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My ATC hump jacket

Flightengineer

Well-Known Member
Hi guys,
I always admired the ATC pilots who during WW2 without accurate maps, GPS navigation, accurate weather forecasts, flew on piston transport planes over the Himalayas. This January our crew lost the left engine over Western China on our cargo 204 plane and my thought was about these guys on their C-47. They didn't have much modern equipment that we have but did they dangerous job. I think these guys had not only wings but also iron nerves. Unfortunately, many of them crashed and remained there in the mountains forever with their planes and crews.

For a long time I was going to patch my AVI Bronco, so this recent incident only pushed me to start. I made patches, more about this here

https://www.vintageleatherjackets.org/threads/patches-for-my-humpjacket-project.24265/

I studied dozens of photos of different ATC jackets in books and in the net, it was very exciting and informative.

Pilots often marked their flights over the hump on their A2 with camel pic - one camel - one mission so I chose the famous unnamed A2 jacket from Willis R. Allen collection as prototype, a photo of which can be
seen in the well-known book of J.Conway and J.Maguire.

Of course, remembering our engine failure, I chose this mission paint scheme, because a camel turned backward meant a return back due to engine failure.

I really enjoyed all my work process on the patches and jacket painting.

Here is my jacket inspired by ATC hump pilot's A2 jackets.









Thanks for watching :)

376f9055539d.jpg
 

Flightengineer

Well-Known Member
I absolutely love it Dmitry! Really looks the cat's pyjamas!

Your Star is awesome but that is far, far cooler ;)

Brett,Tim, thank you.
Tim I think should not compare them. These are just different jackets and although I love both, I would never paint my Eastman. I only added an original Australian made patch for my Star. And thats all.
Despite some minor inaccuracies, AVI is a very good jacket, thanks to Brett we all found out about AVI and Morten and bought them. Very lightweight and comfortable for summer and nice "canvas" for creating!
 

Smithy

Well-Known Member
The russet looked terrible, as Dmitry says very orange. The seal though was absolutely beautiful, a wonderful chocolate colour that you can see above. I have the same generation jacket as Dmitry's and in the same colour and just love it.
 

Smithy

Well-Known Member
Did you change the cuffs & hem...?

Not on my one, they were very good.

But bear in mind that Dmitry and my jackets are from awhile ago and that they have changed a bit since then I believe. Brett is the chap to talk to about this as he's bought more A-2s than I've had hot dinners.

I bought mine in June/July 2018 and the pattern was based directly on a size 44 original Bronco that Morten had. Mine being a 44 it was a direct pattern copy in terms of sizing of an original Bronco and as a result fits like one, unapologetically so. The shoulders are nice and wide but the torso is trim fitting, not uncomfortably in anyway but if you were overweight it would probably be a struggle to zip it up.

But If you're lean or have a lean and athletic build they are just fantastic jackets. I absolutely love mine and wouldn't part with it if someone offered me ELC money for it - that's how much I like it and enjoy wearing it. They age beautifully to boot as you can see in Dmitry's photos.
 
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