[PeteSpencer]

Do all airliners turn by locking the inside wheel?

Peter

[Dave W]

...the odd stupid cyclist ...

As someone who lost a schoolmate to this at age 16, that comment doesn't sit well with me.

What is "obvious" to some isn't so to others. It doesn't mean they are stupid, it means they may have had different life experiences.

[Mike Charlie]

Picture reminds me of my thumb after a mandoline accident in my kitchen! Painful

[Lockhaven]

Do all airliners turn by locking the inside wheel?

Peter

Purely depends upon the space available, most of the the time you taxi on to stand with automated guidance.



Other times its a marshaller to a remote stand but supplemented with yellow taxi line guidance.

But occasionally out in the jungle or were automated parking doesn't work i.e. London City were you have to do a 180 deg turn on to stand then yes.

[Human Factor]

If you’re flying big jets it’s always worth having in mind whether your nose or your wingtip is limiting on a full lock turn.

Depending upon the type and undercarriage position, most times it will be the wing that is the limiting factor.

Certainly of the ones I have flown, only the A321 immediately springs to mind where you clobber the nose first.

You would try to avoid locking (more likely scrubbing) the inside tyre when turning. Bear in mind as well that some types (my experience is with the 777 and 747), the main gear can also be steerable. In the case of the 747, the body gear steers counter to the nose gear. In the case of the 777, the rearmost axle does the same. This shifts the centre of the turn radius significantly. The 747 can do a 180 degree turn in a surprisingly small space (better than the 777).

[MichaelP]

A simple demonstration is to stand beside a wall with two feet clearance and your arms behind you like swept wings, and then rotate your body. Your fist will hit the wall.
Even if the jet is rotated about the outside wheel, the outside wingtip will describe a wider arc.

[JoeC]

Anyone else just tried that...or just me?

[mick w]

Anyone else just tried that...or just me?

Didn't need to , I used to carry lengths of 4" X 2" on my Shoulder !!.

[nallen]

Presumably parking sensors are just too obvious a solution.

[Charliesixtysix]

Anyone else just tried that...or just me?

Didn't need to , I used to carry lengths of 4" X 2" on my Shoulder !!.

Never heard of an M100 described in that way before Mick

[kanga]

Back in '60s the passenger terminal at Prestwick had a finger sticking out into the apron, with numbered ground level gates through which passengers came and went across the apron to and from the mobile steps at the aircraft.

One side of the finger had a wide turning circle. This was used exclusively by the scheduled operators, mostly BOAC, PanAm and Air Canada. This was airport management, BAA at the time IIRC, policy. The charter operators, package holidays to Mediterranean and affinity groups across the Atlantic, were made to park on the narrower side. After all, they were carrying mere plebs, not high fare scheduled passengers. But the terminal parking fees charged were the same. On both sides airliners would have to do a 180 turn near the terminal then taxi back to their assigned gate, parked parallel to the finger.

While I was working there for a charter operator, perhaps almost inevitably, the crew of one of our B707s misjudged the start of the turn, tightened it severely part way through, and significantly damaged a couple of tyres and an axle on the inside bogie. Flight Engineer decided it was not fit to be tugged away. We had to fly in a replacement bogie and engineers in a DC4, and make the change on the apron under the eyes of our much delayed passengers. And we were charged for the extra time occupying a gate.

So, yes, wear on the inside bogie in a tight turn may be significant, even if you don't hit anything

[MichaelP]

Which is the same in our context... let the inside wheel turn a little rather than lock it up.

[cockney steve]

Watch an Artic. with a twin-axle trailer, doing a U-turn or negotiating a hairpin.

Apart from the horrendous scrubbing-noise from the tyres, you can literally see the wheels bending with the side-thrust. painful to watch and , judging by the scrubbed-off rubber, expensive on tyres.

[Nick]

Unless it is equipped with "rear steer" and then watch all the cars panic on the outside of the turn when it doesn't "trail" as they expected.

Nick

[Gertie]

the odd stupid cyclist who persists in trying to squeeze up the nearside of a left-turning lorry, often learns the hard way.

As might the perfectly sensible cyclist who perfectly reasonably is passing the lorry on the left because he knows the lorry is going straight on because the lorry is indicating straight on (by not showing any non-straight-on indicator lights).