On Tuesday, August 13, 2019 at 6:45:05 AM UTC-7, Phil King wrote:


The only threads I found were about trailer tires rather than glider
tires. Anyone any experience of using a monitor on a glider tire?
Phil King

The problem with most TPMS systems, at least as they might be applied to a glider main tire, is they screw onto the tube's valve stem. In the limited number of gliders I've owned, there is no clearance for them.

I have them on my motorhome and can monitor the glider trailer as well. In that application they make a lot of sense as both tire pressure and temperature are displaced and have set points to trip an alarm. Then I can pull over, check things, and hopefully make necessary repairs before tire pieces depart.

The potential advantage for a glider seems about nil to me. In the unlikely event you have a leaking tire, you are going to land with it anyway, one way or another. You are probably not going to roll the emergency vehicles in any case, so the only advantage would be knowing you've got a low tire or flat in advance. Given that unlikely eventuality (I've only ever had a tailwheel go flat), it doesn't seem like a TPMS would be worth the bother, even if the sensor did have clearance to fit.

Once had a brake caliper freeze to the rotor on my Husky after playing in the snow off road. I knew about it as the Husky veered off a fair amount on take off from the snow covered road and I glanced at the wheel to see it wasn't turning, basically a ski. Landed back home on the unpaved runway at Minden on one wheel, when the locked-up wheel came down it broke free without fuss.