I used to fly 747-200 around the Saudi, UAE and Somalia areas for some years, and had only one single tire on one occasion 'thermal' out on me!
The technique we found worked best for us was to not select any autobrakes at all, use max reverse at the earliest opportunity, then use manual braking, as required, below 100 knots, and always use the entire available runway. With that technique, as I said, we had few brake overheat problems. Oh they certainly got hot, but stayed up!
The one time we did deflate a tire, this technique wasn't used and we were very lucky not to have many more than one deflate, and we only had one spare on board!
Great to have an FE on board, isn't it...got it changed using assorted local lifting/inflation equipment, and we were away back to Jeddah in good time!
