I am by no means any sort of knowledgeable expert on the subject, and if
you've studied aquaplaning for your pilots exam I'm sure you are already
ahead of me! I was purely going on my engineers intuition that a larger
area (and therefore lower contact pressure for a given weight of car) would
'float' over water more easily - plus personal experience (and watching WRC
cars) that skinny tyres cut into snow much better than fat ones, and
extrapolating that effect into water.
If tyres were infinitely flexible, then indeed the contact pressure between
tyre and road would be exactly the same as the air pressure in the tyre,
regardless of tyre size. For a tyre with no pressure supported by its own
stiffness, then a larger diameter tyre would have a larger contact patch and
lower contact pressure. Real tyres lie somewhere inbetween, but what you
learnt for your pilots licence would suggest that tyre pressure is the more
significant factor, and I can quite accept that.
Sorry, I'm turning into nerdy engineer again - I'd better shut up and take
my potion. Dr. Jeckyll will be back soon...
Richard
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