Soviet leather flight jackets by Aero

[seres]

But that's not true. Some of the Goldsmith spots were still up for grabs as buyers dropped out.

Well... yes, you're right. But I think they pretty much sold out immediately, then a few did recant. But I think they're all gone, as of a few days ago.

What I meant to say was that the market for those specialty jackets can be mostly satisfied at one forum, which Ken decided would be VLJ. That's not a slight against TFL, but simply that Ken seems to post more at VLJ. I feel sure if Ken needed to find more buyers, he would advertise in other areas.

 

[Big J]

Interesting. So you think it's really the case that Aero doesn't want to sell them to Loungers?

Hmm...

 

[Dr H]

With respect, I believe that you’re overthinking this. I don’t visit VLJF these days, but the focus of that forum has always been predominantly vintage/repro flight jackets; there’s little coverage of e.g. workwear like the Highwayman. If you want research/buy/sell a flight jacket that’s your first port of call as the market is already there.
In the past, I’ve posted images of rare/larger flight jackets on FL and garnered little interest in comparison.
The clientele here check Aero Pages more regularly, whereas new Aero designs are rarely mentioned on VLJF.
I’d have adopted a similar stance with the Russian jacket (which doesn’t appeal to me at all): cater to VLJF with more detailed discussion of the background and post it on the Aero website confident that watchers here would pick it up.

 

[Big J]

@Dr H,

Yes, perhaps you're right. Maybe I'm overthinking it.

I also am a member of VLJ, but I never bother to post. I find it to be a small collection of amateur enthusiasts self-proclaimed as 'experts' endlessly recycling the same talking points in a tour de force of navel gazing.

There's only so much to be said about A-2s and so many times one can say it.

Admittedly there are some more expert than others, like Ken and JC, but they are few.

 

[seres]

Interesting. So you think it's really the case that Aero doesn't want to sell them to Loungers?

No, I did NOT say that. How could you possibly draw that conclusion from my post?

 

[Big J]

@seres,

My apologies if I misunderstood you. How else to interpret that Ken will offer them here if he needs extra sales?
Ken doesn't need to offer them here because he gets enough sales through VLJ?
I've got a rack of Aero jackets, but if I want one of these 3 special jackets I have to be a member of VLJ?

 

[seres]

@Big J

After contemplating on this, I see your point. Now if I only knew the solution.

 

[Big J]

@seres,

I joined VLJ a few years back when its members were giving Ken and Aero a hard time about the quality and accuracy of their jackets.

I posted a query about one complaint against Aero A-2s.
The guy (Sean?) 'A-2 patches' (who I later discovered claims to make the painted leather patches for ELC) was telling people that the Chinese characters Aero used on CBI patches, name tags, and blood chits was wrong. He 'knew' this because his Thai wife told him so. Now, I don't know how much Chinese they use in Thailand, but I do know that the Chinese language was changed after Mao won the civil war (written characters were standardized and simplified) and therefore post WWII written Chinese and WWII era Chinese were different.

At that point, Diamond Dave jumped in and told me to 'f*ck off'.
My first and last post there.

Then I got a private message from one of the VLJ moderators (John Chapman) who told me that I didn't appreciate how bad quality control issues were at Aero and how difficult Ken was to deal with.

A short while later, I discovered that JC had started employing Diamond Dave to make his 'ACME' A-2s.

So it really baffles me why Ken does them any favors.

 

[Flightengineer]

@Flightengineer, have you ever heard of this tanning process that uses birch oil on the reverse of the hide?

Sorry, I know nothing about it.

 

[Flightengineer]

@Flightengineer,

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/113703948777

Thanks for info, but I don't really like this Aero jacket.

 

[cloudylemonade]

We don't promote products or sales here on the Fedora Lounge as Thurston Brothers are already associate members, so out of respect to them, we don't. Wouldn't want to tread on their toes!

Ken doesn't tend to post on forums himself often, I think the only reason he still does occasionally on the VLJ forum is because he was already a member in the past, and I don't post there. It's certainly not any favouritism or anything!

 

[Big J]

@cloudylemonade,

Ken posts pretty regularly at VLJ, and often starts new threads. I'm not saying he shouldn't, but it's not really 'occasionally'.

I appreciate that you don't want to step on Thurston's toes here.

Three 'special' jackets only available to VLJ members isn't favoritism? Ok then.

Given how they've treated him (vendors and mods with mutual business interests) I'm surprised.