter on the White House grounds on Sep. 25, 1959, for a flight to the Camp David, Maryland,
presidential retreat during Khrushchev’s 12-day visit to the United States. Travel by helicopter was still relatively
rare in the 1950s, and Eisenhower took Khrushchev on a helicopter sightseeing tour of Washington, D.C., in part as a display of US technical might. In his autobiography, Eisenhower wrote that Khrushchev initially turned down the invitation until the presi- dent reassured the Soviet premier that both world leaders would be on the flight.