An Airplane Wheel Spinner

Problem: Every time an airplane lands, its tires skid when they touch the runway, since they are not rotating when they touch the ground.

That provides substantial wear and tear on the airplane's tires.

Here's a picture of the skidding tires when a jet touches down.

A solution: a "hubcap" for retractable airplane wheels that speeds up the rotation of the tires when the wheels are lowered before landing.

When the wheels are lowered, the air flowing by the hubcap makes the airplane's wheels rotate in the correct direction to reduce the amount of skidding and thus rubber loss upon touchdown.

This wheel spin-up is accomplished by the shape of the hubcaps on each airplane wheel, without the need for electric motors to spin up each wheel.

This would extend the lifetime of airplane tires and reduce airport tire pollution.

The wheel spinner hubs can be designed to rotate the tires at a rate appropriate for the average landing speed of the type of plane they are installed on, so there would be no wheel skid if landing at that average speed, and a much smaller wheel skid if an actual landing speed was higher or lower during landing due to wind or other conditions.

Having the wheels rotating could also reduce the chances of a plane sliding on a wet or icy runway.

Pictured below is a prototype of such a hubcap, with a short movie of it in action.

Side view of the Airplane Wheel Spinner model

Edge view of the Airplane Wheel Spinner model

Click on either picture to see it larger.