Originally Posted by
Timelord
Actually, these things were everywhere, aircrew used them for knee pads, controllers on radar screens, ops on tote boards and every ops desk was covered in Perspex so China graph notes, scribbles and doodles were all over them. And if you happened to need to note a phone number in the bar one evening........
And as an ops clerk in the hard at Wildenrath we had to use them to write backwards on the tote boards. They didn't have "lead" in them, it was a hard wax or grease, hence the American name grease pencil. I still have two in my man cave (AKA Shed) one of which has the very rare clip, which saved aircrew having to tie them to whatever in the cockpit/on their flying suits. I did see an article once in Airclues or somewhere on how to drill a small hole in the top in order to use a fine cord or line(fishing?) for the above
A342