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Just wanted to relate an incident that happened to me recently flying a

Lancair 235 equipped with an IO-320 and MT prop.  I flew from Southern

California to Oregon just prior to Christmas for a couple of days.  This

was during that very cold spell and just after some snow had fallen

throughout the state.  No problems landing on snow packed runways that

had been sanded, however upon returning to Camarillo , CA after a 4-hour

flight from Hillsboro, OR (just outside of Portland) my nose tire blew

on landing.  There was no damage to the aircraft or rim other than the

blown tire.  It appears that upon touchdown that the tire was

under-inflated and the rim cut the tire on the sidewall upon contact

with the asphalt.



I believe the tire may have had less pressure than when I departed

Camarillo originally due to the conditions.  When I took off from

Hillsboro, the outside temp was -6 degrees C and I flew back at 11,500

feet at a temp of -10 degrees C.  After a fairly quick decent I then

landed.  I think that the cold conditions and the fact that less air is

run in the nose tire to minimize shimmy potential that the tire ended up

being under-inflated.  The touchdown was easy, but as the nose settled

to the runway, the aircraft immediately tried to swerve to the right.

It was controllable via rudder and the shaky stop on the runway was

uneventful.  The caution would be to check the tire pressure any time

you have gone from warm to cold conditions and you anticipate minimum

time for the aircraft to thaw prior to landing.



Regards,

Denis Conkey

N235WC