OK, so Tsam has a pretty benign tire history. With 188 total hours on the clock, she has that same amount of time on both Monster Retread tires and a pair of Michelin Air Stop tubes. Wear is nice and even, and based on what I saw during the condition inspection last weekend, she?ll go four times that in this set of tires. I noted that the pressures were down to 25 psi (hadn?t put air in for months), and I think we had started around 35, so I bumped them back up to 38 (where I run the other airplanes). First flight after that gave me a definite shimmy on the mains, so I bled them back down to 33 to see how they?d run there.
Today, Louise came back from a fuel run and had her usual great RV-3 landing (she lands Tsam better than anything in the inventory ? a perfect match!), and as she rolls out ? the left tire is flat ? she powers off the runway into our taxiway and we get the pant and wheel off. Disassembly reveals this:
A very careful inspection of the interior of the tire ? with a magnifier ? shows NO irregularities, bumps, hooks, or debris anywhere near the spot where this was resting ? and nowhere else either. Clean as a whistle. A new tube, a little fiberglass repair on the wheel pant, and she?s back in service.
But?.what the heck causes a wound like this? Anyone with years of airplane wrenching seen one like this before?
Today, Louise came back from a fuel run and had her usual great RV-3 landing (she lands Tsam better than anything in the inventory ? a perfect match!), and as she rolls out ? the left tire is flat ? she powers off the runway into our taxiway and we get the pant and wheel off. Disassembly reveals this:
A very careful inspection of the interior of the tire ? with a magnifier ? shows NO irregularities, bumps, hooks, or debris anywhere near the spot where this was resting ? and nowhere else either. Clean as a whistle. A new tube, a little fiberglass repair on the wheel pant, and she?s back in service.
But?.what the heck causes a wound like this? Anyone with years of airplane wrenching seen one like this before?