Wow - heard on the air... (long)

Tom Young wrote:
I read somewhere recently (can't remember where now -- magazine article?)
that braking once off the ground with the wheels spinning can make the tires
slip around and possibly shear off the valve stems. Maybe that's an aviation
urban legend, but it seems like it would be an unpleasant little surprise
upon landing. I'd be curious to know if that's actually happened to anyone.


I can't remember ever stepping on the brakes after liftoff in anything other
than a retractible... and that's only if I remembered. As for your old wive's
tale about dire consequences, it's so much crap. Somebody was trying to scare
you.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE

Mortimer Schnerd, RN wrote

...I can't remember ever stepping on the brakes after liftoff in anything
other than a retractible... and that's only if I remembered. As for your
old wive's tale about dire consequences, it's so much crap. Somebody was
trying to scare you.

No doubt, but you got me wondering where I saw it. Dug around a little:

http://www.avweb.com/news/columns/182683-1.html

From that article:

: Myths for the Last Millenium
: "Hit the brakes after takeoff before you retract the gear." That's a bad
habit to acquire as the need for brakes is
: very much airplane-specific. There may be a certain, small number of
airplanes on which it is necessary as the
: spinning wheels caused some sort of mischief as they hit their wells.
Okay, the World War II Hawker Typhoon
: was one, but I can't come up with any others right this moment (and you're
probably not flying a Typhoon this
: week, are you?) There are more airplanes, particularly ones with fairly
massive landing gear, on which hitting the
: brakes slams the wheels to a stop and will rotate the tire on the rim,
potentially causing it to be unable to hold air
: pressure or actually cutting the valve stem. So, unless the airplane
flight manual says to hit the brakes, don't
: bother.

I imagine he wasn't thinking of a 172 when he wrote 'fairly massive landing
gear.'

--
Tom Young
37.7 toward PP-ASEL
t e y o u n g 1 @ c o m c a s t . n e t
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