What happens when the runway is muddy?

[Guest brentc]

This is what happens when you drop into an airfield unannounced and don't realise that the taxiway is clay and has had a lot of rain lately.

 

Would you believe that when I weighed the wheel spat it was 17.4 kilograms!

 

After 100 metres of taxxing, all 3 spats were FULL of clay.

 

Something to watch for!

 

 

 

[Guest airsick]

That's quite taxing taxiing.

 

 

[Matt]

So, I gotta ask - what did an extra 55KG of ballast hanging underneath feel like???

 

 

[facthunter]

Feeel like?

 

Sticky, cold and wet I reckon at a guess nev..

 

 

[Guest brentc]

I had to take the spats off the aircraft to get out again to the runway, so I did have the weight onboard, but it was in the back. It was hard to believe that they weighed so much.

 

The photo was taken nowhere near the runway just for your info.

 

 

[Seal]

Yeah, clay soils and spats don't mix well. It's even more fun with cracking clays, if you don't break them by filling them up with mud in winter then in summer the cracks open up and eventually you drop a wheel down one and smash the spat that way.