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My first original nylon jacket

watchmanjimg

Well-Known Member
Peter, here's an excerpt of Weasel Loader's earlier post regarding Hustler units. Check out the 65th BS patch with dice. I'm not sure if they were still flying when your jacket was produced, but at least it's a starting point for you.

In use with the 43rd BW and 65th BS

65thCrew2.jpg


Here is something I put together for patching Hustler jackets.

43rd305thPatches.jpg
 

Peter Graham

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I've bought this one. I think it looks really cool. OK, it's a special forces patch but I'm sure some L2-B's found there way there. I may not use it, I'm still looking, but if I do, would the shoulder or chest be more appropriate ? Am I being disrespectful to the jacket to consider patching it, especially inappropriately, I dunno. I would never consider patching an original A-2 but of course there's big money involved there.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 26_fvi%3D1
 

Weasel_Loader

Active Member
Peter,

It's anyone's guess as to where you would sew the special forces patch on a L-2B. I would have gone with an original patch on your L-2B. I leave the repro patches to repro jackets. Just my opinion though. ;)

Jim is right with the 65th Bomb Squadron. Those patches do not come up for sale very often and usually sell for anywhere between $60 and $150. I just missed one a few weeks ago on ebay. The F model is the perfect 60s era jacket and since the Hustler flew until '70, it would fit right into that era if you choose to patch it as a Hustler jacket.
 

Atticus

Well-Known Member
Peter, U.S. Army pilots wore MA-1s and L-2bs. In fact, my first real flight jacket was a MA-1 given to me by an old Army helicopter jock. But that's another story. Just a thought, but you may want to consider patching your jacket as a Vietnam-era Army jacket. Here's a 1971 L-2b that I patched as from the 1st Brigade, 1st Air Cav. The patches are not original, but I still like the way it turned out.

carolinagame008.jpg
 

Atticus

Well-Known Member
Peter Graham said:
By God, Geoff, you,ve got it ! That looks brilliant. What's the patch on the chest. I love it.

1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)---the Flying Circus. They were the guys who flew low and slow over the jungle of Vietnam trying to draw fire from the enemy. Once a NVA or VC unit was located, the gunships or the fast movers were called in. :twisted:

Please check out their great site and go to the "patches" section.

http://www.flying-circus.org/

AF
 

Weasel_Loader

Active Member
Nice idea guys. Make me think of this great movie. Poor guys didn't have any idea what they were headed into and what was waiting for them. :|

[video]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=00pOrjzMASA[/video]
 

Atticus

Well-Known Member
Hi Peter and All,

I remembered where I bought the patches on my Air Cav L-2b. I got them from a seller in Vietnam called "Peacefullpigs". Last night I looked all over the internet trying to find them, but to no avail. They used to have some really good deals on patches---some were repros, some were original---but now they seem to have gone out of business.

Anybody know where Peacefullpigs went?

AF
 

watchmanjimg

Well-Known Member
Geoff, they're still on Ebay. I think your search came up short due to a typo--it's "Peacefulpigs." However, I'm sad to report that they are not currently offering any patches. I may still have their email address if you can't reach them through Ebay's message system. Just let me know.

I must say Peacefulpigs generated a lot of controversy in certain circles, being hated on USAFPatches.com, but then again they offered a great selection of Vietnam War-era patch designs that if not collectible were at least suitable for those wishing to approximate "the look" without spending the time and money required to track down original patches. I have a bunch of their patches in my stockpile, but I've also been lucky to have found a fair number of originals so I'm rather undecided regarding what to do with the PP items.

Here's a pic of my PP examples mixed in with a few patches from other sources. At first I mistakenly assumed the 8th TFW patch was a repro based on the "Made in Japan" label on the back, but I have since learned that they made plenty of these in Japan during the war. Good thing I didn't sell it!

USAFpatches003.jpg


And some originals:

USAFpatches001.jpg
 

Atticus

Well-Known Member
Thanks Jim. I hate to see that they no longer offer patches. I was trying to find a 1st Bde patch for Peter, but so far I'm coming up empty handed. Plenty of "horse blankets" for sale, but no brigade patches.

Back to Peacefulpigs for a moment. You know, I bought some patches from them that were clearly locally-made repros. But I've also bought some patches that look original to me. They have that "limp" feel of a patch that has been washed a few times and they've got little scraps of thread from where they've been removed from a uniform. They might be fakes, but if they are someone went to great effort to counterfeit something that sold for only four or five bucks.

Anyhow, regardless of authenticity, they work great for patching up a cheap beater jacket. :D

AF
 
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