A2's, do you miss handwarmer pockets?

[Atticus Finch]

Having been issued a G-1 while in Naval aviation in the 70's (made of naugahyde,btw)

Hi Kampatz,

Welcome to the forum! I was never a Naval Avaitor, but I do collect G-1s. I guess I'm a bit off topic here, but from what you have said about your issued jacket, I expect it was one of the mid-seventies, E-series, Imperial Leather G-1s. In my opinion, this contract was the low point in G-1 manufacture. Imperial G-1s were actually made from thick, heavy cowhide sprayed with some kind of waterproof, squeaky finish that looked and felt like naugahyde. They were tough as nails, and built like tanks, but they were heavy, stiff and noisy jackets.

Atticus

 

[johnnyjohnny]

handwarmer pockets in LaLaLand?

here in L.A. one would think hwpocks would be as gratuitous as earmuffs on your surfboard...howevah...

whilst my a-2 will be worn most of the time in weather over 65 degrees i like to stuff my hands in the side...even if the army air corps had the a-2 designed to prevent this 'thug' look...for me it's just a preference...

again, howevah...

i agree with most here that those slits in the side of the a-2 behind the flap pocket are abominable...i just returned a uswings jacket because what i thought were going to be hidden handwarmer pockets had those horrible slits...

i then spent the night searching the net to find a modern a-2 that was authentic enough in design to have hidden hwpocks...one shouldn't be surprised that i found one offered by legendary, that being the cockpitusa version, cockpit supplying the currrent usaf a-2 to the military (though the one they are supplying is apparently without hidden hwpocks)

while i'm enough of a panzy to want hwpocks, i'm enough of a stickler that i think they should not be seen, so that the jacket looks totally authentic... legendary/cockpitusa's model is the only one i found that was authentic to the style, and authentic to the current usaf issue model, but had the hwpocks...

if i had to settle for those side slits i would indeed prefer to do without hwpocks altogether...as for putting them on a ww2 replica a-2, i probably would do without any kind of hwpocks since, in that case, one is really trying to get as close to the real deal as possible...

thoughts from L.A....

 

[kampkatz]

G-1 of the '70's

Atticus,
In 1974 all of us in flight training were issued true naugahyde jackets. It was a time in-between the real leather. The Navy probably thought they could do some cost cutting, but eventually discovered that the plastic would not last as long as leather,so they eventually went back to the real animal skins. They did seem a bit unwieldy. One of my flight instructors was a salty Marine major who insisted we stow the jackets in the storage compartment before climbing into the cockpit, no matter how cold it was outside. He just thought the jackets restricted movement too much. As a green 0-1 who was I to argue with him?

PK

 

[Spitfire]

Missing handwarmer pockets?
I might be missing a P51 Mustang now and again - but handwarmerpockets. No way!lol

 

[Edward]

Mine fits great with a regular shirt on under it but with a sweater or sweatshirt it can get a little snug.
Just my 2 cents.

Seems to me this is an important thing for folks to bear in mind when buying the jacket. Typically, I've always gone a size up (most of my leathers to date have been bike leathers - not that I ever had the bike, but hey, call it a fifteen year old's desire to look like Alice Cooper which gave way to a 21 year old's desire to look like Dee Dee Ramone which gave way to a 33 year old's desire to look like Marlon Brando.... lol ... but damn me, bike leather can be snug, a 44 in those fits me like a 42 in anything else). With an A2, though, I'm planning to stick to my true size. They were of course designed to fit over only a shirt, really - bearing in mind that they were uniform issue and the time of year they were intended for. Not a garment intended for mid winter or the sort of temperatures where one would be wanting to wear a sweater underneath. Of course, for casual, civilan wear, this might be different, so yeah a size up would be something to think about. Myself, I'm planning to wear mine "as intended" when I get it (save that I'm not going for the uniform replication of course), but then the long term plan for me is to build a small collection of flight jackets with a B6, B2/3, B10 for colder weather.

(Of course, my black one only looks authentic in b/w photos!)

Depends on the lighting - there are colour photos I've seen of genuine A2s (both period and modern photos of originals) where a seal brown looks black.

When I was in the AF back in the 60's, pilots and crews were adding handwarmers and inside pockets at tailor shops in the Far East and Middle East. I have heard that WWII aircrews added inside pockets to their A-2's and would have liked to have had handwarmer pockets too.

I think this is also something to bear in mind when we're discussing all-out autheticity. I certainly wouldn't claim to be able to hold a candle to the knowledge of most folks round these parts - pretty much everything I know about flight jackets I learned on here. That said, it seems to me there's two sorts of authenticity: there's the jacket completely as issued, sticking rigidly to the USAAF design specs. Then there's the jacket as might have been worn in the field - artwork, inner pocket added (I'm sure I read somewhere that in the Pacific theatre, blood chits were sometimes sewn inside the jacket on three sides, left open in top so that they could be used as a pocket?), handwarmer pockets, and so on. I'm sure I've seen a photo of an original somewhere where handwarmers were created which on the surface looked different only in that the stitching along the outer edge of the pockets was removed. Seems to me that if all those things were being done regularly by the flyboys back in the day, period-style field modifications are not "wrong" per se in a repro. It's a different sort of authenticity, though, so it's bound to appeal to a different crowd. Just my 0.01c (I don't think it's worth the 0.02c ).

 

[John in Covina]

Handwarmer pockets make sense if you are going to be wearing the jacket a lot while not flying driving operating machinery etc all the time. So in ordinary use by ordinary people it is a feature that again makes sense. Some a-retenticve types feel that pilots with their hand in the pockets oes not look military enough, which then says I'd rather my pilots had cold hands and were uncomfortable and looked good (to me) than other wise. Funny how generals don't usually have to be unconfortable either.

 

[cheaterome]

No


jerome