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If one divides weight of the airplane by the number of wheels it has, one would find one wheel carries around 10 times more weight than that of a truck. You even get a slightly better deal on landing when you don't have as much fuel.

That's a lot of weight but nothing crazy, so on a dry runway wheel brakes alone are more than enough to stop normally. They would also wear out a lot, overheat and occasionally ignite if used like that, so that's what thrust reversers are for.




That mass has much more velocity than a truck.




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