Flight jackets – the early years

I’m sure many of my readers own, or have owned, or want to own, a so-called ‘flight jacket‘ (also known as a ‘bomber jacket’).  I wore them in my younger days, when my belly didn’t get in the way too much . . . *sigh*.

However, I didn’t know that the World War II-era Type A-2 US Army Air Corps flight jacket had a predecessor, the Type A-1 jacket, issued for only a few years in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s.  Through a recent e-mail I was led to Good Wear Leather, a company that manufactures a modern version of it.  They state on their Web site:

The Army Air Corps first issued these jackets on November 7th, 1927, and they were non-standard after May 9th, 1931, being replaced by Type A-2 jackets. The stock was finally exhausted during WWII.

These jackets were made with capeskin, and examples seen are almost always brown, rather than the olive drab stated on spec sheets.

Original Type A-1 jackets were made by a number of contractors, and design details vary as widely as original A-2 jackets.

There’s more at the link.

I was interested to see that the Type A-1 jacket appears to ride lower on the hips than the later Type A-2.  That was one of my biggest beefs with ‘conventional’ flight jackets:  they rode so high that one’s belt line was exposed, so one couldn’t carry a concealed pistol in one’s waistband.  It looks like the earlier design would solve that problem.  Still, at a retail price of $1,299.00, there’s no danger of my buying one of the modern versions anytime soon!

Peter