AMEN BROTHER!

 

They only care online.

 

Hilarious! Sorry for the rant. It was just that no one brought that up and I found it odd. Maybe its the 16 years Army I have that cut loose. ha

 

The original poster asked about the Pop's coat. After 6 pages of opinions about leather vs flasher vs pea coat vs dress wool, his question is still unanswered.

Pops is the best. Get the calf skin. It looks much better than the goat. Much finer grain, softer. Get fitted for the coat. Pops will ask for a whole lot of measurements, not just give you a "44 regular".

Is it worth it? Your call. My company gives the Pops coat free to new hires. After wearing it for a few years it still looks new and is very warm. If you go to Canada you may want the liner. If not the main coat is plenty warm enough. I guess I would have bought it anyway if it wasn't provided.

At my last company we had to buy the Gibson and Barnes goat skin coat. It was OK but never fit well or allowed free movement. It is like comparing a Mercedes to a Chevy.

 

What Fred Flinstone said.

I got one of the original USAF leather flight jackets, circa 1989. It is goat skin and I have never liked it. It will not stretch, has an ugly shine to it, and never gets the classic "worn-leather" look.

When I and my fellow USAF brethren would deploy to Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, almost everyone was going to Pop's shop to get their jackets modified. Pops would put in a liner, pockets, and modify the under-arm so you could actually lift your arm without the whole jacket moving with it.

It is interesting to see that 15 years later, Pops has gone from a one-store local-deal in the infamous "alley" outside the main gate, to a major suplier on the internet. It happened because he did good work for a fair price.

If you want a leather jacket, go with Pops, get a liner, and get calf-skin.

 

Originally, most pilots (military and civilian) wore leather jackets. These jackets were the most practical option while flying open cockpit aircraft - you wore whatever kept you warm in a cold wind, as there was no standard issue jacket at first. Cockpits then became enclosed, no wind. If you were flying an unheated and/or unpressurized aircraft (as most were during WWII) you needed to stay warm while flying, so you still wore a standard issue leather jacket which did little to keep you warm (the shearling jackets were of this era and were warm, though electrically heated flight suits became necessary). Around 1944, it became apparent that leather jackets do not insulate and are very stiff; thus not the right kind of jacket if there's no wind, and the transition was made to synthetics (the zip-out lining of your leather jacket is what is keeping you warm, not the leather, so jet get rid of it).

Today, while flying, military pilots wear drab green or tan Nomex flight suits, again, b/c it is the most practical option (fire resistant, basic visual camouflage to evade capture if you go down). Leather is not generally worn since it serves no practical application b/c all flight decks have been enclosed for the last half century, and are now heated and pressurized too. As a military aviator, you also have a dress uniform. This is worn in front of the public, when you're on display and in the public eye (vs on the carrier, base, or what have you, when you're out of public view and an asset of a war machine). The leather jacket is never worn with any part of the dress uniform, ie paired with dress pants, a dress shirt, and a tie.

The civilian aviator's uniform is no longer based on practicality, but rather on conferring respectability, like the military dress uniform. It can be traced back to Juan Trippe's vision of Pan Am airline pilots resembling the crew of the most luxurious version of travel @ the time, the ocean going ship (this is where the ranks of Captain, First Officer, Engineer, Navigator, and Steward came from, as well as the displaying of stripes to denote rank, which traces itself back to the military, as does the dress uniform - remember when the British army wore full dress uniform, white pants and red coats, in battle?). As such, civilian uniforms for passenger service (in the public eye) have always been dress uniform, as seen in the photos below of Pan Am in 1945.



As you can see, they are all wearing their hats while flying. By 1955 (can't get the photo to load), they do not, but they still wear full uniform when in view of the public, just as any passenger vessel's crew would (below).



Of course, this was during a time when all the passengers wore suits and dresses as well. As expected standards of decorum and formality in society have declined, so have the standards of dress on aircraft, including the pilots.

If the leather jacket is an acceptable uniform piece, then you can wear it (the company issued version only), and even with pride - but don't confuse it with any airline tradition. Airline tradition, dating back 70 years, is the hat and jacket, the look of a passenger boat crew. The only tradition associated with leather and flying is to wear leather in the military out of public view over half a century ago to keep warm in a brisk wind. As a civilian passenger aviator, you are neither flying for the military nor out of public view, and you are certainly not going to experience a brisk wind while flying.

Incidentally, I do not know of a single airline that ever issued a leather jacket as part of a crew uniform before 1986, when a certain movie came out (if you know of an airline that allowed leather prior to 1986, tell me, as I couldn't think of one); most every airline now allows them. Why exactly do airline pilots wear leather jackets now? It seems obvious to me.



IMO Pops is the best leather jacket (if it's on your official uniform supplier list). Go with calf - the Air Force uses top grain goat - softer, but its surface has been sanded and refinished. As a result, it has a colder, plastic feel, less breathability, and will not develop a natural patina. However, it does have 2 advantages over full-grain leather: it is typically less expensive, and has greater resistance to stains (or so says wikipedia). The current Navy jacket, is is my understanding, is a calfskin modified to look like goat (called 'goat grained'). Weird. My Pop's is from Incerlik.

 

Sniper:

Superb history of the apparel and rank structure.

But I'm confused by the "obvious" part. You mean guys wear leather jackets so they can join a cult, and be attractive to women who don't like men?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_mcgillis

It is wierd.

 

Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood loved men, especially naval aviators

 

She appeared in a movie called "Cat Chaser" in 1988 . . . and of course, "Top Gun", in 1986, "a story about a man's struggle with his own homosexuality" (funny, but not 100% kid or work safe link here).

In hindsight, it should have been obvious.

Go here for even more of this stuff, fully developed (viewer discretion is again, advised, even more so with part 4 of 6).

 

"you are certainly not going to experience a brisk wind while flying"

If you eat at the taco cart you will, but I would call it more foul than "brisk"!

(Sorry sniper, I couldn't resist)