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For the nylon jacket fans: L-2B collection

917_k

Well-Known Member
Afternoon All,

As any of you who have seen some of my posts before will know, I’m a big fan of the early US Air Force nylon flight jackets from the late 40s-late 50s.

In my opinion they’ve got a lot going for them, from still being very cool looking and wearable and often not as trashed or precious as the wartime leathers, to also being incredibly interesting and dating from a time when the USAF was going through a major transition and establishing its own identity. Many of the jackets went through different design changes, leading to a lot of variations and spec models, some of which are now very rare (more so than some of the wartime leathers). Whilst earlier wartime leather jackets ultimately lead the way when it comes to jacket art and markings, early USAF patched jackets can still be as interesting (albeit, like the wartime artwork jackets, very hard to find).

In the mid/late 40s the Air Force switched to nylon for its flight jackets and adopted the L-2 ‘jacket, flying, light’ as it’s replacement for the A-2, as a light zone jacket. These early jackets were made with olive green nylon and are now probably one of the rarest Air Force flight jackets, only being issued for a very short period of time. In around 1950, by which time the Air Force had separated from the Army and become its own service branch, the L-2A replaced the L-2 and was made from blue nylon.

The experience of downed pilots during the Korean War highlighted the unsuitability of blue as a flight jacket colour, which obviously did not camouflage the wearer. In around 1954/55 the L-2A became the L-2B and was now manufactured in a sage green nylon. From this point onwards the overall designation didn’t change, so the jacket remained the L-2B, however as the design was improved and refined the mil spec number was updated. So the L-2B went from the MIL-J-7448 through to the MIL-J-7448J, with every letter in between added to the end of the spec as the design was updated. The last L-2B was issued in the late 70s, before being replaced with the CWU-36/P nomex flight jacket.

With my collecting focus being the early USAF flight gear, the jackets presented below are the earliest spec L-2B. The one I’m currently missing is the first model, the MIL-J-7448 (with no letter). A very small number of these were made by Great Lakes Garment Mfg, before production was switched to the MIL-J-7448A spec and so consequently they’re very hard to find.

So enough of the history, here’s the jacket:

MIL-J-7448A, Air Force order no AF-33(602), made by Blue Anchor Overall Co Inc, circa 1955.

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MIL-J-7448B, Air Force order no AF-33(602), made by Rolen Sportswear Company, circa 1957.

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MIL-J-7448C, Air Force order no AF-36(600), made by Skyline Clothing Corporation, circa 1958.

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MIL-J-7448D, Air Force order no AF-36(600), made by Skyline Clothing Corporation, circa 1961.

This spec is the first major change to the design, with the oxygen mask tab on the chest having been deleted and the liner now in rescue orange.

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B-Man2

Well-Known Member
A great post and a great collection. Definitely an area that I need to become more familiar with. You definitely have a pretty sweet collection .
 

B-Man2

Well-Known Member
I’ve always like the early nylon USAF jackets, just didn’t know much about them. You definitely add a different perspective to this forum, as we don’t have many here focusing on this area of jacket collecting.
I definitely like learning about them, so please keep posting informational posts like this .
Thanks
 

917_k

Well-Known Member
I’ll have to try to do a round up of everything at some point. With the exception of the L-2 and the L-2A, I’ve actually now got every version of early post-war USAF nylon flight clothing. These include the B-15, N-2, N-3 and all the matching trousers, flight suits etc.
 
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