Hi everyone, I am currently putting together a set of useful repair tools for longer journeys into the south, France, Spain and Portugal.
I came across this Michelin repair kit for car tyres, and was wondering if it can also be used for Michelin Air tubeless tyres. In case getting stranded at an airfield in the middle of nowhere, could be very useful to hop over to the next airport with maintenance facilities.
https://www.mldirectbuy.com/product/michelin-emergency-puncture-repair/
Max. speed should be 80 km/h (43 kt), that could be a slight problem for taking off, but touch down speed should be in the range, at least with my aircraft.
Did anybody try this or isn’t it a good idea :)
I wouldn’t be overy concerned with the speed references they have a margin built-in for liability etc.
But on a car, if it fails you’ll hopefully feel the difference, understand it hasn’t worked and pull-over again.
With the aircraft you’ll only know once you land on it again.
That may not be a big deal or it maybe, all depending on your aircraft, your skills, and where you land.
If the tyre stays on the rim, all well and good but if they part, you’ll now possibly be needing a rim as well.
The question is for what kind of failures you prepare. All my experience is with tubes but the typical screw in the tyre from a card did never happen. On the aircraft the tube did somehow desintegrate for whatever reasons. Improper installation, failure of the tube seam etc. So for tyres with tubes I decided to carry a spare tube as usually the outer tyre would still be usable to get home.
Another plan is to at least buy a spare tyre and put it in a box ready for FedEx so somebody at home could ship it out asap if you ever need it.
Wouldn’t it also be possible to put a tube into a tire that is designed as a tubeless one? So wouldn’t it also be possible to field-repair a tubeless tire with a tube? As far as my knowledge goes the difference is in the rim, where the valve is fixated. But you can put the valve of the tube there.
In the end, the only item for the tool box would be a tube.
My hangar neighbour used a car puncture inflater bottle on a flat tyre this weekend. No problem with first day’s flying
Just had a look at the link in the OP and wouldn’t this be a problem (my emphasis)?
can repair certain punctures and then re-inflate the tyre to 0.8 bar
With a manual or electric pump it should be possible to get it to the required pressure.
For TB20 tires with 4 bar, it would otherwise be rather useless.
(That said, tubes regularly develop leaks around the valve and the product will not help then – dont ask…)
Thanks for all your answers, these are also covering my main concerns.
172driver wrote:
Just had a look at the link in the OP and wouldn’t this be a problem (my emphasis)?
can repair certain punctures and then re-inflate the tyre to 0.8 bar
The tubeless aircraft tyre normally fills to 2.1 bar, as a car 245/45 R17 should be in the same range.
I am just wondering if the imbalance between e.g. right and left main wheel will be difficult to counter steer in the takeoff are landing roll, or a main wheel with 0.8 bar will be in danger to create a prop strike.
Maoraigh wrote:
My hangar neighbour used a car puncture inflater bottle on a flat tyre this weekend. No problem with first day’s flying
That sounds promising, thank you!
UdoR wrote:
Wouldn’t it also be possible to put a tube into a tire that is designed as a tubeless one?
Sebastian_G wrote:
So for tyres with tubes I decided to carry a spare tube
With tubed tyres also a good option, and very low weight to carry, probably the safer option. But I appreciate the bottle, easy to apply, just fill the content and you are ready to go, no need to jack up the aircraft and all those things.
This is an idea we have been toying with for our RV for while: we carry spare tubes, but actually changing one is a bit of a faff with jacking the aircraft, splitting the hub etc. Fine if you’re on an airfield with a friendly hangar, not so much if you’re on a lonely farm strip somewhere – as someone who enjoys the Scottish islands this is my personal nightmare scenario!
Hence the “magic gunk” would be a potential emergency option. But we haven’t actually bitten the bullet and added it to our maintenance kit though…
