Tyre wear

[ozplane]

I've owned a Glos (Victa) Airtourer for a number of years and have put about 420 hours on it in that time. The question is what tyre wear should I expect?. I operate from a grass strip and have design authority approved slightly oversize tyres on the mains. The thing is there doesn't appear to have been any tread wear at all in this time. The nosewheel tyre does however need replacing at the next annual. What experience do other operators have?

[Mark 1]

I remember when the hard runway was closed down at my base airfield. A couple of years later it was noted that we got 3 or 4 times the number of landings out of a set of tyres.

I guess that most wear is associated with the initial spin-up on landing and excessive breaking on tarmac.

I know some people who fly only on grass who end up changing their tyres due to age, not wear.

[LowNSlow]

I had to change the tyres on my Auster as they were showing signs of perishing. I don't know how long ago they were fitted without checking the logs but it was quite a while back!

Yup she's been operated off grass for the vast majority of the time.

ozplane your nosewheel tyre probably wears faster than the mainwheels due to the scrubbing action while turning on the ground. I would agree with Mark 1 that most mainwheel tyre wear takes place during landing.

[FlyingForFun]

I think the number of hours you put on a tyre is probably pretty irrelevant. The grass/tarmac issue has already been covered. But do you do lots of long cross-countries, or spend hours and hours in the circuit? In the UK, a north-south runway will generally experience greater cross-winds than an east-west runway, and so you might expect greater tyre-wear. Tight turns, such as turning to face the take-off direction after back-tracking, will increase tyre-wear - I'd guess that this will be small compared to the wear from landing, but I don't really know. There are plenty of other factors, too.

But if you don't have any visible wear on your tyres, I'd stop complaining and go flying!

FFF
----------------

[ozplane]

Thanks for the replies chaps and it seems as though grass is easier on the round black bits. By the way FFF I wasn't complaining. I was just surprised that for once in aviation something was costing less than I'd expected. A notable first!