Interesting patched 1979 L-2B with sage lining

[jonnyboy]

Hi guys,

I've dabbled with nylon jackets a little over the last couple of years, but have never really found that they suited me. However, I saw a jacket last week on ebay with a very low BIN price (£6!), and thought it looked interesting. I don't know a great deal about L-2Bs, but from the photos on the listing it looked OK. I seem to remember some talk a while back on the forum about an Alpha 1978/1979 contract which had a sage lining, rather than orange. I looked up the patches and found some info about NCAR, which I hadn't heard about and it sounded interesting, so I took the plunge.

The jacket arrived today and it's in pretty decent shape, apart from fairly tatty cuffs and a few moth holes in the knits. The name tag had a piece of black tape over it, which I removed to find the pilots name - Jim Ragni. I Googled him and found some great info.

Here are a few photos, a short bio of Jim Ragni, and a link to a page with info about what he was up to at NCAR.

Cheers,

Jon

Bio: "NCAR's latest research aircraft will be in the capable hands of Jim Ragni, an Air Force veteran with some 8,000 hours of flight time. Luckily for NCAR, Jim flew a WB-57F (then designated the RB-57F) on a variety of air-force reconnaissance missions worldwide. Now, 21 years later, Jim and a NASA pilot based in Houston are the only pilots currently flying the two remaining WB-57Fs out of the original 21 built. Jim's experience includes 100 combat missions over North Vietnam in the F4 Phantom jet, for which he earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses and eleven Air Medals. With a B.S. in economics and a master's degree in international relations, Jim also served with the State Department as the U.S. air attache in Nigeria from 1973 to 1975, logging some time in the Soviet-built MIG with the Nigerian air force".

http://www.ucar.edu/communications/staf ... WB57F.html

 

[watchmanjimg]

That's a great jacket and I probably would have grabbed it myself had I been looking. This variant is an early example of the nylon jacket's transition out of flight status as the Nomex CWU series phased in. As with the CWU, someone up there apparently determined that separate signal panels were sufficient to aid in the rescue of downed aviators and the orange lining was discontinued. Eventually the L-2B and MA-1 would cease to be labeled as flying jackets at all, although I can't say whether in fact they were still used in flight after the mid-to-late '70s. This particular jacket has a great history and with a bit of TLC to the knits can be a nice wearer as well. Enjoy!

 

[bebel]

Great find! Thank you for sharing with US.
Such jackets with the owner's story are higly desirable.
Franck

 

[oose]

Hi Jon,
Great looking Jacket, and what history I love doing the research of the jackets and flight suits in my collection.

All the best
stu

 

[ausreenactor]

Wow!

You got a patched and IDed jacket, with provenance for GBP6! That is probably the best eBay get that I have seen. And I play a lot on eBay. Awesome jacket. Well done Sir!

Couchy