Back in the early 1990’s the United States Air Force (USAF) was tasked with a mission to develop an airborne mobile command center which could provide a long-range transportation and global communications capability for use by travelling VIP’s. This Distinguished Visitor (DV) program required that the USAF create a command and control module (CCM) that can quickly and easily be loaded on to a variety of different military transport aircraft – like the C-141, C-17, KC-10, KC-135 & C-130 – and be rapidly dispatched to any theatre of operations. Although a number of bespoke solutions were offered at the time, the provisional (and by far the cheapest) option was a palletized 36-foot Airstream travel trailer with an embedded communications suite. This asset package – designated as the “C2” in military parlance – came to be known as the “Silver Bullet.”

C-17 Globemaster III

An Airstream being loaded into a C-17

The help sit in the cargo cabin

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in the airborne Airstream