Posted on 10/06/2006 1:25:44 PM PDT by PDR
U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe and an aide escaped injury Thursday when the small plane the Oklahoma Republican was flying spun out of control after landing at Tulsa's Jones Riverside Airport.
"No scrapes or bruises. No nicks or cuts. No injuries at all," said Danny Finnerty, Inhofe's long-time aide, who was sitting behind the senator in the two-seat aircraft.
"We walked away from the plane."
Finnerty, reached by telephone, said they landed about 8 p.m. and that the plane had slowed down to about taxi speed.
"Everything was fine until the tail wheel hit the runway," he said.
"Jim felt like his rudder control was not what it should have been, so it was mechanical, certainly. As soon as we hit, we fish-tailed and spun around a couple of times. "
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the RV-8 single-engine aircraft "ground-looped," or went out of control, upon landing.
Finnerty said the plane, which he described as an experimental model rated for aerobatics, suffered significant damage.
"The plane looks a lot worse than it was," he said.
Finnerty said the plane, which he described as a "tail dragger," was built for the senator by a
professional a few years ago.
The RV-8 aircraft is known as a "kit-plane." Such planes' manufacturers provide a kit from which to build the aircraft from the ground up, according to the manufacturer, Van's Aircraft.
Inhofe, 71, is a veteran pilot who owns several planes.
Finnerty said the senator was returning from Duncan after a day of campaigning for candidates running for state legislative seats. Earlier in the day, he said, Inhofe had flown to Guthrie and then made several stops by car before flying on to Duncan.
Finnerty said no problems appeared during the flight.
"It was an absolutely perfect flight from Duncan," he said. "The landing was perfectly normal, and then that happened."
Finnerty was unsure whether the National Transportation Safety Board would have to investigate.
"I am certain the FAA will come out and take a look at the plane," he said, adding that the plane was left on the runway until permission was given to move it.
Inhofe did not comment on the incident.
The senator was forced to make an emergency landing in 1999 at the Claremore Municipal Airport after the propeller fell off the Grumman American AA-5B he was flying.
The NTSB investigated that incident, and its report blamed an error on the prop installation.
Inhofe, who was flying alone that day, also escaped that incident without injury.
His plane was cruising at 2,500 feet when it lost the entire propeller assembly.
After the plane began to porpoise, Inhofe made a forced landing on a grassy section between a runway and a taxiway.
A crop duster near where I grew up in Western Kansas hooked a tail wheel on a power line at the end of a field he was spraying. He nosed into the ground on the other side just hard enough that he bent the prop but the landing gear bounced him back up in the air and he flew the plane back to his hangar....and cleaned his pants out.
Thank God he's alright. He's one of the few decent Senators we've got.
No, not curious at all, its the "global warming gods" who're expressing their displeasure with him.
LOL, snicker, chuckle, chortle.
What's the difference between a chortle and a snicker any ways? And is there any social etiquette with respect to guffaw and chuckles?
Inhoff took one of the big MSM clowns to task recently about the global warming scam (not that correlation presupposes causation in any way).
You can tell me what you'd like: I just don't get a really nice warm fuzzy being in a plane where the gear doesn't retract.
WHATEVER-
I can't hear you (LA LA LA LA LA LA). You say something?
Only here could someone post an article about a politician ground-looping his taildragger and end up with 30-odd posts talking about how someone must be out to kill him.
On a lighter note: Inhofe owns (owned?) an RV? Cool! Those things are probably about as much fun as you can have in a civilian airplane. It's just unfortunate that considering the number of Congresspeople who are active GA pilots, we still have so much governmental nonsense in the name of "security".
On the other hand, you're extremely unlikely to experience a gear-up landing that way.
John got bitten by a fuel system quirk in the airplane he was killed in. He ran out of gas, but he should have had fuel in the tank so he didn't have to hunt for the handle to swap tanks. He was unfamiliar with the aircraft which compounded the problem. You can't be too careful. He was a good pilot, just a victim of lots of circumstances. Not sure why he wasn't able to glide to a crash landing. Unless he was so distracted that he forgot to fly the aircraft, and depending on the distraction, it can happen to anyone.
Isn't this the second time this has happen to Inhofe???
huh? LOL i'd love to go up in one of those planes and have get the S*** scared out of me! :)
Yep. I'm an instructor. Ground loops happen.
Certainly, tail draggers are more prone to them.
Enough tin foil to last a while...
*This* is aerobatics...Jim LeRoy and his Pitts Special
I was going LA LA LA LA LA LA, and what not....
You were going something important or something?
Well, I will grant you that the wings are positioned properly for an airplane.
"La la la la la la la la la la la la..."
You say something?
O.K.
La la la la la la la la la...
I can't HEAR you-
la la la la la la la la la...
It's black, but it's not a helicopter. Good try though!
So, once in 1999, and once in 2006. Yep, I'm detecting a pattern here.
Oh, I missed this thread yesterday. Glad to hear he's all right.
It's quite obvious to me that the Halliburton Vortex is to blame. No one gets out of Duncan alive. He's quite lucky he had that little (R) to protect him.
I flew a tail dragger once... didn't care for it. I know there are some pilots who love them, but I like being able to see the runway on takeoff.<<<<<
Me, too, once. I also didn't care for the view (or lack thereof) during takeoff, and landing was a bit precarious. My friend has had a 185 for years and loves it, despite a ground loop in the desert, so I guess to each his/her own.
I flew a tail dragger once... didn't care for it. I know there are some pilots who love them, but I like being able to see the runway on takeoff.<<<<<
Me, too, once. I also didn't care for the view (or lack thereof) during takeoff, and landing was a bit precarious. My friend has had a 185 for years and loves it, despite a ground loop in the desert, so I guess to each his/her own.
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