I really liked the idea you mentioned about the equipment operators. I have a relative in construction & will ask him about it.Richard said:I cannot say for certain whether or not flying model airplanes had come into popularity by 1953. As a kid, I recall seeing them for the first time in the late 1950's. The Boy Scouts of America "Handbook for Boys", as well as their magazine "Boys Life" used to advertise those airplanes by 1960, but I looked in a 1951 copy "Handbook for Boys", and could not find any advertisements for them. There were numerous other advertisement pages for hiking shoes, rifles, bicycles, etc.
Having flown model planes, I don't recall having any circular wear patterns on my shoes. You normally would fly the planes on a soft grass field, to avoid hard crash landings, and because there just weren't very large blacktop or paved areas to fly in. Also, you go around by stepping, not by pivoting in place on your shoe.
I would think that maybe a motorcyclist who did "donuts" might wear down his shoes in a circular pattern, or maybe someone who operates some type of machinery with his foot might wear the shoe down in such a pattern. Some tractors and heavy equipment have accellorators or brakes which had metal "teeth". Perhaps a person who had a tendency to twist his foot on such a pedal might wear a circular pattern into it.
I have never heard the term Whizzer Rider. Is that some sort of bike?
(Rats! I just accidently lost my whole reply to your post by reloading the page. So I will now try to redo it.)
In a previous post I had a link to a webpage about model airplanes which speaks a litle of the years and the history. They waned at times in popularity.
http://www.aeromaniacs.com/historyofcl.htm
My dad was also a model airplane enthusiast even using the old control line models but I could not remember all that much about shoe wear patterns.
I do remember that sometimes people went to small airports on special prearranged days and flew their models from an unused paved runway.
But I don't remember if this held true for those older control line models for sure. So I asked if it was possible that wear pattern could result from control line model flying. Evidently the answer is that it could not. (Do you have an old pair of shoes around with wear from using old control line models that you could look at to be sure?)
About Whizzers:
I previously posted some links to info about them. I hope it helps.
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