Why nitrogen?

"Viperdoc" wrote in message
...
Bertie:

I find this hard to swallow, and I doubt that oxygen (at 20% of air),
regardless of pressure, is going to cause a detonation in an oleo. Just
like in a tire, the percentage of oxygen remains the same, so its ability
to support combustion also remains the same. Now, the increased oxygen
pressure might slightly increase the risk of corrosion, but we are not
talking orders of magnitude higher compared to ambient. At least this is
my understanding as I recall from being a chemistry undergrad and grad
student.

The more I hear about this, the more I think it's an old wive's tale.

Anway, what did you think of Anthony's claim"it's not me?" What a moron.

About all that I know on the reactivity subject is by inferance from the
assertion that our own need for suplemental oxygen at altitude is based on
partial pressure. On that basis, it seems to make a sort of sense, even
though it would require a *lot* of pressure and might also require the oil
in the strut to be partially vaporized--possibly during the early stages of
the rebound after the struts were vigorously compressed.

In the case of light plane tires, I agree with you that really dry air
should work well enough to make the issue trivial. But, if you need
nitrogen for any other reason, it is the cheapest thing that I know of in an
L bottle or larger and using it in the tires may be essentially
free--because you may have to pay rental on the tanks if they are not
refilled at a prescribed interval.

Peter