Tires on the wings of a jet may seem like an odd choice, but Russia is putting wheels on top of their fighters for a very smart defensive reason.
Ukraine launched Operation Spider’s Web against several high-value targets inside Russia. Ukraine released video footage taken from its FPV drones that carried out the attack, and they showed something a bit odd. As the drones moved toward their targets, which included Russia’s fleet of strategic bombers, a bunch of black circles could be seen all over the aircraft, covering the wings and much of the fuselage. These circles were tires, begging the question, ‘Why is Russia putting tires onto its planes?’
It’s a reasonable question to ask, seeing as you can visit any airport in America, and you won’t find any tires on anything but the landing gear. Similarly, the so-called « Boneyard » at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, houses around 4,400 parked aircraft of all kinds, and none of them have tires atop their wings or fuselages. As it happens, Russia isn’t doing this as a new way to store tires, as there’s a very practical reason for adding what amounts to circles onto a plane.
