A bicycle pump would do the job just as well. I just keep getting ads flashing up on my smartphone for mini compressors at around €40.🙂
You can buy cheap lightweight compressors which are enough to fill a car tyre which are about the weight and size of a torch and batteries.
Why not an emergency bicycle pump? They’re cheap, small and lightweight. This can even used to top off the 0.8 bar from the gunk spray. And if you are afraid of eyeballing pressure, there are small pressure gauges available.
https://www.motorradonline.de/test/14-luftdruckpruefer-test/
Excellent idea gallois, this should be also very easy to accomplish, I found a very good instruction here (for a car):
https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Repair-a-Tubeless-Tyre-Puncture/
And also plenty of repair guides on YouTube.
I am assuming that we are talking of repairing a hole or something of that nature ie not a split or valve problem.
If this is the case I wonder if we could take a lesson from farm tractors and heavy goods vehicle tyre.
Tyre repair people fix these by drilling out the hole with a bit of known size. They carry with them bungs or plugs of that same size and then with a bit of glue added they push the plug into the drilled hole.
Once dry the puncture is repaired as good as welding two pieces of metal.
You can buy cheap lightweight compressors which are enough to fill a car tyre which are about the weight and size of a torch and batteries.
Rubber plugs, a tube of rubber glue and a torch size compressor and perhaps a sharp knife would easily fit into an small aircraft.
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…
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.
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!
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…)
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
My hangar neighbour used a car puncture inflater bottle on a flat tyre this weekend. No problem with first day’s flying
