Tyres on F100

[ClintonBaptiste]

Would you feel an aircraft tyre ripping apart if you were sat in the cockpit of an F100?

Had an incident today involving a Fokker 100, the flight suffered a large delay due to the state of one of the aircraft tyres.

The a/c in question landed last night and must have had a heavy landing or a fault with one of the tyres on the main right gear as it was totally destroyed (will ad an image later).
This morning's crew turned up for duty an hour before STD only to discover the a/c in this state. Surely the flight crew from the previous flight would have felt or heard something, if not had a quick check of the aircraft. My question is, would you feel such an incident in the cockpit?

Do the ground crew take any blame if they have chocked the main gear? After all they are not engineers and it would be pretty dark under the wing of an F100.

Pilots are expected to do a walk around before a flight, but why not after to give it a quick once over?

[Kit d'Rection KG]

I never had a tyre problem on the F100... 44 tons and proper wheels and tyres... However, it was quite usual for a wheel to come off after a change, if the spacers hadn't been correctly stripped off the old set and put on the new - much giggling when ATC asked 'Errr, have you left something behind..?'.

I've only once 'felt' a tyre problem, and that was a blown NLG tyre on an increased climb takeoff out of Athens in a Boeing. Only had four hours to worry about the subsequent landing...

[BOAC]

CB - quite odd - most airlines use the 'night stop' to have an engineer check the a/c and do a 'pre-flight' check which they will sign in the tech log. Cannot see how that was missed, unless they turned up as the eng was doing the check? It could have happened as you describe during the day when the only check is the pre-flight inspection by the oncoming crew. More than possible the inbound crew would have been unaware - depending on the damage:).

[Hand Shandy]

Not all KLM outstations have engineer cover on night stops the daily inspections will be done on return to a main base . It`s a bit embarrassing to find this on a pdi i must admit , just another example of penny pinching bean counters .

[Clarence Oveur]

It doesn't really matter whether the incoming crew could feel any tire damage or not. When you leave an aircraft at a station without engineer coverage you do a post-flight inspection.

Unless of course it's considered as "not my problem".

PPP if you ask me.

[Alpine Flyer]

At Tyrolean the incoming crew has to do a post-flight unless the A/C is handed over to the next crew or maintenance directly. More or less like a pre-flight walk-around to catch issues and allow for maintenance action before the outgoing crew arrives.

[Rainboe]

To answer Clinton's direct question, I think it accurate to say that the pilots would most likely have absolutely no idea of main wheel problems, and probably nosewheel problems as well. Of all the tyre failures I have had (and that is really not very many over the years), none have ever been 'felt' by the pilots- they have all been discovered by a subsequent walkaround only. IMO, it is not customary for pilots to do post-flight walkarounds- one is usually aware overnight engineering checks will be far more thorough, and they are usually anxious for the pilots to push off as soon as possible! I think Engineers think of pilots as those people who break their beautiful works of art, and cause all failures!

[Airsickness78]

As an engineer on the type in question and having worked for the airline in question I would like to put in my 2 cents worth on the subject.

I the past KLM Cityhopper Uk have had several incinedt regarding tyre tread seperation and tyre blow outs on the Fokker 100.

It was found that due to the fact that the airline chouce was to retread the tyre instead of all new tyres, there was a chance of over-stressed (heavy loads on the metal carcas on the tyre caused by underinflation, heavy landings ect.) being fitted after normal retread only shop visit.

I know that it was decided to not allow more that 3 retreads per tyre when I was still arround there.

As to the second point of having the Daily / MSC, or wat ever you want to call it , done at the main base has some (dis) advantages here ar a couple: + having the manpower and expertese of own staff on hand, + having parts / expendables available. - heavier workload for the engineers due to high turnaround vollume, - Greater chance of humar error due to high workload, - greater chance of engineers takeing shortcuts to accomodate the sheduald check (1,5 hrs ellapsed time for a good daily) into the 30 / 45 mins provided by opperation.

In the events that i was involved with tyre bursts on the F100 there was considreble more dammage to the aircraft than just the tyre needing to be replaced, this due to the close proximity of the inboard flap and engine.