What a load of tosh this whole thread has been.
The young fellow is just starting out ,I presume ,and asked advice about SHOES . Not BOOTS.
Personally, I wonder if a person who cannot make up his mind about shoes should hold a pilots licence but, I will leave that decision to the powers that be.
When I started out, I didn't have money for decent shoes so, I remember wearing my old school shoes . Black and clean.
Later when I had money, I bought better . Not RM boots, decent shoes!
Good shoes are available , some made to measure for less than RMs ,most are far more stylish and at least as good if not better in quality.
After all, the Europeans have been making quality shoes ( and boots) since at least 300 years before the great RM was even born!
I just don't understand the fixation with these boots.
They are about as fashionable as a Gladstone bag and have the workmanship similar to that on a stock saddle.
Good if you expect to step in cow dung or mud but, I don't recall seeing any of that on my last walk around at the airport nor anywhere in the terminal or walking down George St.
However,I do read a lot of Bullsh1t in this thread.
Pilots wore oversized boots up until about 70 years ago when they had liners to protect from the cold and you wanted something that would protect from the high possibility of fire ( because people were shooting at you) , and you would want them to slip off if you landed in the drink.
I can't recall ever having had to "hit the silk", what about you?
RM Williams culture is (obviously) popular with country people and I am sure that, even today, no self respecting country gent from ' out the back of Roma ' would go to 'town' or court the local ' Jilleroo' without his RMs and a pair of 'moleskins'.
They don't still wear moleskins in public , do they?
Foot odour would be a problem in the summer wouldn't it or, does the cow odour cover that up as well as everything else?
In the real world , most pilots come from the city and live in modern times.
Buy a decent pair of SHOES , keep them clean ( do the young know what shoe polish is used for ?) and to a point , the more you pay, the better the shoes will be.
However, remember that a scuffed and dirty $2000 shoe looks just as bad as a scuffed and dirty $60 shoe or a scuffed RM.