Pneumatic tire

A radial aircraft tire having a pair of annular bead portions, each annular bead portion containing an annular bead core, a sidewall extending radially outwardly from each bead portion, and a crown portion extending between the sidewalls with a ground-engaging tread portion extending circumferentially thereabout, said tread portion having axially spaced apart circumferentially extending straight grooves therein, said tire further comprising a carcass consisting of two reinforced radial carcass layers and a tread reinforcing belt structure disposed radially outwardly of the carcass layers in said crown portion, each of said carcass layers comprising two discontinuous plies of radial reinforcing cords with one of said discontinuous plies being anchored around each of said cores and extending through a sidewall into said crown portion in overlapping relationship with the tread reinforcing belt structure by a distance equal to at least one-fourth of the axial width of the tread-reinforcing belt structure, the two discontinuous plies of each carcass layer have an axial gap with an axial width of no greater than 10 percent of the axial width of said tread reinforcing belt structure therebetween, the carcass layers being arranged such that the axial gap between the discontinuous plies of each layer is axially offset from and does not overlap with the axial gap between the discontinuous plies of the other carcass layer, and the axial gaps between the discontinuous plies of each carcass layer being axially spaced apart from the grooves in said tread portion by a distance equal to at least 3 percent of the axial width of said tread reinforcing belt structure.