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May 1, 2003 -- President Bush's wild ride onto the deck of an aircraft carrier today will be a hair-raising experience - even for the former fighter pilot.

"He'll be coming down onto an area the size of a football field at 130 mph with the after-burners going," said Jim Buren, a 30-year Navy veteran with the Virginia-based Flight Safety Foundation. "That's quite an experience."

Bush will be sitting in the co-pilot's seat of a 53-foot, $27 million Navy S-3B Viking jet when it makes a tailhook landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Pacific Ocean.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Bush would not pilot the jet as it roars onto the deck.

But the president, a former aviator, could easily talk his hosts into giving up the controls over the Pacific, Buren said.

Bush, who learned to fly F-102 jets while in the Texas National Guard, will address the nation tonight from the deck of the carrier.

The jet, dubbed Navy One for today's flight, will cruise at 20,000 feet at about 400 mph, Buren said. Then, as it approaches the carrier, it will slow down to about 130 mph. "[Bush] will be quite impressed," said Buren.

A Navy spokesman called the plane extremely safe and said that since 1974, Vikings have had only 38 crashes or major mishaps in 1.6 million flight hours.

But Vikings have been in fatal crashes - in September, one went down in the Caribbean with three servicemen on board.

The carrier itself has an impressive safety record: During Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Abraham Lincoln handled 12,700 takeoffs and landings without mishap.

I love this! President Bush landing on an aircraft carrier, riding shotgun.

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