Do you consider an A-2 w/handwarmers to be a "real" A-2?

[Atticus]

I know this is a digression, but why would the N-1 ( a military spec jacket? ) have been designed with 2 slash pockets? OK to handwarm in the Navy? Just another idle thought...................

Yeah...and later on the Air Force changed its mind and really got bigtime into handwarming....eg., B-15, MA-1, L-2, N-2, N-3.

AF

 

[deeb7]

Yeah...and later on the Air Force changed its mind and really got bigtime into handwarming....eg., B-15, MA-1, L-2, N-2, N-3.

While similar in appearance to the B-10, the B-15’s biggest differences were the outside pockets. Instead of the vertically sewn pockets, the B-15 used diagonally slanted pockets which permitted the wearer to put their hands into the pockets to operate the parachute harness.
Buzz Rickson's Japan

Hmm .... now I don't know what to believe.

 

[tgd31968]

I don't have a lot of time for the concept of what's 'real'-it's a thing often mentioned when speaking of something in derogatory terms, and is entirely based on individual opinion-you're not a 'real' biker if you don't ride X, you're not a 'real' guitarist if you don't play X-there you are doing it, but apparently you're aren't 'real'. Daft.

Except, then what's the point of collecting vintage leather jackets? It's cheaper and much easier to just pick something up at the mall. No girl you'll ever meet will be able to tell the difference. In fact, most of them are wondering why your jacket doesn't have the map printed on the liner.

The reason any of us go to these these lengths is to put ourselves in a specific class. It's for our own ego. So I say, indulge -- be an exclusive a**hole. A-2s don't have warmers and anyone with a warmer in their jacket is a degenerate that is only contributing the the dumbing of society.

Oh, but that guy with the mall jacket will probably get laid at a rate of 10:1 over the jacket nerds.
:|

Any chick under about 80 won't even have a clue you are wearing a flight jacket. You MIGHT get laid by someone in that crowd because you remind her of her hubby, 60 years ago..... As they say, any port in a storm.

Seriously, 99.9% of women, if they even notice, see a brownish leather jacket. Means nothing if it is not sewn in the shape of a handbag or shoes.

Guys, on the other hand, notice. Even younger ones. I have had my aero b-3 since November, and had 5 guys ask me about where I got it or just tell me it is a great jacket. Two of them were in thier 20's and recognized it as a flight jacket. So at least we know they watched memphis belle. Maybe they wanted to get laid, but I certainly wasn't intereted in finding out.

Terry

 

[Atticus]

Seriously, 99.9% of women, if they even notice, see a brownish leather jacket. Means nothing if it is not sewn in the shape of a handbag or shoes.
Terry

I couldn't guess how many jackets I have right now....I quit counting some time ago. But my firends, male and female, think that I have only three...a brown one, a green one and a blue one.

AF

 

[zoomer]

Seriously, 99.9% of women, if they even notice, see a brownish leather jacket. Means nothing if it is not sewn in the shape of a handbag or shoes.

Women will notice, however, if your jacket shows your spare tire. They won't say anything, but they'll make a mental note. And it won't be a nice one.

 

[RAYMUNDO]

Right now I have two A-2 jackets. One (every day wear) has handwarmer pockets and the other one does not. One is goatskin and one is horsehide and they were both made by the same manufacturer. Other than the hides, they do not look really different and most people would never notice anyway. WWII vets will tell you that they would have preferred hand warmer pockets on the originals and many added pockets inside and on the sleeve. Some had tailors in foreign countries such as Turkey modify their A-2 jackets with side entry pockets. Personally, I like having handwarmers for every day wear especially when it gets cold and it allows you to carry more items as well. I wear the jacket without handwarmers to Air Shows and when the temps are more moderate. One of each suits me well and I think all the comments about pockets vs no pockets has merit.
Different strokes for different folks.

Ray

 

[Roughwear]

Some had tailors in foreign countries such as Turkey modify their A-2 jackets with side entry pockets.
Ray

Do you have any pictures of issued A2s with field installed handwarmer pockets?

 

[Peter Graham]

Some had tailors in foreign countries such as Turkey modify their A-2 jackets with side entry pockets.
Ray

Do you have any pictures of issued A2s with field installed handwarmer pockets?

I'd be interested myself, and in the sleeve pockets you mention.

 

[FlyingToastman]

Some had tailors in foreign countries such as Turkey modify their A-2 jackets with side entry pockets.
Ray

Do you have any pictures of issued A2s with field installed handwarmer pockets?

I've owned one of the Orchard Leather issue A-2s with the mods from Pop's in Turkey. Thats why the USAF changed the specs...to make it more user friendly.

 

[Burnsie]

Some had tailors in foreign countries such as Turkey modify their A-2 jackets with side entry pockets.
Ray

Do you have any pictures of issued A2s with field installed handwarmer pockets?

I've owned one of the Orchard Leather issue A-2s with the mods from Pop's in Turkey. Thats why the USAF changed the specs...to make it more user friendly.

But that's post WWII, the original quote above was about WWII vets jacket mods

 

[FlyingToastman]

Eh, this thread has been a bit convoluted...I figured thats what was meant but not sure.

 

[RAYMUNDO]

I don't have pictures of the WWII jacket mods that I mentioned. I have seen pictures showing pockets made of cloth attached to the left sleeve and inside liner of A-2 originals.Some airmen used BLood Chits sewn in the liner with the top open as storage pockets. Also, handwarmer pockets were added to some post war jackets by tailors overseas. Sorry for the confusion.

Ray

 

[HackerF15E]

Apologies to all for revisiting a thread which began 2 years ago, and with the last post from a year and a half ago, but I ran across this thread during a Google search.

Even if this is not an active discussion, I wanted to add a postscript for anyone who will read this thread in the future; a couple points about handwarmer pockets and current USAF-issue A-2s.

- Current issue A-2s are "A-2s" no matter how much the purists choose to deny it. It is still an A-2, regardless of minor design changes. Remember -- "current" A-2s are being issued to real-live USAF flight crews who have been flying combat missions in a war that has lasted longer than WWII. They're just as legitimate as the WWII-issued jackets.

- If you want to be 'pure' about the topic and make absolute statements about design features (like in this thread), the flight jacket community needs to adopt nomenclature to separate out 1930s-1940s A-2 jackets (Version 1), 1988-1998 A-2 jackets (Version 2), and post-1998 A-2 jackets (Version 3) into separate categories. There are design differences between them, of course, but they're all legitimate A-2s and deserve to be identified and discussed as such.

- Current issue jackets have handwarmer pockets. Thus, certain "mil-spec", or "official issue", or whatever you want to call it, DO have handwarmer pockets (post 1998, or "Version 3" as I'm proposing).

- Current USAF aircrew do not, and have not ever, had to purchase their own jackets as a matter of regulation or policy. The jackets are squadron-funded (rather than USAF-level funded), so this is probably where stories of aircrew "having to buy their own" come from. If a pilot's particular squadron is out of money when it's time to get one issued, they might be delayed in getting one. If they're impatient, then they might have chosen to purchase one on their own dime. It's certainly possible that some individual squadrons have chosen at various times to not buy jackets for their pilots, but again, that is not a USAF policy, that is a result of a particular unit's leadership decision about money.

 

[RCSignals]

I agree Hacker. The current issue jackets just have a pattern change, and there is nothing new about spec changes to patterns.

I've known a few WW2 veterans of the AAF. Two of them pilots and both of them continued service through Vietnam. They both liked to say they are 'brown shoe' Airforce.
Anyway one of them had his WW2 A-2, and he had had, back them, the pockets 'altered' to include handwarmers. I don't know how common that would be but he had his done.
I guess a collector wouldn't like it.

 

[deeb7]

Apologies to all for revisiting a thread which began 2 years ago, and with the last post from a year and a half ago, but I ran across this thread during a Google search.

We're coming up on Google? :shock:

 

[HackerF15E]

Apologies to all for revisiting a thread which began 2 years ago, and with the last post from a year and a half ago, but I ran across this thread during a Google search.

We're coming up on Google? :shock:

Yep...it was on my iPhone, so I'm not sure what mechanism it used, but there was an archived page that sent me to the discussion. Might have been a link to the thread from another site?

 

[deeb7]

Yep...it was on my iPhone, so I'm not sure what mechanism it used, but there was an archived page that sent me to the discussion. Might have been a link to the thread from another site?

Perhaps ... Googlebot only has permission to crawl around the index page.

 

[SuinBruin]

Anyway one of them had his WW2 A-2, and he had had, back them, the pockets 'altered' to include handwarmers. I don't know how common that would be but he had his done.
I guess a collector wouldn't like it.

On the contrary, I think a collector would probably find it more desirable -- any field modifications or decorations showing that the jacket was actually used and personalized would help the value.

As for the WWII A-2 and the current version, they are two different animals. The original was a piece of flight gear, not clothing as such, and was designed for functionality. The modern A-2 was brought back more for esprit de corps than anything; it doesn't fill an actual need for flight gear. So while a modern USAF is "authentic" in one very important sense it still lacks something that the originals had and still have (as witnessed by Hacker's observations re: current fighter pilots not cottoning to the A-2). Plus, the designs are demonstrably different in cut, fit, and materials (no horsehide or veg tanning today, to say nothing of Crown zips); remember that the average WWII airman was a lot smaller than today's average American man.

There is absolutely no shame in wearing and liking the modern A-2 -- they are fine jackets with authenticity and a genuine military pedigree. But it's not nonsensical to distinguish between them and the '30s & '40s models.

 

[usafwso]

No.

 

[bfrench]

No.

Here, again, it is in the eye of the beholder.

Even the walking out uniforms have changed but they're still the honest to goodness walking out issue of the day.

Looks like we're in another loop.