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A comment on The Only McLaren F1 Technician in North America. Parent comment

Re:The Only McLaren F1 Technician in North America by mikestew on Sunday December 24, 2017 @03:22PM (#16001159)
I'm not terribly surprised by the price of the tires. My mom's old Corvette tires were, IIRC, $1200 a piece. Don't know what tires on her '16 go for. And Corvettes don't go 231 mph. As I recall, tires were what speed-limited one of the Bugattis.

Frankly, I have no idea how they get a tire to hold together at 231mph. I haven't sat down and gone "okay, tire is X mm in diameter, at 231mph, that's Y RPM, carry the one...", but I imagine there are some incredible forces trying to pull that tire apart at 231mph. And the poor thing has to keep it together well enough to negotiate a corner with added side forces added to an already stressful situation.

So for $50K [0] you'll assure me that the tread won't come unglued from the carcass while I'm traveling the length of a football field every second? Sounds like a bargain to me.

(Kept separate from my other comment to avoid digression.)

[0] EDIT: oops, $50K/set, not each

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Re:The Only McLaren F1 Technician in North America by jdietrich on Sunday December 24, 2017 @06:48PM (#16001885)
A remarkable amount of engineering goes into a tyre. The Concorde was one of the most sophisticated aircraft of its time, but it was ultimately undone by tyres - nobody quite figured out how to build a tyre that could reliably handle 170mph landings. Poor maintenance and pilot error played a contributory role in the crash of Air France flight 4590, but Concorde had a rate of tyre failure 30 times higher than subsonic aircraft.
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Re:The Only McLaren F1 Technician in North America by eptcyka on Monday December 25, 2017 @03:41AM (#16003349)
What did the pilot do wrong in Air France 4590?
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Re:The Only McLaren F1 Technician in North America by toomuchtodo on Sunday December 24, 2017 @10:09PM (#16002430)
Corvette tires are expensive because they’re designed to go very fast and also to go very far when they go flat (50-70 miles without air if I recall), as you carried no spare (different sized wheels front and back). Not sure about the latest generation Corvette (have not owned one since the early 00s), but the C5s were only ~$300/tire (Goodyear Eagle F1s).
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Re:The Only McLaren F1 Technician in North America by mikestew on Monday December 25, 2017 @03:13PM (#16005510)
I think the new ones have tires all the same size. Regardless, yes, ‘vettes go fast, which why I used them as an example. Because I imagine a hockey stick on the tire speed rating/price curve. We can get you to 180mph for a reasonable price ($1200 ‘vette tires). You want over 200mph? Ooh, that’s going to cost you because that’s very hard to do, and there aren’t a dozen street-legal cars in the world that need them.
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