Aircraft tires need to withstand extremely high loads, speeds, and temperatures, and they need to provide stability, traction, and braking effects in various conditions. Straight treads are the simplest and most effective way to achieve these goals.
Those grooves are designed to give an airplane control when landing on a wet runway.
They allow the tire to sink through the water and touch the runway. Once the tire touches the runway, the brakes work.
Those grooves work great for the poor planes that live their entire lives condemned exclusively to paved runways. But for off-airport landings, (particularly on really short spots where hydroplaning (read “water skiing”) is necessary to make the landing spot longer,) those grooves will sink your plane.
Author – Hunter Brooks
