That would definitely help. An art shop I use has modern versions of them in their gravel lot. They're made for large wheels such as those of ground vehicles and possibly aircraft, but not so nice for smaller wheels such as for a bicycle or scooter.

Incidentally, my grandfather was a radio and cryptographic technician who was primarily forward deployed to such minimally-prepared, temporary fields while graders were still leveling the ground.

There are modern versions. e.g.

https://fauntrackway.co.uk/defence/air/aircraft-landing-mat

https://fauntrackway.com/

They're in a relatively flat field and can rely on the ground being frozen solid sometime soon.

If its insufficiently flat wouldn't it make more sense to smooth out those parts of the field, rather than "paving" the whole field with steel mats?

I'd be very worried about the wheels sinking into the dirt, which steel mats would help prevent. But if the ground freezes sufficiently hard, it should also do the trick.

moving aircraft do not have spinning drive wheels, and they start having increasing lift from the wings right away with increasing speed. I think sinking into desert sand, maybe, but not dirt on a field. A bigger concern would be excessive bumps/ditches and/or soggy bogs.

The wings on an airliner aren't producing much lift below 100mph or so. You're on the wrong end of v^2

edit: sorry, I just realised you were talking of a one off, for this plane. Naturally it'd be fine frozen, but you'd have to wait a bit, until the ground froze a bit. eg, not just the surface. Here that usually takes a month or more, because the ground takes quite some time to cool.

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The road gets warm in the winter, even at -40C, if there is a lot of traffic. Snow is smushed, it is warmed by the tires, due to friction, and even sublimation happens.

If there is enough traffic, frozen ground can become thawed. Especally at a mere -10C. The dirt road in front of my house confirms this in winter, with potholes and wet spots, and not from salt.

Landing events have even more friction. And many aircraft are far heavier than cars.

Rare teaffic would be fine I guess, but a mildly busy airfield might be different.

Ever driven a car through a field? What looks smooth is often anything but, and airliners are simply not designed to take off from unprepared surfaces.

Flattening frozen ground seems significantly more difficult than just laying down panels.

Ice runways are relatively common in some places. They pump water water onto them to create a flat surface. Similar to ice roads used for accessing oil fields and mines.

Do they use 'off-the-shelf' passenger jets?

I had to Google this one, but yes, it looks like an A340 has been used in Antarctica recently [1].

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/antarct...

I'm impressed. They got four APUs to take off from Antarctica? ;)

I suspect the biggest concern operating off of an earthen runway is ingestion of FOD. For unimproved runways the 737 Classic could be fitted with so-called gravel kits to reduce the chances of ingesting crap from the runway on takeoff. That's why you still see 737-200s in service in the wintery parts of Canada – the fans on the NG and MAX (and A320) are too big to make gravel kits practical.

However, where the weight itself is an issue, Indian Airlines (now Air India) ordered some A320s with beefier landing gear precisely to operate something that heavy off of less than great paved runways.

Ural's not going to have much in the way of manufacturer support though so their options are a bit limited.

The Kiwis sometimes fly a 757 to McMurdo (see e.g. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3173536/Getting-there-in-ha... )

And "normal" C-130s and C17's can land too (I've been on both to McMurdo...)

But this is a packed snow runway. Williams Field is for ski-equipped aircraft only, I believe.

A tractor and pouring water & letting it freeze will do the job. https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/101015/

Oh that's a neat trick I'd never encountered.

Used to do this on a runway that we would rent so we could practice drifting our Japanese supercars without killing too many sets of tyres.

In the Falklands war the British Forces established a Forward Operating Base for its Harriers STOVL jets at San Carlos, using Prefabricated Surfacing Airfield interlocking panels.

Some information here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20170606073832/http://www.thinkd...

Harriers are still Sci-Fi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GfqB7P6uAE

I came home once in Bristol, UK and there was a Harrier hovering a few tens of feet above my house slowly rotating. I do not know why it was there. I lived at the end of a runway.

It left once I pulled into my driveway.

Concorde used to miss my roof by a very short amount when it would land on the runway, and everything would jiggle off my shelves.

Seems involved to setup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_heqdlC7B4

USSR was using similar technology way past WW2. Whenever such an airfield got decommissioned, they immediately ended up being someone's fence.

https://aviaforum.ru/threads/metallicheskie-vzljotnye-polosy...

I have a bunch of those WW2 mats I got back when our access way was muddy in the winter. For cars you only need to lay down two strips, no need to cover the whole width of the road. They're not so hard to find in the French countryside. Some people bring them along on their 4x4s when they make excursions in the winter.