On 2/24/2011 10:48 AM, Harry K wrote:
On Jan 27, 4:28 am, Oliver wrote:
I know the answer is "it depends", but let's say you are in a regular
light airplane (C152, C172 ...) with "real" aircraft tires and you do
normal landings without excessive load, speed or crosswind. It will
still depend on the surface of the runway, but generally, is the
number more on the order of 10s of landings (change rather often),
100s of landings (maybe get through one busy flying season with one
set) or 1000s of landings (last forever until aging kicks in)?

Oliver

I often wondered how often the big planes change. I worked in a
faciltiy building agricultural fertilizer applicators (up to 90' wide)
that used what we called "bomber tires". Huge things taken off planes
that I had to trim the tapered bead to a flat one to fit our wheels.
Did hundreds of them. They showed hardly any wear at all.

Harry K

I don't know about commercial, but USAF used to change tires when
wear reached a certain point dictated by mission requirements and
location. If an aircraft was being flown to home station, depot or the
bone yard they's be authorized a one time flight on red threads. Many
times we changed tires that had plenty of life left. I retired in 1994
and things may have changed since then.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired