I have seen a lot of ads for these come up lately and I am interested in replacing my 8.50x11s. What are your general opinions on the Gar Aero tires? Any specific thoughts on the 29" Gar Aero's? I doubt I will ever land on anything more technical than a smooth gravel bar but it would be nice to have a little bigger tire just in case. My specific application would be a Citabria GCBC. Can I even get the STC for those tires on my citabria?

Mike

Mike,

First of all, there is no such thing as a "Gar Aero tire". The Gar Aero WHEEL ADAPTERS are flanges which glue to your stock wheel halves, to extend your wheels out to take 10 inch standard tires. The two general choices of tires are 8.50 X 10.00 tires, which offer an effective diameter of about 24 inches or so, plus good width, or the 29 X 11.00 X 10.00 inch tire, which winds up being 28 or so inches in diameter on these wheels.

Second, THERE ARE NO STC's for ANY airplane on these things. You are on your own as to approvals. That said, you can probably get them approved in Alaska, since there are a lot of these out there that are field approved, so they are a well known quantity.

Third, THEY ARE HEAVY buggers. As in VERY heavy. A 7GCBC has very little useful load in any case, and adding particularly the 29 inch tires is going to really eat into useful load. Also, you are going to be putting a LOT of weight out there at the ends of those (fairly small) spring steel gear legs. I'm not sure that's such a great combination.

Finally, these are tube type tires, hence you can't run very low tire pressures. Also, with the 29s you are going to want to buy new tires and then have them buffed down by a recapper to get rid of some weight. They are still REALLY stiff side walls and tread.

They work okay, and the wheel adapters with 8.50 X 10 might be fine. I think I'd stay away from the 29's on that plane, however.

You might also look at the Goodyear 26 inch blimp tires. These too would have to be field approved, but again, there are a lot of them out there. SImpler, lighter, and pretty straightforward.

If you do go with the Gar Aero adapters, make absolutely certain that whoever assembles the wheels and tires knows what they are doing , and gets a really good bond between the wheel adapters and your wheels.

MTV

I have a set for sale right now to finance a satellite phone. Otherwise I would keep them.

MTV makes some good points, but I will add these:
1) Gars are affordable. Compared to other tire options that give you similar foot print and prop clearance the Gars are a good bargain. A good used set with YEARS of life left can be had for $1000.00. Try that with bushwheels.
2) Gars are bullet proof and can be run on gravel, sand, or pavement for a lifetime. Other tires wear out when you put them on pavement.
3) Gars are 10lbs heavier than 31" bushwheels.
4) 26" good years are also a nice option, but they are not light. Very heavy tires for the size.
5) I know high time tw pilots with decades of off airport experience in Alaska that have never slipped a tube in Gars or Goodyears. Whenever people discuss tires with tubes this is one of the first things brought up. Like if you dip below 8 lbs of pressure, tire stems will start flying off. Use caution, and try to stay on the right side of safe and stupid and tubed tires are a nice affordable option that allow for a bunch of off airport work.

Gar Aeros and goodyears were run for years in Alaska, and can be used to visit all sorts of neat places. The Gars give a nice wide footprint for gravel bar hopping and combing the beaches and 26" goodyears do some of the same. They both lack the 'cool' factor of bushwheels...

I agree check out the bushwheel 10 inchers they are only a couple lbs heavier than 29 in bushwheels they also have buffed 29-11-10 tires. with these wheels you can run used sprayplane tires if you have a buddy with a sprayplane to wear the extra rubber off them for you.

ccurrie wrote:I agree check out the bushwheel 10 inchers they are only a couple lbs heavier than 29 in bushwheels they also have buffed 29-11-10 tires. with these wheels you can run used sprayplane tires if you have a buddy with a sprayplane to wear the extra rubber off them for you.

I think it was LowflyinG3 that pointed out that the tires used on Ag planes are 10 ply, unfortunately you need 4 ply for the bushwheel 10in wheels. I knew it had to be too good to be true. Maybe if you ran the 10 plies you wouldn't need a tube?

And, I would agree 100 percent with ALL of tgorn's comments. I ran Gar Aeros for a long time on a variety of airplanes.

THe only issue I'd caution on is low tire pressure. When you get down to 10 pounds on a tire this size, a small change in ambient temperature can seriously change the tire pressure. So, a tire pressure check prior to every flight is a good idea if running low pressure.

MTV

I know im getting off on a tangent but has anyone tried using nitrogen in big tires it shure works good in big mudders at low temperatures [well temp changes i should say]

Nitrogen works fine, and tends to leak a bit less, but it doesn't help all that much with the expansion/contraction with temps. It's also hard to come by at most airports.

MTV

Nitrogen has two advantages, it's dry because it was highly compressed and it contains no Oxygen, so it can't promote corrosion due to oxidation. Neither is relevant for GA tires.

a64,

Actually, the advantage is that the nitrogen molecules are a wee bit larger, so they don't work their way through tiny little pores quite as well. That's one advantage, at least.

And, that isn't much.

MTV