Winnipegger soars on Air Force One clean team

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This article was published 03/07/2019 (2446 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg auto detailer is the lone Canadian selected to work on this year’s Air Force One cleaning team at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

It’s the second year Crisanto Aquino, who works at Dr. Shine Auto Spa on Logan Avenue, has been chosen for the 55-person team that will head to Washington for a week on July 7.

“It is an honour,” Aquino said. “I am just as excited this year about being chosen (for) the team as I was last year, but I think I bring more to the table this year.”

Aquino was chosen out of hundreds of detailers across Canada, the U.S. and the Caribbean to restore and maintain the Boeing VC-137B jet that served as the flying Oval Office for American presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy, and remained in the presidential fleet until 1996.

The team, which will also restore more than a dozen other historic aircraft on exhibit at the museum’s Airpark Pavilion, was hand-picked by Renny Doyle — the presidential jet’s original detailer.

“I trained Cris as an expert in paint, and he has perfected his skill at cleaning and polishing paint and metal. When I chose him for the team last year, I was confident he was qualified for the job,” said Doyle. “After a year on the team, he has proven he has the experience needed to continue our work and he has the leadership skills to help us co-ordinate new team members and show them the ropes this year.”

For years, the specially built Boeing 707-120 — known as SAM (Special Air Missions) 970 — sat exposed to the Pacific Northwest climate on the open tarmac. In 2003, a George W. Bush-administration executive first contacted Doyle about saving the deteriorating paint and brightwork on the iconic plane.

“That beautiful jet was in such a distressed state when I first saw it,” said Doyle.

Doyle said he and a few other experts decided it was in such bad shape that anything they did would help. They decided to take a crack at using some new technology and equipment that had recently come onto the market — and Doyle had been field testing.

“Since then, those tools and products — some for which we have developed specifically based on the needs of this project — have been instrumental in bringing the plane up to the excellent condition it is in now,” he said.

The former presidential jet requires an annual cleaning because it is on display inside an open-air pavilion, where dampness and cold can cause its paint and bright work to get cloudy.

caitlyn.gowriluk@freepress.mb.ca