How can Air Force One, or similar planes, be “hardened against a nuclear holocaust” yet still be light enough to fly?

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Pretty much everything I’ve ever seen that’s been “hardened against a nuclear explosion” on the ground is like 15 feet thick of steel, lead, and concrete. Yet Air Force One is supposed to be able to survive a nuclear blast (I’m guessing not literally right on top of, but nearby and radioactive).

Wouldn’t something thin-skinned like an airplane, by it’s very nature by unable to be shielded from a nuclear blast/radiation?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

I just want to add, since the question has pretty much been answered, that “Air Force One” isn’t a particular plane. That’s the call sign of any USAF aircraft that the president is on at the time. If he jumped in an F-16, that would then be Air Force One. In the same way the presidential helicopter is usually Marine One.

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