Replies

"Dear Lord, please help the pilot catch -- at the very least -- the last trap wire today!"

(The pilot caught the very last, the fourth, trap wire, on the Lincoln.)

I'm reading this on Saturday and obviously haven't made it all the way through this but in case someone who knows the Navy lingo aboard carriers hasn't corrected you yet, he caught the FIRST POSSIBLE WIRE for him to catch. They count DOWN on wires on carriers. Don't ask me why; they just do.

Please don't feel badly. The NY Times and CNN got it wrong as well, and so did Fox News until Noon on Friday, so it was easy to misunderestimate the skill of his pilot.

Please remember that "LOOSE" is in the top ten for traps - prolly #1, they just didn't want to tell us that. He's a true TOP GUN, and for safety, you might want to know that he never put the wheels up! He flew with air drag, keeping the wheels down, just to make sure that as they approached the CVN72, they didn't have a problem with getting the landing gear down. But, with all the sorties this carrier has flown, that never happened in the past. With the CinC onboard, they wanted to be the safest they could.