To further expand on Larry's comments, one thing I haven't seen in this thread is the concept that the 'pressure' shown on the gauge when inflated on the ground is technically a pressure differential and that the relative pressure at altitude would change relative to the MSL altitude/pressure altitude at the location where the tire was originally inflated. In addition if you inflate a tire to 50 psi at a MSL of (where I am) 850' and were to land at an airport at MSL/altitude pressure of say 5,000', the relative pressure would be somewhat higher. So if you were to run maximum pressure in your tires, it may increase the risk of a failure under certain circumstances.
As a reference point for me, when I first started to learn to fly, I noticed on pre-flight that the tires looked "low", but when I asked my CFI his comment was that I should think about what the pressure differential would be if we were at 10,000 MSL instead of the airport 850 MSL. This 'may' put additional stress on the tire. Logically it made sense, but what do I know, I'm an engineer. What do you guys think? Am I overthinking this? Mark W. N952MW(res) Larry F wrote: -----Original Message----- From: KRnet [mailto:krnet-bounces at list.krnet.org] On Behalf Of Larry Flesner via KRnet Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2016 8:34 AM ..... I should have expanded on my thinking of high tire pressure. Tire manufactures do not give a recommended pressure, only a maximum inflation pressure for that tire. The user determines the pressure for the application. Tires by nature are flexible and that makes them ideal for our application. Over inflating restricts the flexibility to some extent depending on the amount of over inflation. Consider what happens when .... I'm convinced that running the tire at a moderate psi lets the tire flex under load and perform the way it was designed without over stressing the structure of the tread or sidewalls. I have no scientific data to support this, just mental mussing and experience. Larry Flesner --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus
