I own a 1978 182Q with a sportsman STOL kit and the AirPlains 300hp conversion. It's a great backcountry airplane but still has its standard tires. I am bringing it to Alaska next year and am curious how much the standard tires can handle? I believe the front is 500x5 and mains are 600x6. Not sure I have time to upgrade them to something else, but are beach landings and gravel runways acceptable? It handles well on grass and I will surely be careful, but I wonder if I am stretching the limits of the tires/structural integrity? Thanks.

Hi, alaskan here. The tires you're on would be okay for almost all of the state-operated gravel airports. They are generally well maintained due to commercial air taxi operations in planes such as bonanzas or navajos. I would stay away from all gravel bars and beaches or unknown surfaces. Sure, there are plenty of gravel bars landable on that tire size, and even some hard packed tidal beaches, but always hard to know until you know.

A wise plan would be to upgrade to the airglas nose fork now or soon. This opens up a wide array of tire size combinations for you. A good size to start in the bigger realm would be 850x6 mains and 700x6 or 800x6 on the nose. This would allow you to land many gravel bars and a few of the nicer beaches reliably. It's not outrageously large either, so not much speed loss and likely you'd never go back to small tires.

If you want to experience more beach landings at the expense of weight and speed, an 850x6 on the nose and a 10" main wheel (850x10 or 29" tire) is what almost all commercial operators run for landing the beaches. It gives a good safety margin on gravel bar or softer strips as well. If you went this route, I would order the wheels/tires from airframes alaska and then pick them up whe you get to Alaska. You could even list them for sale when you're ready to leave if you wanted.

Even with these precautions, it's still a nose wheel plane so be careful and have fun!

Wild Cessna 206's seen grazing in their natural habitat. Both have 850 nose and 29" mains.

Thanks for the realistic advice!

Good to know I can still have fun in AK on the standard tires and shouldn't have a problem on the main gravel airports. I will for sure be cautious until I can upgrade to a better setup. Much appreciated!

asa wrote:Wild Cessna 206's seen grazing in their natural habitat. Both have 850 nose and 29" mains.

15531598.jpg

Ooofff that's a bad day. I feel like there must be a good story to go with that photo!

SmokeyTheBear wrote:

asa wrote:Wild Cessna 206's seen grazing in their natural habitat. Both have 850 nose and 29" mains.

15531598.jpg

Ooofff that's a bad day. I feel like there must be a good story to go with that photo!

One of them had a gear failure while landing, not sure about the other one.

Pete

pburns wrote:

SmokeyTheBear wrote:

asa wrote:Wild Cessna 206's seen grazing in their natural habitat. Both have 850 nose and 29" mains.

15531598.jpg

Ooofff that's a bad day. I feel like there must be a good story to go with that photo!

One of them had a gear failure while landing, not sure about the other one.

Pete

Hmmm, news article that the picture came from is a little different story, but either way, the nosewheel airplanes were inadequate for the conditions which should be a learning moment for anyone wanting to explore with a weak link up front.

"Both planes hit soft sand while taxiing."

"In both cases, the planes were on wheels and pilots were taxiing to move the planes to a harder surface."

https://www.homernews.com/news/two-bear ... nitna-bay/

Must have been a pretty brisk taxi for 85G... seems like a lot of bent metal.

Thanks for the link asa!