Shuttle Tiger II Tire Assault Vehicle (TAV) question

[Pedro Mira]

NASA used a Convair 990 aircraft to test space shuttle tires on repeated landings, and sometimes these tires would turn out to be overpressurized and unsafe to be approached by ground crew. To deal with this, an engineer modified a scale model of a Tiger II tank with remote controls, a camera, and a drill used to safely depressurize the shuttle tires on the test aircraft. This Tire Assault Vehicle served on said tire test flights, but I've heard claims that it was still kept as a backup option during regular shuttle landings, in case the tires were too unsafe to be approached by the recovery team. Is this true? Is there any evidence of the TAV being used as a contingency for space shuttle landings?

[Jim]

never saw it in the 15 or so landings I supported.

[woods170]

Dang! Learned something new today. Turns out the TAV is actually legit.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/cv-990-landing-systems-research-aircraft-12/

[AnalogMan]

Also see:

https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/modern-us-tire-assault-vehicle-tav/


Edit to add:There is a 1½ page article on the TAV in the following NASA magazine:

NASA Tech Briefs, May 1996
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20100028916
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20100028916/downloads/20100028916.pdf

I've extracted magazine pages 72 & 74 (and contents pages) containing the article and attached the pdf.

[Pedro Mira]

Also see:

https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/modern-us-tire-assault-vehicle-tav/


Edit to add:There is a 1½ page article on the TAV in the following NASA magazine:

NASA Tech Briefs, May 1996
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20100028916
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20100028916/downloads/20100028916.pdf

I've extracted magazine pages 72 & 74 (and contents pages) containing the article and attached the pdf.

Thanks a lot! I had not seen this article, it has quite a lot of info I had not seen in other places.