Aircraft Tire Failure Diagnosis — Flat Tire Forensics

When and where did an aircraft tire fail? Read the failure signature to tell landing (contact slip / hard impact) from braking (locked wheel / reverted rubber).

An interactive infographic and a 13-slide briefing deck for diagnosing aircraft tire failures from their physical signature. Created as Hellenic Air Force training material by Maj(P) Koroniadis Nikolaos (364 MEA / 120 PEA, Kalamata Air Base).

🔗 Live site: https://nickkoro21.github.io/flat-tire-forensics/

🇬🇷 Διαθέσιμο και στα ελληνικά — διάγνωση θραύσης ελαστικού αεροσκάφους (προσγείωση vs πέδηση) ως infographic και briefing 13 διαφανειών.

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Contents

Deliverable	English	Ελληνικά
Infographic — decision tree, the four mechanisms with reference photos, decisive-tests table, Nuremberg case study, recognition catalogue	/en/	/el/
Briefing deck — 13 slides (1920×1080), arrow-key navigation	/briefing/en.html	/briefing/el.html
Slides download (PPTX)	—	/briefing/slides-el.pptx

The four mechanisms

	Family	Signature
A · Spin-up	Landing	shallow, spread scrub; V/chevron cuts in the touchdown zone
B · Hard impact	Landing	sidewall/bead damage, bulge; often accompanying wheel/gear damage
C · Locked wheel	Braking	one deep, localized flat spot abraded to the cords (dry runway)
D · Reverted rubber	Braking	glassy, "boiled" rubber + steam marks (wet runway)

Repository layout

index.html        language picker (EN | EL)
en/  · el/        infographic, per language (self-contained HTML)
briefing/         deck — en.html, el.html + shared CSS/JS, logos/, slides-el.pptx
assets/           shared reference photos (img/), favicon.svg, css/infographic.css
src/              original Claude-design editable source (archival — see src/README.md)

A few deliberate choices:

• No build step, no runtime dependencies. The published pages are plain static HTML/CSS. The original infographic shipped a React + Babel "tweaks" panel that only works inside the Claude design host; it was removed for publication (the default view is the full, intended presentation). The editable source is preserved in src/.
• Reference photos live once in assets/img/ and are shared by both languages and by the deck, to avoid duplication.

Run locally

Any static file server works:

python -m http.server 8000
# then open http://localhost:8000/

Credits & licensing

• Original work — the HTML/CSS/JS, the SVG diagrams (decision tree, mechanism sketches) and the written content — © Maj(P) Koroniadis Nikolaos. Released under the MIT License.
• Reference photographs of tire conditions are reproduced for educational reference from the Goodyear Aircraft Tire Care & Maintenance Manual (6/2024) and remain © The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. The Nuremberg case photo is © BFU (German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation), report EX005-0/05.
• Unit insignia (briefing/logos/) are property of the Hellenic Air Force.
• These third-party images are not covered by the MIT License above.

This is training material. The photographs are reference examples and are not from any specific occurrence. The tool classifies the most likely cause — it is not proof and does not replace a physical teardown of the tire.

If you are a rights holder and would like a reference image removed, please open an issue.

Sources

1. Goodyear, Aircraft Tire Care & Maintenance Manual (6/2024) — https://www.goodyearaviation.com/resources/pdf/aviation-tire-care-2024.pdf
2. Goodyear, Tire Care resources — https://www.goodyearaviation.com/resources/tirecare.html
3. SKYbrary, "Aquaplaning" — https://skybrary.aero/articles/aquaplaning
4. BFU (Germany), report EX005-0/05 — E145, Nuremberg, 2005

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_{Γένοιμαν αἰετὸς ὑψιπέτας · 364 ΜΕΑ / 120 ΠΕΑ · Hellenic Air Force}