Does this help this is from one of our Hurricanes and this is from the other

[QUOTE=ollieholmes;1058250]Do many owners have the set up to paint them themselves? QUOTE]

We do!!!

Hurricane tail wheel tyre size is 4.95 x 3.5 hope this helps

The bottom line here is that Dunlop no longer make tubes the sub contractor they used has gone bust, they have also binned any remaining valves so we cannot even adapt alternative tubes. I have been trying to sort this out for years you cannot get tubes for 10.25 and 12 inch main wheels or for Hurricane and Spifire tail wheels although there is at least an alternative for the Spit tail tube.
If you think this is bad news brake bags are the next item that are going to cause problems.

In my experience if we the BBMF go tubeless and it works the CAA will not have a problem with others following our lead.

Mark a 10.25x 7.5 tube costs £323

I think I would personally rather stick with tubed tires if they were available.

So would we, however Dunlop no longer produce tubes, there are alternate size tubes available but the valve stem is wrong and this would need replacing but again Dunlop no longer can do this.
After AB’s minor incident 2 yrs ago the inner tubes issue was more closely looked at, the last batch of original tubes 10.25×7.5 were produced nearly 30yrs ago and we have been operating with converted Skyvan tubes that were produced 22 yrs ago. These tubes have a shelf life of 10 yrs so the question was asked why are we using out of date inner tubes on our a/c the answer was easy you can’t buy new any more! It was recommended that the flight look at going tubless on its fighters because of :-
1. A tubeless puncture will not deflate as quick as a tubed tyre, hopefully then the a/c will not be badly damaged ie replacement prop blades etc
2. Dunlop already manufacture tubeless tyres for the 12.75 wheels and it is easy for them to do the same to the 10.25 tyres.
3. No one makes inner tubes to the correct size and with the right valve stem.
4. The wheels on the a/c are between 25 to 40 yrs old so if you are going to manufacture new have them redesigned to take tubeless tyres.

This as Mark12 so rightly says will affect ALL Spitfire and Hurricane operators
in the future. This problem hasn’t happened over night it’s been coming to a head for some time. Hope this gives you an insight to some of the problems we have to overcome.

Fluffy