Not strictly a part of the aircraft, ( these days ! ) but an activity:

Rigging !

In days gone by it was literally making the aircraft symetrical and braced with wires and turnbuckles. These days it’s merely setting up the controls.

It is an F9F-8T Cougar

See my next post – with full credit to owner !

For comparrison

Sorry – just Googled it and it didn’t post the full link to the owners Flickr file:

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/234/459453654_76750b5464.jpg&imgrefurl=http://flickr.com/photos/35826972%40N00/459453654&usg=__UmFnGo02xgTD1MVFkNabZZ1-IYU=&h=374&w=500&sz=147&hl=en&start=62&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=Tb_eAQjrdnfsMM:&tbnh=97&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3DF9F-8T%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D54%26um%3D1%26ie%3DUTF-8

Apparently it’s Moton Field – Tuskegee, AL

In the R/C model world there are large Sunderlands and Catalinas that do use a take off dolly and land back on the grass.

Shame it doesn’t list X3023’s code letter. Aircraft crashed near Cromer, and my ATC Sqn attend a commeration ceremony. As a model maker I’d like to depict it 

ZH805 crashed 2003

Rumour I heard last week is they may be using the Shack to build up the Lanc – be interesting as the Shack is an MR3