He with the most tread wins and that would be Good-year’s Flight Custom III, along with Desser’s Monster retread. Cheaper tires aren’t always top value choices.

By Joseph (Jeb) Burnside and Martin Schneider

While car tires are all about the finer points of traction and resistance to hydroplaning, the best we can hope for with airplane tires is that they’ll make it through a couple of annuals. To do that, they need a lot of tread depth, the right rubber compound and a pilot whose idea of making the first turnoff doesn’t involve landing with the brakes locked.

Heat is hard on tires, but landings chew up the rubber so to find out which tire is top dog, we conducted the second Great Florida Tire Death Match, subjecting each of 11 new tires to 300 blistering, rubber-burning simulated touchdowns on a flat stretch of…