YAFTT: What a dumb way to get a flat!

giantpinkbunnyhead

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2005
3,251
1
0
Sometimes just when you think you've seen it all at work... something like this happens.

At work we operate a fleet of aicraft, some of which are Boeing 727's. When they are parked on the ramp, we use wheel chocks to keep them in place. Before flight, we remove the chocks EXCEPT for the ones behind the main wheels. The jet then taxi's forward away from those chocks. But that didn't quite work today....

When the captain throttled up and started to roll forward, somehow the chock STUCK TO THE TIRE. It got lifted away from the ground, stuck to this tire as it rolled forward. A few feet later, the chock reaches the top of the tire's path and promptly falls off the tire, forward. It lands with the spikes up. The plane immediately taxi'd over this thing and BOOM!!! Tire just exploded. That noise was heard for a mile in all directions. Turns out... that someone had just painted that chock... the paint was not yet dry... they chocked the aircraft with it... paint dried to the tire... and there you have it.
 

KLin

Lifer
Feb 29, 2000
30,360
681
126
Which airline is this so I can avoid them in the future?
 

spidey07

No Lifer
Aug 4, 2000
65,469
5
76
heh, go figure.

I backed out of my garage one time with an aluminum can behind the tire. That simple alimunium can completely and totally sliced the entire sidewall wide open in an 8" gash.

What pressure do they run those tires at? beadless?
 

giantpinkbunnyhead

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2005
3,251
1
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Originally posted by: spidey07
heh, go figure.

I backed out of my garage one time with an aluminum can behind the tire. That simple alimunium can completely and totally sliced the entire sidewall wide open in an 8" gash.

What pressure do they run those tires at? beadless?

The main tires are approximately 165 psi of nitrogen... they pack quite a punch when they blow.
 

DrPizza

Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
Mar 5, 2001
49,601
167
111
www.slatebrookfarm.com
If it makes you feel better, I had a blowout on a trailer I was hauling this weekend...
50 bales of hay (quite a bit for one load), about a mile from my house, BAMMMMM! I looked in the rear-view mirror, and the horizontal rows of hay seemed to be at a slight angle. A storm was approaching, so I did the only sensible thing: I drove home on the flat tire. Well.... I drove part way on the flat tire; most of the way on the rim. $ New rim < $ hay. People came out of their houses to see what was causing all the noise.
 

altonb1

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2002
6,432
0
71
BOOM!

So what do you do, exactly? Are you the guy that posted about being an air traffic controller a few weeks ago?
 

Steve

Lifer
May 2, 2004
15,945
11
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I have a friend who's a cargo pilot in Santa Barbara, CA. I'll have to ask him if he's ever had something like this happen.
 

Kaieye

Platinum Member
Oct 9, 1999
2,275
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I was at Costco yesterday with a tire with unusually low tire pressure. I brought it in and they fixed it with a patch to cover a whole caused by a screw.
 

bctbct

Diamond Member
Dec 22, 2005
4,868
1
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Originally posted by: Kaieye
I was at Costco yesterday with a tire with unusually low tire pressure. I brought it in and they fixed it with a patch to cover a whole caused by a screw.

That story reminds about a thread some guy posted about a chock getting stuck to the tire of a 727. :)

 

TheGizmo

Diamond Member
Dec 31, 2000
3,627
0
71
Originally posted by: bctbct
Originally posted by: Kaieye
I was at Costco yesterday with a tire with unusually low tire pressure. I brought it in and they fixed it with a patch to cover a whole caused by a screw.

That story reminds about a thread some guy posted about a chock getting stuck to the tire of a 727. :)

peter griffin