• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • Contact

Golf Hotel Whiskey

Golf Hotel Whiskey: for pilots and aviation enthusiasts

Remember to check the tire pressure

Winter will soon be here and colder temperatures will impact the performance of your aircraft – including tire pressure. Hence, a recent post about tire pressure by John Fiscus (the Flight Academy’s Chief Pilot) on the Cirrus Owners & Pilots Association (COPA) blog is will worth reading.

As John reminds us, its important to keep track of tire pressure because low pressure can have bad side effects such as excessive tread wear to loss of control during landings. And although the wheels may be hard to see, John also reminds us that they are not so hard to see when you get down close to the pavement and this is also a good time to check the white stickers on the brakes.

However, since it can also be hard to tell from simply looking at the tires that the pressure is too low, John gives the following helpful suggestion:

Make sure you’ve parked near where the air in your tires can be filled (many portable tanks won’t do this too well) and, using a pressure gage, release the pressure in one of the main gear down to about 30 or 25 psi.  Now fill the pressure back up to 62psi in SR22s and 53psi in SR20s.  You should be able to notice the difference quickly, a very significant bulge will be evident when the pressure is low.

In addition, John also suggests a second method that requires a bit more work because it involves fitting a block of wood under a fairing when the tires are properly inflated. 

Regardless of what method you use though, keeping track of your tire pressure is a relatively easy thing to do that will also keep you safe the next time you fly.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Sylvia says

    October 23, 2009 at 20:06

    Er, white stickers on the brakes?

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Matthew Stibbe
Matthew Stibbe is CEO of Articulate Marketing and Turbine, the easy, online way to deal with office paperwork. He has an FAA CPL/IR and an EASA PPL/IR and sometimes flies a Cirrus SR-22. He also writes about wine at Vincarta and being a better manager at Geek Boss.
Bureaucracy must die eBook
Subscribe via RSS

Recent Posts

  • IATA Airport Abbreviations
  • Upcoming Concorde and Apollo documentaries
  • Lie Back And Think Of England: London To Austin On BA’s New 787 Dreamliner
  • Video: Parachuting from the edge of space
  • Hilarious preflight safety video for GA aircraft
  • San Francisco Airport at night – beautiful time lapse video
  • A practical jetpack (finally) takes off
  • A man in a hot air balloon realises he is lost
  • Pegasus House: The former HQ of the Bristol Aeroplane Company is restored
  • Vintage British aviation posters from the 1920-1930s

Copyright © 2023 Golf Hotel Whiskey. All rights reserved.