Anyone else ever heard of this? Just saw it on a group on FB, and I don't want to just dismiss it out of hand. Never heard of it, and there's no details in the post as to which country allegedly tried it. I'm guessing the US, but you never know. The site's called TankHistoria- "Wooden tank wheels! During 1943 there was a shortage of rubber which was having a hindering effect on things such as tyres for tanks which even in the best of conditions rapidly go though their tyres. One suggestion was to use wooden wheels made out of laminated beechwood, which had also been tested on aircraft. The laminated wooden tires were tested but after 16 miles the driver could smell smoke and noticed the wheels were smouldering requiring him to quench them with water. By 68 miles the wheels began to catch fire and the driver had to stop 5 times to put out the flames. After this the experiment was stopped and wooden wheels were remarked as “entirely unsuitable for use in the service”."
If my failing memory hasn't totally gone there's a picture on here somewhere showing a plane with wooden wheels they used for taxiing around the factory. Painted to show "Not For Use" ??
Popular Mechanics (tm) cover(s) pop up unbidden in my mind. Gods, they had some crazy, I mean "speculative", kaka on the front of some of their editions.
