I was watching videos of aircraft landings and noticed how disproportionately small the wheels were on just about every aircraft. Wouldn’t it be better to have larger tires (like in cars) to provide better traction for take off/landing?
In: Physics
I guess planes want to be as light as possible so it’s also a function of weight saving. Grip is also a function of weight and planes are heavy things pushing the tyres into the runway.
(FWIW You don’t want too larger tyres on your car or it has to work harder to overcome that grip, thus using more fuel)
Aircraft wheels are alot different to cars. They are much thicker rubber since one landing can scrap away alot of rubber. If you would make them larger they would add alot more weight but also they would take up even more space in the aircraft. Wasted space in aircrafts directly limits efficiency and thus makes the airplane less economic. There is no need for bigger wheels also since they do not really drive around much. They are exactly as big as they need to be to let the planen roll safely on the ground.
The tires are exactly as big as they need to be to support the plane’s weight on the tarmac and runway. There’s no reason to make them bigger. In fact, making them bigger would detrimental because they plane would just have to carry around all that extra weight for no reason. Traction during takeoff and landing is simply not an issue that needs to addressed by changing the size of a plane’s wheels. Planes are designed to fly in the air, cars are designed to drive on the ground. The wheels serve completely different purposes so it makes no sense to compare them to each other.
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