Pilot: Flying Bush was 'just awesome'

Navy pilot John "Skip" Lussier has made hundreds of aircraft carrier landings but none like his pressure-filled touchdown on the USS Abraham Lincoln with President Bush in the cockpit.

"The pressure was ratcheted up just a little bit, but I tried not to think about it," Lussier said Friday on ABC's Good Morning America. "I just wanted to focus on it as a mission and make sure I got the president aboard safely."

You and Laura, her freeper name is lullabelle which is our lab's name, would definitely have common interests. I have to go get a pork chop now and walk the dog. Actually I just got to work but officially don't have to be here for another hour and forty minutes. Early bird.

LOL!

A-A, the story behind that comment is that a very salty retired Navy Captain Fighter Pilot (probably a "small deck," early series F-8 Crusader pilot -- they approached the blunt end of the ship at roughly 160 knots), was attending a "high snoot" cocktail party in Boston.

He was not in his cups, but he was supremely bored.

One of the queenly dowagers, so the story goes, asked the Captain what it was like to land on an aircraft carrier at night.

His response was the now timely, and unforgettable; "Madam, the three best sensations a carrier pilot can experience in life are an orgasm, a good sh!t and catching a three wire on a dark night. Occasionally, you get to experience all three at the same time."

It is not recorded as to what the queenly dowager's response was.

That story has been floating around carrier ready rooms since at least 1966, when I first heard it. It is probably a lot older than I am!

I do not believe that the story has ever been embellished, nor do I think it is necessary.

...On the landing, a tailhook on the back of the plane caught the last of four steel arresting cables stretched across the moving carrier.

Doesn't this qualify for a rasberry when having your landing judged? I thought you were supposed to hit either numbers two or three cables? LOL.

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