On Tuesday, David Cameron will become one of the few non-US world leaders allowed to ride along on Air Force One, the US president's custom-built, totally secure, extremely cool plane. During the PM's US visit this week, he and Obama will fly from Washington to Ohio – a 70-minute trip – for a basketball final.

Air Force One, with President Barack Obama aboard, at Andrews Air Force Base in 2009. Photograph: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

The flight is being touted on both sides of the Atlantic as a cementing of the special relationship, a favour afforded only to America's best buddy in the world, Great Britain. But what will Cameron see when he climbs aboard? On the outside Air Force One looks more or less like an ordinary 747. But what's it like on the inside?

A conference-cum-dining room on Air Force One. Photograph: Rex Features

The answer is: surprisingly beige. The decor over its three-level, 4,000 sq ft interior is luxurious but hideous, with the carpets, upholstery, walls and accessories running the gamut of colour from cream to taupe. If the inside looks like a holdover from the Reagan years, it is: the current model was commissioned back in 1985 and the drab interiors were reportedly the work of Nancy Reagan, although production delays meant that the Reagans never got to see it.

Richard Nixon speaks with military and civilian leaders while flying to Saigon in 1969 during the Vietnam war. Photograph: Wally McNamee/Corbis

Actually, there are two modified Boeing 747-200B aircraft that serve as Air Force One and, if you want to be pedantic, "Air Force One" is just the call sign for any plane carrying the president of the United States. If the vice-president uses it, it becomes Air Force Two. When Nixon resigned in 1974, the presidential plane that flew him home was redesignated SAM 27000 for the trip.

Barack Obama's office on Air Force One, 2009. Photograph: Rex Features

Both planes come equipped with conference room, state room and presidential office, plus two galleys capable of feeding 100 people and a medical area that can be used as an operating theatre if necessary. The aircraft have a range of 7,800 miles, but since they can be refuelled in air, there is really no limit.

The idea of having a special plane just for the president dates to the Roosevelt administration, but it was Kennedy's long-range 707 jet, the first to be kitted out in the distinctive Air Force One livery, that introduced real glamour to presidential air travel. That plane, which carried Kennedy's body back from Texas in 1963 – Johnson was sworn in on board, remained part of the fleet until 1998.

Cameron is getting more than a free ride on a nice plane. Everybody who takes the trip also gets a souvenir box of presidential M&Ms.

• This article was amended on 14 March 2012 because the original mistakenly said that David Cameron was the only non-US world leader to fly on Air Force One. A version of the following correction appeared in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column: "It may be – this column is not committing itself quite yet – that Britain's prime minister is the first invited aboard the presidential flight by Barack Obama. But others have gone along for the ride with previous presidents. To name two: John Major with Bill Clinton in 1994, and Germany's then chancellor, Helmut Kohl, with Ronald Reagan in 1985."