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Old December 7th 05, 09:25 PM posted to rec.aviation.owning
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Default Leak proof tubes

I posted this information in a previous thread in this group.
Here it is again for those who would like a better understanding.

Repeat of a posting made to this group

Aircraft inner tubes were traditionally manufactured from a natural rubber
compound.
A tire inner tube is made by taking a length of extruded "rubber" tube which
is then joined into its circular form by joining it's ends together. This
joining process is generally referred to as splicing.
Natural rubber readily bonds to itself and therefore produced the strongest
"splice".
However natural rubber is somewhat porous and results in a slow loss of air.
In the 1970's a new oil based polymer know as butyl was introduced to the
tire industry.
Butyl is non-porous and solved the problem of air loss but was very
difficult to splice into inner tubes so was only adopted for road vehicle
tubes for many years. Aircraft tubes continued to be made from natural
rubber until relatively recently.
Goodyear were an early user of butyl for inner tubes using the trade name
"Air Seal"
Therefore you have a choice, natural rubber tubes may be less prone to
failure but continually lose air or butyl tubes which may fail earlier but
you will not need airing up very often.
Me ........ I use butyl ....... Why ............ Because I designed the
machines which are now used to splice butyl inner tubes :-)
End of previous post


--
Roy
N5804F Piper Archer

"I have had some bad landings but I have never missed the runway"

"Javier Henderson" wrote in message
...
Jay Honeck wrote:
I'll mention again how surprised I was as an owner the first time I put
an air gauge on my tires. "Slightly low" looking aircraft tires might
have half the recommended pressure in them. The first time I reinflated
my tires I realized that every rental I'd ever flow had "flat" tires.


I get to see a lot of airplanes, and most of the people I'm picking up at
the airport are getting out of aircraft that have flat tires.

We air ours up every few weeks, but they are always down at least 25%.
It's a royal PIA when the high temperature is predicted to be 0 F.

Face it: aircraft tires are expensive pieces of sh*t.


They may well be, but if you want inner tubes that don't leak, try the
Michelin stuff. They're amazingly good.

-jav