As an Air Cadet I marshalled all of those aircraft at the Cranfield Rally (Except the DC – but I DID park the Connie), and helped re-fuel the Great Lakes…. I have a similar set of photos somewhere……

Empty your inbox….. 😉

… well seduce my ancient footwear 😮

Landing and taking off with skis on grass – possible to land as a last resort, but the friction would be far too high to take off. I imagine you would have difficulty taxying too.

As for the dates of ski/wheel u/c… assuming we can discount the skid/wheel fixed combo of early aircraft, and we’re looking at a wheel which is retractable through a ski, I think we’re looking at early 1950’s… Here’s one from 1953: http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1953/1953%20-%200012.html Apparently Dowty patented the design in the late 1940’s.

Hercules were fitted with them quite early on, and DHC twin Otters have them…. I’m not aware of anything earlier than that, BUT there are many people on here who know 1920’s-30’s aircraft better than I.

The question is, do you use them or do you have one of those annoyingly pristine workshops?….

Here we are after a quick clean with a light roloc disk (only over the etchings)

8″ Steel chisel, marked ‘NER’ (North Eastern Railway) and ‘1665’ (probably its original locomotive number)

IF the number is correct, this was used initially on a D20 class locomotive http://www.lner.info/locos/D/d20.shtml

It was most likely acquired from the Manors Goods Yard (Newcastle-uopn-Tyne) in the early 1950’s, but would date from 1923 at the very latest…