Flat Tires?

Don Tuite wrote:

No help from me on the tubes, although what the other guys have said
sounds interesting. But next time you get the stem where Mary wants
it, have her paint a vertical stripe on the tire sidewall.

Careful what you paint it with, something don't react well with the
rubber or vise versa...

Jay,
I fill mine every few months and they lose 5-8 psi over the 2 months, which
is not too bad.

Check the valve every time after you inflate. I mean check it with a daub
of saliva or a spray bottle of water (soapy water even better yet). I'll
bet the valve is not closing completely. I have had many brand new aircraft
tubes with valves that seat intermittently. Many times I just flick the
center pin of the core after finding it leaking.....and the bubbling stops.
John Severyn
@KLVK

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
newsZ5Pe.62789$084.53119@attbi_s22...
One of our least favorite jobs (thanks to our "Fancy Pants" with their
stupid, under-sized access doors) is airing up the tires on our
Pathfinder.
snip

How often do you guys have to fill your tires?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Those wheel pants on the cherokee are a love/hate relationship. You get
a little extra speed and they look better than no pants.
Hehe, imagine the guy in Blazing Saddles wheel pants? We don't need
no stinking wheel pants! Wheels go up and down, no pants required.
Then again, I do have to remove the hubcaps to air up the mains...but
that's beside the point :-)


--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-IA Student
Arrow N2104T

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there
you will always long to return"
- Leonardo Da Vinci

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

Aircraft inner tubes were traditionally manufactured from a natural rubber
compound.
A tire inner tube is made by taking a length of extruded "rubber" tube which
is then joined into its circular form by joining it's ends together. This
joining process is generally referred to as splicing.
Natural rubber readily bonds to itself and therefore produced the strongest
"splice".
However, as one writer correctly informed, natural rubber is somewhat porous
and results in a slow loss of air.
In the 1970's a new oil based polymer know as butyl was introduced to the
tire industry.
Butyl is non-porous and solved the problem of air loss but was very
difficult to splice into inner tubes so was only adopted for road vehicle
tubes for many years. Aircraft tubes continued to be made from natural
rubber until relatively recently.
Goodyear were an early user of butyl for inner tubes using the trade name
"Air Seal"
Therefore you have a choice, natural rubber tubes may be less prone to
failure but continually lose air or butyl tubes which may fail earlier but
you will not need airing up very often.
Me ........ I use butyl ....... Why ............ Because I designed the
machines which are now used to splice butyl inner tubes.

Roy - N5804F



"J. Severyn" wrote in message
...
Jay,
I fill mine every few months and they lose 5-8 psi over the 2 months,
which is not too bad.

Check the valve every time after you inflate. I mean check it with a daub
of saliva or a spray bottle of water (soapy water even better yet). I'll
bet the valve is not closing completely. I have had many brand new
aircraft tubes with valves that seat intermittently. Many times I just
flick the center pin of the core after finding it leaking.....and the
bubbling stops.
John Severyn
@KLVK

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
newsZ5Pe.62789$084.53119@attbi_s22...
One of our least favorite jobs (thanks to our "Fancy Pants" with their
stupid, under-sized access doors) is airing up the tires on our
Pathfinder.
snip

How often do you guys have to fill your tires?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Don Tuite" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 21:51:17 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:


I pull the plane back and forth while Mary fishes around for the stupid
nipple. I

No help from me on the tubes, although what the other guys have said
sounds interesting. But next time you get the stem where Mary wants
it, have her paint a vertical stripe on the tire sidewall.

Don
(I have to have Mary do it. If Jay does it, he'll paint the mark on
the hangar floor.)

There should be a red dot on the tire at the valve location.

Mike
MU-2

Jay, there should be a red balance dot on the tire where the valve stem is.
You can use this to position the valve stem in the window. The right air
chuck can make things easy (or impossible) too.

Mike
MU-2

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
newsZ5Pe.62789$084.53119@attbi_s22...
One of our least favorite jobs (thanks to our "Fancy Pants" with their
stupid, under-sized access doors) is airing up the tires on our
Pathfinder.

I pull the plane back and forth while Mary fishes around for the stupid
nipple. If you want to hear a woman cuss like a sailor, just stop by the
hangar on tire-filling day!

It seems like we're having to fill the tires way too often. At least
every 3 - 4 weeks, we notice that the plane has become a real bear to pull
out of the hangar, and that our take-off roll has become noticeably
longer. Sure enough, the tires will be down around 25%, from 40 to 30 lbs
on the mains, and from 30 to 23 lbs (or so) in the nosewheel.

This seems ridiculous. Is it a product of tubed tires, or do I have slow
leaks that should be fixed? Can you use "Fix-a-Flat" in aircraft tires?
(I'll bet not.)

How often do you guys have to fill your tires?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 04:01:20 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote:


"Don Tuite" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 21:51:17 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:


I pull the plane back and forth while Mary fishes around for the stupid
nipple. I

No help from me on the tubes, although what the other guys have said
sounds interesting. But next time you get the stem where Mary wants
it, have her paint a vertical stripe on the tire sidewall.

Don
(I have to have Mary do it. If Jay does it, he'll paint the mark on
the hangar floor.)

There should be a red dot on the tire at the valve location.

That's marginally helpful if it;s inside the wheel fairing when you
need it.

(it's an even bigger bitch when you have a '67 like ours. No little
door in the fairing. Cessna has some pop-out disks that are about
1.5 inches in diameter. Our mechanic cut a matching hole out of the
fairing for those and made the appropriate log entry.)

Don

If Mary has to fish around for the nipple, I'd suggest that perhaps a
marriage counselor might be an appropriate expenditure.

{;-)


Jim


I pull the plane back and forth while Mary fishes around for the stupid
nipple.

("Jack Allison" wrote)
Hehe, imagine the guy in Blazing Saddles wheel pants? We don't need
no stinking wheel pants! Wheels go up and down, no pants required.
Then again, I do have to remove the hubcaps to air up the mains...but
that's beside the point :-)


http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/quotes.aspx
#36 ...The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

Blazing Saddles (1974) version was funnier :-)


Montblack

("RST Engineering" wrote)
If Mary has to fish around for the nipple, I'd suggest that perhaps a
marriage counselor might be an appropriate expenditure.

I pull the plane back and forth while Mary fishes around for the stupid
nipple.


Any decent "relationship" counselor would have 4 separate notations on just
that one line. g


Montblack