Aero Sneak Preview - Tweed Three-Piece Suit and Leather B-10...

[willyto]

I think I saw the leather B-10 at Clutch Cafe when the loungers visited. Looked great

 

[Edward]

@Sloan, well I guess your bank manager is relieved the fit wasn't good!
I'd also guess that pictures don't do the B-10 justice. Seeing it in the flesh sounds like a better experience.

As for Irvins, well, yes. And this is another reason why I don't have one; I'd have to buy two.
After reading Hastings 'Bomber Command' I'd have to agree with him that the Spitfire pilots of the Battle of Britain have captured the popular imagination whilst the huge efforts and sacrifice of Bomber Command has 'gone under the radar'. And because of this, I want both an early war AND a late war Irvin (I know, it's crazy).
I'm guessing that the RAF avoided black fleece until shortages began to bite, so a late war multi-panel Irvin would be the way to go with a black fleece jacket. That would be great.

No interest in a Coastal Command version? THat's my big want in an Aero Irvin.

Re Bomber Command, I suspect a lot has to do with the propaganda of the war era, what was felt by officialdom after the war, and his also fed into the populist sixties films which cemented the fetisihisation of parts of the WW2 story in British popular culture, while leaving out others. The short if it is that it's very easy to romanticise the Battle of Britain: the knights of the air in the RAF, fighting a defensive action to keep away those who sought air supremacy to make way for Operation Sealion. The brave flyboys of The Few who in effect stopped the Nazi invasion. Alongside the huge stroke of strategic luck that Hitler stopped just one week before the RAF ran out of pilots and fighter planes. (History is full of such events: Ireland may have been a very different place today had the War of Independence carried on three more weeks.) Much harder to romanticise the poor buggers send out undercover of the night to bomb strategic targets often knowing that civilian deaths were inevitable, or, once the carpet bombing started, the desired direct result (intended to break German morale). The bomber command boys, especially those who flew, knew all too well what was going on at ground level. Among them was my future primary school headmaster, who never got over the sense of direct responsibility he felt for the children who literally died by his hand in Germany on those raids (as navigator, it fell to him to pull the lever opening the bomb doors and dropping the payload). It's why he got into education after the war, to try and put something back in a sense of atonement. Of course, after the extent to which British propaganda had (understandably) demonised the Luftwaffe for bombing civilians in the Blitz (most attention was had by hat happened in London, but Coventry was almost destroyed, and Luftwaffe bombs fell as far from Berlin as Belfast on several occasions), the fact that they had sent their own out to do the same thing was something of an embarrassment after the war, and - whatever contemporary morality might think if it - despite the fact that Bomber Command played a huge role in winning the war, they were never given full recognition for that. In 1992, a statue was (controversially) raised in central London to Bomber Harris who, with Churchill's go-ahead, had planned the Dresden raids in particular, but it wasn't until 2012 that there was a proper memorial to the boys who were sent out to do those things. It's a beautiful piece too - not triumphalist, but really captures the weariness of men sent out to do a dirty job where they're just glad to be home still alive.

Anyhow, I digress. I have a soft spot for the late war Irvins mostly because they are the ones that, back when originals were still see more often, you tended to see. Also the ones in the films: watch Battle of Britain again, and you'll see that's what they're wearing - mainly because the costume department could still buy 'em cheap as surplus! (And nobody cared about accuracy then - they're all wearing sixities-cut service uniforms, and the hair!!). THe one I have currently is an ELC 42 pattern, bought used back before Ken came back to Aero and sorted out the arms on the Aero pattern. My next will be a late war CC....

 

[Sloan1874]

Back for a 2nd look of the olive B-10.

**thinking**

No epaulets and a less reddish and a more brown or tan coloured mouton collar.

Sloan, I don't know how you had the will power to leave without it.

Don't think I wasn't tempted. It's more a case of my bank manager having the last word on this one. Shouldn't be an issue on the mouton, either. They've got a variety of colours on the cloth B-10s at the mo'.

 

[Colin G]

Don't think I wasn't tempted. It's more a case of my bank manager having the last word on this one. Shouldn't be an issue on the mouton, either. They've got a variety of colours on the cloth B-10s at the mo'.

Same here. No cash for that right now.

I am still after a leather trucker and may entertain an Aero Type III in tan but it would look good in olive also. I'll look at both in the fall.

 

[bn1966]

Very cool B-10..what a great idea!!!