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AVI LTHR BRONCO A-2 Jacket Review & Pics

T

tropicalbob

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Update: Morten offered to take my jacket back, but in the end, probably mostly through inertia, I kept it. I'm glad I did. I started wearing it in my study (it's hot here now and my kid keeps the ac at polar) and gradually started to see the grain emerging and the jacket softening up. I lost any doubts I had when I saw that the grain patterns differed on different sections: e.g., on one arm one side of the stitching is extremely grainy while on the other it's fairly smooth. The whole jacket has also started looking much better the more I've worn it, so I'm pretty happy with it now. I'm thinking maybe this week of giving it the alcohol rubdown, but I'm a bit leery of it. Anyway, I just wanted to report into HQ with my findings.
 
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Flightengineer

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I'm not sure that this is for this thread (maybe I need to start another thread - maybe later I'll do it)... but nevertheless, after all, this concerns my AVI A-2.
As Brett absolutly right wrote earlier here - AVI A-2 is also very good jacket as a platform for experiments.
I did not become artificially aged it, this jacket gradually does it naturally.
But I wanted to add AAF patch to the sleeve (only on the sleeve, not any squadron patches). Once I had a AAF decal (japan MASH made - very nice high quality item) on one of my (now sold ) A2. But I wanted something different, more individual. Handmade, as it was in early 40's...
Of course, I saw a lot of WW2 drawings (patches and back art) on the leather jackets on some websites. Also one of my friend is talented artist and our cooperation still continues. She paints well on leather, although she is far from aviation and stylistics of the 40's. Well, this is a separate conversation :)
But all the same, my hands were trying to do it myself :)
I always drew well. Once I got famous book "Art of the Flight Jacket", later I myself saw authentic WW2 A-2 jackets with hand painted leather patches in the USAF Museum in Dayton. They were awesome....It was always interesting to me to try to made it myself, but there was not enough time. My gypsy aviation life usually leaves no strength and time for this. But now I have time to try and I've devoted some of my time to experiments, and created some WW2 leather patches. One of them I made for this AVI Bronco jacket, it's hand-painted 5-th Air Force WW2 style shoulder patch. I looked through a huge number of different versions of the theater-made 5-th AF patches and chose and copied one what I like most of all. As you probably know there were a lot of variations of this emblem - both painted and embroidered and they were all slightly different, it gave me the opportunity to choose.
It remains to put and to sew it to AVI Bronco, today I'm bringing jacket to the atelier to sew my patch, when I do this I will show the result here.
 
Brettafett

Brettafett

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Am very excited to see this Dmitry! I have similar conspiracies in progress... Although I have an idea to paint the back of my jacket, at least with the Seal version. I have other ideas for another jacket down the line.
 
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Flightengineer

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Brettafett said:
Am very excited to see this Dmitry! I have similar conspiracies in progress... Although I have an idea to paint the back of my jacket, at least with the Seal version. I have other ideas for another jacket down the line.
Click to expand...

Brett, as you know that I recently completed back art, but on my another A-2 - on the old Willis&Geiger. I will try to show it also on this forum a little later.
 
Brettafett

Brettafett

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Yes, I know... and I think that definitely deserves to be shown here. A close-up pic also please.
That Dakota looks great and I love the graphic style of the artwork... Your artists friend is very talented.
 
F

Flightengineer

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Brettafett said:
Yes, I know... and I think that definitely deserves to be shown here. A close-up pic also please.
That Dakota looks great and I love the graphic style of the artwork... Your artists friend is very talented.
Click to expand...

Thanks, if you knew how much it cost me (I'm talking about efforts) :) :) :)
It seems to me that this C-47 I myself painted " by her hands", so many times I had to fix everything. I know and love Dakota too well ... She has never seen this plane. This caused a lot of difficulties. I made many sketches, but in the end we won :) However, I am satisfied with the result. I think for this jacket with a back art I'll start new thread little later .
 
Last edited:
F

Flightengineer

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As I said earlier, I looked through tons of images on the 5th AF patch in the internet. Deviations were also tons :) (in the drawing and in sizes - from 2.5 to 3 inches).
And I drew a few leather patches (I have several fine leather pieces that I use for it), at some point I thought it would be the 15th, but I liked the 5th most. I used artistic paint for leather SETACOLOR (by the way, excellent paint ;)).

96be32aa9d5f.jpg


In the end, I eventually made a precise size patch .
Now I took back the jacket from the seamstress who sewed it. I had to stand and watch that it was positioned correct (exactly an inch from the shoulder seam), and controled that the threads were of the correct color and thickness :)
Here it is.
I like it, the jacket has acquired an old-school aviation character.

d0a74591e34b.jpg


278502a82954.jpg


I had an idea to make patch a bit "older", but I think that this will happens on its own during wearing.
 

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Brettafett

Brettafett

One Too Many
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I also received a response from Morten at AVI. He apologised for not getting back to me sooner. He said they have been very busy with current production and the 'new' A-1 arriving in the next week or two, that and also trying to enjoy the Sun that they are having.
(This I can understand, having lived there... In Denmark when the Sun comes out, everyone goes out to enjoy it, its a part of what they call 'hugge'... and thats a priority to them. So theres a backlog of emails to get through).
Anyway, they will endeavour to reply to all the emails and will be be posting details regarding manufactuer information and CSR, hopefully also next week.
I also learned that besides the 'new' A-1, they have acquired another original WW2 A-2 jacket, that they intend to reproduce along with the Bronco.

Clearly AVI is not too concerned about the 'cracks & jabs', fantasies and speculations of some... If anything, the 'concerns' highlighted may help them fine-tune their website and the information contained therein.
They have only recently come onto the scene and are probably still fine-tuning, both their product and their website.
Please bare in mind, English is not their first language and a lot can be lost in translation...
Personally, when I get some time, I intend to offer some copy suggestions, that they may or may not consider using in the future.
If any lounger has any suggestions, please email them directly to AVI LTHR, I'm sure they would appreciate any constructive feedback.
They are clearly very enthusiastic about their jackets and owning a number of them, I can vouch for the quality (which I doubt could be achieved by anyone less than a professional).
 
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