Treetopflyer
Practically Family
- Messages
- 674
- Location
- Patuxent River, MD
The picture is from "The Devils Brigade." Not sure on the contract.
Darn, it happened again! Can some one answer my question on the L2 jackets? Every time I ask, the thread seems to go off on some pop culture nonsense.
Silverman's in the UK has a copy of those old Russian pilot's jackets LINKDoctor Damage said:He's Colonel Yuliy Mamchur of the Ukrainian air force (ARTICLE). Here he is wearing one of those leather jackets, so these jackets must be associated with pilots since he is supposedly a former fighter pilot.
I'm positive this is an L-2 jacket, the model is listed in the USAAF Type Designation Sheets as:
Designation : L-2
Specification and model number : Y-3257
Characteristics : Utility Jacket
Service Test : May 21-45
Service tested means the pattern was accepted by the USAAF in May 1945; by 1947 (the year the USAAF became the USAF) they were issued. Colour looks to be olive green. The colour is too light on the picture to be an L-2A (only issued in navy blue and did not appear before the war in Korea). L-2Bs are later, I would say not before 1955-56, but this is an estimation.
He seems to wear it with the olive version of the K-1 flight suit.
Last night I watched a documentary on Halvorsen on PBS and he's an interesting, very charismatic person. Here's a link to the video: http://video.pbs.org/video/2365375773/Whilst digging through the photo section of the USAF website I came across some photos of Colonel Gail Halvorson who was the "Candy Bomber" during the Berlin Airlift (article). He's wearing a strange flight jacket in these photos and when I asked our own Atticus Finch to identify he speculated that it is the top half of a K-2 flight suit with knits added. Whatever it is, it's a damn cool jacket and maybe we can get Buzz to do a replica!
Melvin Johnson, Boeing test pilot, wearing what looks like a cotton version of an L2A/B jacket.
John M Fritz, test pilot, wearing another strange flight jacket, similar to Halvorsen's (see above) but with raglan shoulders. Another heavily modified flight suit?