- ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN
(Reuters) - There appeared to be no happier man aboard the USS Abraham
Lincoln on Thursday than President Bush as he joked with pilots and posed
for photographs with flight crew members.
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- The swaggering commander-in-chief experienced a stomach
wrenching aircraft carrier landing then roamed the huge vessel checking
out all of the toys.
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- His visit here to the ship about 30 miles out in the
Pacific off the California coast was basically a victory lap for the president
after the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
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- A pilot for the Texas Air National Guard who never saw
combat during the Vietnam War, Bush said he took the joystick for about
a third of the flight over from the mainland aboard an S-3B Viking plane
typically used for airborne refueling.
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- The plane flew over in tandem with an identical aircraft
carrying White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice.
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- Bush's plane, dubbed Navy One for the occasion, flew
low over the ship twice and on the final approach it banked left, leveled
its wings and lined up for the runway.
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- Its tailhook caught the fourth, last cable available
to halt the plane. If it had not caught this wire, pilot John Lussier would
have had to rev up power and fly away to circle around for another try.
The plane went from a speed of 120 knots to a full stop in a couple seconds
when it landed.
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- Looking quite proud of himself, Bush climbed down wearing
a green flight suit and holding his helmet under his arm. He swaggered
into a crowd of dozens of combat pilots who had flown missions in Iraq
and were about to take off in their F-18 Hornets for home.
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- "Really exciting," Bush said of the experience.
"I miss flying, I can tell you that."
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- What did he do while flying it?
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- "Just steered it," he said.
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- The dramatic arrival earned Bush live coverage on the
cable television networks and it provided some patriotic flag-waving images
that might serve in his reelection campaign.
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- White House officials could not find evidence that a
U.S. president had ever arrived aboard an aircraft carrier in a tactical
aircraft. The typical method is to use a helicopter.
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- Bush was on board only a little while before he had exchanged
his flight suit for a protective life vest emblazoned with "commander-in-chief"
on the back and a helmet with large ear protectors and goggles. In this
outfit he roamed the deck, slapping the backs of the flight crew members,
posing for pictures and generally hamming it up.
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- Then he was out of that get-up and up on the navigation
deck watching one of the last F-18s fire up its engines and roar down the
runway and off the ship, leaving behind a smoking trail on the deck.
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