CASE STUDy: RYANAIR

Every night of the year, Ryanair at Stansted and their other European hubs, service all of its aircraft, with over 40 at Stansted alone. The high usage of the aircraft means the airline has a high turnover of tyres. During each night shift, these tyres are delivered at 30 psi / 2 bar and require full inflation to their operating pressure of 220 psi / 15 bar before fitting to the aircraft.

To provide the large quantity of Nitrogen gas required to fill the tyres, engineers used cylinder trolleys. However, one cylinder has the capacity to fill only four tyres, so engineers had to transport and change four or five cylinders airside every night and transport the empty cylinders landside for collection by BOC. As this was proving to be a time consuming, labour intensive and potentially hazardous task, the airline worked together with McNaughton Dynamics to find a better solution. The McNaughton Dynamics Ltd Fast Tyre Fill (FTF) unit was the result.

The FTF unit is filled with 300 Litres of Liquid Nitrogen that is stored in a 400psi / 27 bar cryogenic tank. Some of the liquid is used to pressurise the tank to provide a continuous supply of pressure. The remaining liquid is vaporised into gas and delivered to the control panel for distribution to the tyres through two separate hoses and control valves. Each of the two systems is fitted with 50 ft / 15 metre extendable hoses with a gauge, relief valve, shutoff valve and quick release Schrader tyre adaptor fitted at the hose end.

FEATURES & BENEFITS

• Simple to operate, with no specialist training required.

• Fills tyres quickly and safely.

• Two hoses for simultaneous filling of two tyres.

• Continuous pressure, no pressure raising time delays.

• Highly reliable with few moving parts.

• Low maintenance requirements.

• Based on robust military design.

• Standard BOC fill connector.

• Designed to prevent tyre burst during filling.