kevinsrv7.com
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Hours?
Brian, How many hours are on these tires?
Brian, How many hours are on these tires?
Alright, In my defense, lets analyze what happens when we flip-I'm not alleging its wrong, just setting up an understanding.
Do we agree that some wear happens across the face, with more on the outside? If so, then flipping the tire in my picture some wear will occur on the already bald side? Back to my original question-how far can it go?
If flipping is going to be the plan, than the tire should be flipped before the tread depth is gone. Ideally estimating how much it will take to get "Even" with the high side.
We agree so far?
If so, the tire in question, in my estimation, was too far gone to justify flipping.
The question of flipping demonstrates the old adage "How was copper wire invented"? Answer;2 pilots fighting over a penny. My choice as I'm sure many others would be a time vs. value decision.
Jeez, I just wondered how many landings I could squeeze out of a tire.....
While taking the tire off the wheel and flipping will buy more time, for the time it takes to do all that work I'd rather just put a new tire.
Carl
Brian, How many hours are on these tires?
Flip tires and install new tubes? One of my current tubes has been on the plane since the day I bought it--13 years ago and over 1,000 fight hours.It seems to me that if you flip your tires and install new tubes (as recommended), the increased savings will be at least partially offset by the cost of your parts, materials and labor.
I don't know that I'll flip my tires (Flight Custom III). I may just leave them on until they have been used up, then buy knew. They aren't that
expensive...
~Marc
I was surprised also! We were Flight Flutter Testing a new large commercial transport near the turn of the Century and using the Company T-38 for high speed chase. Between flights we were walking the flight line, admiring the sleek looking, well maintained T-38. We noticed that one of the mains had cord showing and were quite surprised by that. We talked to one of the mechanics on duty and he said that the tire didn't have to be replaced yet, as not enough cord was showing. We were quite surprised by that given the high TO and landing speeds of the T-38, but they are 14-ply tires, IIRC.
When 1 (groove) remains? Wouldn't that assume consistent wear pattern?
At the bottom of groove there will only be 3/16" between me and running off the side of the runway
The T-38 tires have a red cord, when that shows it is time to replace them.
My project at Test Pilot School was to modify a T-38 with a larger speed brake and use it to decrease the L/D to simulate the X-24B lifting body approach ( about a 24 degree glide slope). When I briefed the Flight Safety Board one of their requirements was to use old tires instead of new. The thought was that old tires had been heat cycled many times and new tires had too much tread for the high speeds we were touching down, increasing the chance of tread separation due to centrifical force. We crossed the threshold at 230-250 knots as I recall.
After the last approach when at Bingo fuel the closed pattern and normal 3 degree approach seemed way too low
I ended up doing the toe adjustments with fuselage level. I made no adjustments to camber. I thought about this a long time, and there are two competing issues.
1. Wheel landing in more or less level attitude, misalignment causes a lot of scrubbing at wheel spin-up, even though there is fairly little weight on the wheels. Also this is the point where misalignment can cause more squirrelly behavior.
2. 3-pt attitude is where there is the most weight on the wheels, so presumably a lot of the tire wear occurs here.
In the end, I let point #1 win, and that's where I did the alignment. There wasn't much camber sitting in the hangar with weight on the wheels, but there would be at touchdown.
Ultimately, I either made the right choice, or got lucky, because the tires wear symmetrically. I wouldn't say 'evenly', since they wear more in the middle, which you have to expect with a more or less round tire profile.
I can confirm this....Forget where I saw this interesting fact, but, 90% of all flats happen within the last 10% of tread depth.
To be perfectly accurate, tread grooves and other molded patterns in the surface of a tire reduce paved surface traction. Maximum dry traction is found with a smooth tire, aka a slick....