My friend, Harvey, emailed me yesterday:
"Yet another incident attributable to what I consider to be outrageously poor quality innertubes being sold to the aviation community. Every single wheel on every one of my aircraft has experienced a spontaneous flat either during flight or minutes afterwards. Some more than once. Numerous other owners have had similar experiences. One happened upon landing right after having new tires and tubes installed on his airplane. Based on the number of times this is happening on our little field, there must be thousands nationwide. The tubes I've seen have had either a pin hole or a short split in the tube.
This time, with no warning, the nose tire on my Aztec was flat upon touchdown after a 15 minute local flight. The wheel rim was damaged during the ensuing recovery operation, so now I need replacement tire, tube, AND wheel.
During the first 50 years of my flying career, I never saw an aircraft flat tire except through extreme abuse or by running the tire down through the cord. Over the last few years they are epidemic!"
Are you noticing more flat tires on the ramp than usual, or is Harvey the lucky one?
"Yet another incident attributable to what I consider to be outrageously poor quality innertubes being sold to the aviation community. Every single wheel on every one of my aircraft has experienced a spontaneous flat either during flight or minutes afterwards. Some more than once. Numerous other owners have had similar experiences. One happened upon landing right after having new tires and tubes installed on his airplane. Based on the number of times this is happening on our little field, there must be thousands nationwide. The tubes I've seen have had either a pin hole or a short split in the tube.
This time, with no warning, the nose tire on my Aztec was flat upon touchdown after a 15 minute local flight. The wheel rim was damaged during the ensuing recovery operation, so now I need replacement tire, tube, AND wheel.
During the first 50 years of my flying career, I never saw an aircraft flat tire except through extreme abuse or by running the tire down through the cord. Over the last few years they are epidemic!"
Are you noticing more flat tires on the ramp than usual, or is Harvey the lucky one?
