USAF use of Army nomex jackets?

[watchmanjimg]

Back to the USAF badged Army nomex. I think technically we've not heard from any USAF vet about green US Army nomex being used. We've heard of a shortage of desert tan CWU jackets with Army tan nomex being used as a stop-gap vis-a-vis Afghanistan/Iraq II.

An interesting postscript: Yesterday I acquired a green cold-weather Nomex jacket from an Air National Guard loadmaster who is deploying to South America this week after several Middle East deployments. His explanation for the jacket was that they're issued when there is a shortage of desert tan CWUs.

So he was issued a green winter nomex Army jacket because there was a shortage of desert jackets? Am I missing something?

There is a Sz lg tanker at the local Army Navy for 35 bucks...might have try one out....

From my AF experiance, I have not witnessed USAF guys wearing Army flight jackets, not saying it did not happen, I have not witnessed the event, I spent 22 years on AF flightlines. I think it is possible....maybe these guys were assigned to Army units at times and wore them?

It might be helpful if you read through the entire thread, but in a nutshell the discussion so far began with several observed examples of Army Nomex jackets with USAF insignia and ends with my having met the ANG loadmaster who was issued the green Nomex and claiming it was due to a shortage of desert CWUs. I guess there's still no definitive explanation, but overall there's at least some evidence of these jackets in AF use based on eyewitness accounts as well as patched examples offered for sale on Ebay and other websites.

 

[Phantomfixer]

read the thread, before I posted and yes I agree that there is no proof of any USAF aircrew wearing Army tanker jackets other than pics on ebay and a few "there I was" stories..kinda like there were no original A-2 made out of steer or goat...
Could it have happened? sure it could, did it? maybe,,are the ones posted in the initial thread legit? maybe.

I guess until you have a vet stand up and say "this is my jacket, that I wore...." ,

going back to my post..why would a loadmaster be issued a green winter tanker because he needs a tan desert jacket?
Kinda like getting a cold weather bag when going to Haiti...

 

[watchmanjimg]

read the thread, before I posted and yes I agree that there is no proof of any USAF aircrew wearing Army tanker jackets other than pics on ebay and a few "there I was" stories..kinda like there were no original A-2 made out of steer or goat...
Could it have happened? sure it could, did it? maybe,,are the ones posted in the initial thread legit? maybe.

I guess until you have a vet stand up and say "this is my jacket, that I wore...." ,

going back to my post..why would a loadmaster be issued a green winter tanker because he needs a tan desert jacket?
Kinda like getting a cold weather bag when going to Haiti...

Well, our very own Monsoon stated that in 2003 his AF unit was issued tan Army Nomex jackets to make up for shortages of tan CWUs. Additionally, the day before yesterday a vet did stand up and say that he wore the green jacket in question. I agree that the color issue doesn't make logical sense, but this is the military we're talking about. Maybe they didn't have CWUs in either color--I don't know. The loadmaster also had a large quantity of Tru-Spec desert tiger stripes that he claims are worn overseas in certain situations. Don't believe that either? Look it up and you may be surprised. Are green Army Nomex and Tru-Spec desert tigers standard USAF wear for every airman? Of course not, but that was never really the point of this thread.

I like your cold-weather bag in Haiti analogy although I wouldn't find it terribly surprising if it happened. At Fort Knox I was issued the intermediate bag and froze my ass off through the winter and early spring. We were issued long underwear but were forbidden to wear it. Later at Fort Carson we had extreme-cold bags for 365-day use, even at the Colorado-New Mexico border in summertime.

At least in this case both the green and tan Nomex jackets were intended for the same climate.

 

[Phantomfixer]

Dude I hear ya on the issue of cold weather gear and being told not to use it...I was actually issued cold weather boots for a TDY...to Haiti for uphold democracy...dont know what the supply folks were thinking..when I landed in Haiti it cost me a M-9 bayonet for a pair of jungle boots...Supply troops...... :lol: :lol:
Anyway ....

 

[FtrPlt]

My take on the comments earlier in the thread was that USAF issued tan Army CVC jackets due to shortages of the tan CWU. I can somewhat understand this. The green ones?? Kind of lost on me. Every USAF aircrew member is issued green bags and green jackets. These have been USAF staples for forty-plus years. The only place I've ever heard of a shortage of green nomex is at the flight school locations -- with occassional shortages of particular sizes if incoming students happened to require large numbers of a particular size.

I'm trying understand the logic of why someone deploying to South America would even require a desert tan jacket? Even more confusing would be issuing a green army nomex jacket to an ANG guy who should, if things haven't changed much, have a closet full of green nomex jackets?

As mentioned, supply types of strange ducks. Probably gave the same loadmaster white bunny boots, as well!

 

[watchmanjimg]

I didn't mean to suggest that he was issued the green jacket in anticipation of the deployment to South America. I mentioned his deployments simply to show that his experience wasn't limited to stateside duty at one location. Perhaps even stranger than the green Nomex jacket is all the civilian Tru-Spec desert tiger stripe uniforms he was issued--despite likely having a closetful of DCUs and ABUs among all those green Nomex jackets . . .

 

[FtrPlt]

I didn't mean to suggest that he was issued the green jacket in anticipation of the deployment to South America. I mentioned his deployments simply to show that his experience wasn't limited to stateside duty at one location. Perhaps even stranger than the green Nomex jacket is all the civilian Tru-Spec desert tiger stripe uniforms he was issued--despite likely having a closetful of DCUs and ABUs among all those green Nomex jackets . . .

USAF is tough to comprehend sometimes. My current favorite is their ABE (Airman Battle Ensemble) -- basically a FR ABU made with 50% nomex. It has zips instead of buttons but otherwise pretty close to the normal tiger ABU. Until a year or so ago, it seemed everyone deploying overseas was issued several sets of these -- at least outside-the-wire types. Once in theatre, they're wearing ACUs or multicam. Once home, the ABE's aren't authorized for wear. Get deployed again? You get another couple of sets of ABEs. Get in theatre? You bet. Can't wear them. Here's some multicam. A friend of mine deployed 4 times and has 16 sets of ABEs that have never been worn and can't be worn stateside.

 

[watchmanjimg]

A friend of mine deployed 4 times and has 16 sets of ABEs that have never been worn and can't be worn stateside.

What size are they? No ABEs in my collection yet.

 

[Phantomfixer]

Ditto on the issue of desert gear...every time a set of orders came down, we went got our desert issue, if deployment was CX no harm no foul, keep em...I had bags full of the old (not chocholate chip) stuff....I kept one bag of issue never worn desert stuff sold all the others...
went to the Army Navy to get that Army jacket...large short oh well

If anyone desires he has em in Med reg and a large short for 30 bones...

 

[Rutger]

And now I finally understand how it's possible to find so many brand new GI jackets on ebay. They're not government surplus, they're personal surplus created by an inefficient Goverment organization.

 

[FtrPlt]

A friend of mine deployed 4 times and has 16 sets of ABEs that have never been worn and can't be worn stateside.

What size are they? No ABEs in my collection yet.

I got a Med-Reg blouse and trousers from him. Outwardly, the only difference with the jacket is 2 x zippered pockets on each arm and a flightsuit style velcro nametag. The trousers have the usual cargo pockets with a spin -- one has a zipper under the flap and the other has the zippers up the side of the pocket e.g. they mimic the flightsuit thigh pockets except placement is per the cargo pockets. I wear mine as a cheapo 2-piece flight suit -- way better than the one-piece bag. For flying my old L-bird, not current military use.

There's several ABE jackets on eBay right now for $15-25. Not sure why there aren't more. There must be thousands of these sitting in closets.

Here's one of the ABE jackets (ebay photo)

Different subject but USAF is reportedly working on a bonafide 2-piece flightsuit for the non-eject aircrew. It's been long argued that they couldn't print nomex effectively. Given that US Army has been using printed nomex for close to 20 years (woodland ABDU plus AACU in both multi-cam and UCP), I'm not sure that excuse holds water. More like big-blue can't imagine life without a onesy!

 

[Phantomfixer]

be nice if they added footies to em...

 

[herk115]

Different subject but USAF is reportedly working on a bonafide 2-piece flightsuit for the non-eject aircrew. It's been long argued that they couldn't print nomex effectively. Given that US Army has been using printed nomex for close to 20 years (woodland ABDU plus AACU in both multi-cam and UCP), I'm not sure that excuse holds water. More like big-blue can't imagine life without a onesy!

Oh, lord, here we go again. Every ten years some bright boy tries to redesign the flight suit and we end up with some monstrosity that no one will wear, and everyone hangs onto and wears their traditional one-piece bags until they become more and more threadbare and generally "unserviceable" and the AF finally comes to its senses and orders production of the traditional one piece bag to resume. In the meantime, thousands of these non-traditional flight suits end up on Ebay and in surplus stores and the traditional bags become impossible to find for years afterward. I've lost count of the number of times the AF has tried this. Attention, everyone: stock up on the traditional one piece bags before it's too late. I'll be hitting Ebay tomorrow!

 

[Phantomfixer]

good to know!..I know of two stores that have piles of of the 27/P

 

[FtrPlt]

Looks like USAF helo crews have been wearing Army multicam two-piece suits for several years already. They also wear Army HGU-56 helmets. I see a trend. This is the vanguard of USAF trying to reintegrate itself back into Team Green!!! :lol:

If I was still serving, I would invoke my 'devine right as an aviator' to wear the bag. However, I can see the two-piece has its place. Tradition and morale would suffer early-on -- it certainly wreaked havoc in the Army aviation community -- but the Army seems to have evolved the design and it seems to well-liked. The Army has been in the two-piece since 1999 so the bulk of the aircrew today probably never wore the bag. USAF, if they go the two-piece route -- will undoubtedly go through the same turmoil. I have full confidence that USAF cannot resist the beat of the Army drum!

For reference: I served in both USAF and US Army aviation so I reserve the right to torment either branch as I see fit!

 

[herk115]

good to know!..I know of two stores that have piles of of the 27/P

Please tell me they're in central or southern California!

 

[herk115]

Looks like USAF helo crews have been wearing Army multicam two-piece suits for several years already. They also wear Army HGU-56 helmets. I see a trend. This is the vanguard of USAF trying to reintegrate itself back into Team Green!!! :lol:

If I was still serving, I would invoke my 'devine right as an aviator' to wear the bag. However, I can see the two-piece has its place. Tradition and morale would suffer early-on -- it certainly wreaked havoc in the Army aviation community -- but the Army seems to have evolved the design and it seems to well-liked. The Army has been in the two-piece since 1999 so the bulk of the aircrew today probably never wore the bag. USAF, if they go the two-piece route -- will undoubtedly go through the same turmoil. I have full confidence that USAF cannot resist the beat of the Army drum!

For reference: I served in both USAF and US Army aviation so I reserve the right to torment either branch as I see fit!

I don't think it's across the board. I saw the CSAR guys at Nellis wearing one-piece traditional bags just last year.

You're right that morale would suffer, but there are other factors. Given the comments we've made so far about the AF supply system, can you imagine the nightmare of each supply section having to keep *two* pieces of flight gear (shirt and pants) that both fit the same guy at the same time? They can't do it. Trust me, they'll never have the same number of, say, "large" shirts and "large" pants in stock at the same time. I don't know how they did it with BDUs. I never wore BDUs so I don't know if getting proper sized two-piece garments worked smoothly in that regard or not. I do know that they occasionally ran out of my size of bag but I just wore mine until my size came in, and it was only one garment that had to fit. As you pointed out, the CWUs and A-2, once fitted, were indestructible and rarely had to be re-issued.

I noticed several years ago that some British C-130 crews practicing at Inyokern airport in California were wearing what looked like BDUs. I assumed that was the case but given the comments here it may have been a two-piece flight suit.

 

[FtrPlt]

Sorry. My reference to USAF helo guys in multicam was for in-theatre (AfghanLand) crews. Army guys switch back to UCP flight gear upon return. I'm nearly positive the bag is gone from the Army. The last hold-outs would be ejection-seat aircraft and I don't think the Army has any left.

 

[Hobbstc]

Believe me, I wish I could wear a bag instead of the A2CU. It's a constant reminder the Army is run by the infantry. They even got rid of the green Nomex flight jackets and now we have multicam Massif gear. I bought my own 36p for my patches. The only people I see wearing one pieces are contractors. The only nice thing about the A2CU is we can take our tops off to preflight.

 

[herk115]

Sorry. My reference to USAF helo guys in multicam was for in-theatre (AfghanLand) crews. Army guys switch back to UCP flight gear upon return. I'm nearly positive the bag is gone from the Army. The last hold-outs would be ejection-seat aircraft and I don't think the Army has any left.

When you mentioned the USAF going to the two-piece (except for ejection seats), were you talking across the board, or just in-theatre?