Project to build an interactive database about Navy Leather Flight Jackets

[Ritchy]

I'm thinking about building an interactive database of Navy leather flight jackets from 1940 to present.
The idea being to be able to search and display the characteristics
- Contract number
- Contract Years
- Contract owner
- Zipper caracteristics
- Leather color (Light brown, mid brown, seal brown)
- Lining color
- Jacket fit caracteristics
- Sleeves caracteristics (short, regular, long)
etc.

and photos of the jackets from each inventoried contract:
- Full front view
- Full rear view
- Pocket view
- Zipper slider view
- Label view
I started inventory work from “A Better Fighting Garment…” in an excel file but it is incomplete in terms of characteristics.
I lack the documentation to complete it and I am asking for help from people who might be interested in this project.
Attached is the link to the current inventory excel file:

Nomenclature.xlsx

docs.google.com

Thanks for watching

 

[mulceber]

Sounds like a very worthwhile project. Depending on how it turns out, it might be worth bundling it together with "A Better Fighting Garment..." in a thread-of-threads (like what @Lord Flashheart put together for jacket repros). We could create a sticky for Navy jackets, and it would have links to the BFG and to your database.

A few thoughts based on what you shared above:

Sleeves caracteristics (short, regular, long)

FWIW, I would just file this under a general column on jacket fit characteristics - there are a few contracts that have consistently long or short sleeves (W&G's M-422 and the Block M-422A leap to mind), but most contracts aren't all that remarkable in the way their sleeves fit.

Leather color (Light brown, mid brown, seal brown)

So many of them are a generic seal brown that it might be better simply to note the outliers. That also allows you to describe the color in greater detail.

- Zipper slider view

The thing I worry about here is that there's enough variation in the zippers that were used that, if you just use ONE jacket as an example for each contract, you'd be creating an impression in your audience of far more regularity than there actually was.

Just some thoughts I had from reading this. Feel free to disregard the above advice.

 

[Erwin]

R

I'm thinking about building an interactive database of Navy leather flight jackets from 1940 to present.
The idea being to be able to search and display the characteristics
- Contract number
- Contract Years
- Contract owner
- Zipper caracteristics
- Leather color (Light brown, mid brown, seal brown)
- Lining color
- Jacket fit caracteristics
- Sleeves caracteristics (short, regular, long)
etc.

and photos of the jackets from each inventoried contract:
- Full front view
- Full rear view
- Pocket view
- Zipper slider view
- Label view
I started inventory work from “A Better Fighting Garment…” in an excel file but it is incomplete in terms of characteristics.
I lack the documentation to complete it and I am asking for help from people who might be interested in this project.
Attached is the link to the current inventory excel file:

Nomenclature.xlsx

docs.google.com

Thanks for watching

Ritchy, a quick question about DSA-100-598 and DSA-100-599. Why it was mapped with 1965, prefix of 100 was added for 1966 contracts (if I remember correctly). Contracts from 1965 look like DSA-X-XXXXX any valid provenience for this that these are from 1965?
Cheers