Bill Rickey News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

150,000 pounds, the pilot that is flying the boeing, the modified 747, which is carrying it up here piggy-back style is a pilot named bill rickey, nasa aircraft operator, who has been based out of houston. mark, do you know bill? >> yeah, i do. he's one of our research pilots at johnson space center who flies the 747 but t-38 training airplane, probably flies another plane we have there. and these guys are the ones that ferry the shuttle around the country, sometimes will land the space shuttle at the edwards air force base and we have to get it back to the kennedy space center, this is the sa...

It was so exciting. were you surprised by the reaction? >> i was a little bit. i received a lot of pictures that people took with their cell phones, from washington, d.c., a lot of my wife's former colleagues sent photos of discovery flying over, a lot of excitement. >> your wife being former congress woman gabby giffords. on the plane is bill rickey, the pilot, in nasa aircraft operator is his formal title. do you know him? >> yeah, at our aircraft operations division at johnson space center we have a bunch of research pilots. he's one of those, a pilot in t-38 training airplane we use, also ...

Strap a strays crapacecraft to airplane and flies pretty well. >> it weighs 150,000 pounds and looks so dainty on top. this is just landing at jfk, and there are about 1500 spectators on site there to welcome the enterprise to town. this has been flown the pilot of the boeing that flew enterprise up here is bill rickey, and they have safely arrived at jfk. to a roaring crowd on site. the great thing is the fact they had over an hour here in and around the new york city metro area where people got to come out on the streets and along the west side highway, along the bridge, the high line downto...