Pneumatic Tire

Although there are solid rubber tires, the tires that you see on most typical transportation vehicles – cars, vans, buses and even landing gear for airplanes – are air-filled, or pneumatic tires. Pneumatic tires have been around for more than a century. In fact, R.W. Thomson applied for and received the first patent for a pneumatic tire in 1845. The style didn’t really catch on though. A little more than forty years passed before J. B. Dunlop received a patent for his pneumatic bicycle tire in 1888. Tire technology has come a long way since Dunlop’s original patent.