Flat tires X 2 !!!

You may have seen Richard's 4-Runner - with the silly huge tires....

He called Wednesday night - on his way home from his Paramedic class he had a flat on the interstate off-ramp. He doesn't carry a spare.....sigh....

So, we trudged up to Chapel Hill to help him at 10pm. There was a hole in the tread. Should be an easy fix, but the hole appeared to be really large, like he ran over something metal on the interstate.

Long story... we ended up running around trying to find tire plugs, first set blew out after about 5 miles, ran around to find more plugs (it's 1AM by this point!!), finally found a gas station open that had the plugs, and returned safely home at about 2:30AM. Ah, parenthood....





I know it doesn't look like much - but this is the INSIDE of the tire - this is a huge hole and is not repairable. Richard has ordered a very expensive replacement...


The next flat tire story starts with a little afternoon trip to Oriental to the annual spring boat show at our marina. We got permission from Cherry Point Approach to fly out thru the warning/restricted airspace to get a few photos of the marina. A beautiful day, a bit windy and bumpy.




We did go over to the boat to do a few chores (mainly remove the front a/c unit for repair...)


But when we flew back to New Bern, the landing roll-out was bbbbaaaaddd. The landing itself was fine, until the weight settled on the nose-wheel. The nose wheel was flat! Not good while travelling 60-70 mph!

There was someone behind us on approach - the controller instructed them to "go-around" because we couldn't get off the runway fast enough.

We decided just to power forward and taxi on to parking - because getting towed off an active runway with airline service is a complicated affair. We assumed the tire was ruined - and figured that we weren't doing too much damage continuing to taxi.


The maintenance shop was closed for the weekend, of course.... but luckily, the flight school there had access to the hangar and were friends with the mechanic. They sold us a new tire and tube - otherwise, we would have been stuck driving home - ugh - you know we wouldn't like that!!

Here's the plane tied down so the nose wheel was off the ground. Duane made quick work of the tire change. I KNEW I kept him around for some reason!!! (just kidding, of course!)


The flight home and landing was uneventful - we should be good to go for another 6 or 7 years on the nose tire!

Here's a shot of the old tire and tube - kinda pitiful....happy ending, though - could have run off the runway and made a real mess.