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President Harrison Ford has invited McClane aboard AF1 in thanks for saving Nakatomi plaza, when Gary Oldman's men take over the plane. However, the President is safely evacuated via escape pod, and thus it's up to McClane to save the President's staff and family. Can he succeed?

Did the President have military experience in his past?

I do recall someone in the White House talking about how he was a tough Vietnam Vet

Yes, Harrison Ford's president character was an honored and medaled Air Force vet. If McClane has no experience with planes, then I don't see him rescuing the First Family. Also, he's much, much more trigger happy than President H. Ford, so I imagine he'd get more and more innocent people killer. Also, there's not much room to hide on an airplane, and from the feats of Die Hard most of his set-up work was done further away from the terrorists.

So to summarize = maybe.

Well realistically being an ex-vet it would've been years since Ford actually raised his hand on anyone. Years of University experience. The campaign trail, raising a family and finally living his term as President.

Yet he was still able to pull his act together and defeat the terrorists.

McClane has been fighting non-stop and catching crooks for years. And shown the ability to handle such scenarios emerging the winner.

It would be madness to assume he wouldn't pull off an easy win unless some plot device in the film existed where only the President for some reason could've been able solve a particular problem.

For instance
- Did the terrorists need the President alive? And that's why he was able to defeat them?
- Did the President have knowledge of the plane that allowed him a tactical advantage over the crisis?

EDIT -- Hey Sirius you already answered one example being Ford dumping fuel.

McClane breaks a window and all the terrorist get sucked out. /roll credits

aka The shortest Diehard film not made.

Weren't there civies on that plane?

They'd be strapped safely in their chairs.

Originally posted by the ninjak
For instance
- Did the terrorists need the President alive? And that's why he was able to defeat them?
- Did the President have knowledge of the plane that allowed him a tactical advantage over the crisis?

EDIT -- Hey Sirius you already answered one example being Ford dumping fuel.

Well yes they did because he had a special kind of clout with the Russian leader holding Radek but before they realised the deception they seemed pretty resigned to the fact he had fled. I don't think it really mattered that it was him though because he could just as easily have coordinated operations with an agent from back home although with his family on the line he might be a bit more hesitant with his decisions.

The President had advantages in knowledge of layout and could speak Russian (which as yet McClane doesn't ). McClane is still likely to adapt to his surroundings as he didn't entirely know Nakatomi Plaza and had only minor directional help in DH2. He'll certainly know where the hostages are since there's a very obvious guard in front of the door.

He (the President) had help with the fuel dumping though and was lucky in choosing the right wire so it's not unreasonable to suggest McClane could get the same assistance but I'm not really sure who could help him there.

Originally posted by the ninjak
Weren't there civies on that plane?

Well, government staff, a lot were wasted in the takeover.

isn't this partly what Die Hard 5 is gonna be about???

Originally posted by BruceSkywalker
isn't this partly what Die Hard 5 is gonna be about???

Nah, I doubt he's going near planes, Snipes already took that scenario in Passenger 57... even though he cheated and got off the plane for a bit but...