RAF MK3 aircrew knife patch
 

Hi guys I’m looking for an RAF Mk3 aircrew knife patch of the green nylon type that sews to a flight suit. I have the knife and sheath I just need the patch as shown in the bottom of the attached photo.
TIA

Photo to follow

Looks like I need to make more posts before I can post a photo

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224404469...yABEgLS2_D_BwE


https://www.ebay.com/itm/British-RAF...-/202745172218


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SAS-CRW-S...UAAOSwWRpgWyPp

In my ignorance, when I saw the tread title I was prompted to wonder is there were also patches for aircrew who had mastered the spoon and fork.

Eighteen weeks on IOT ensured that

He used all the RIGHT cutlery, but not necessarily in the right order.

Does anyone have a digitised copy of the 'Etiquette' blue booklet that we got issued with on IOT back in the 70's? I'd love to show a copy to some teenagers to ensure that they know how to eat a Banana correctly ;-)

Not all of us did IOT.

By the time I went through (1989), the book was entitled Customs, Etiquette and Social Responsibilities (CESR).

Well never having been in the Armed Services,I managed to get through quite a few dining-in nights without embarrassment,perhaps because I was never served a banana.

Being right handed, but only being able to shoot a rifle from the left shoulder was always an issue in my service. Worse still I could only properly operate the knife and fork the wrong away around. I got quite adept at lowering the tools below the table at dining in nights, swapping around and then reappearing with knife in left hand. However, on the good side,I was always comfortable with a banana!

Wait. It's a knife? I always thought it was a bottle opener ...

You could only pass IOT once you could peel a banana with your feet.

That part was in the Regt aptitude tests:)

On the subject of aircrew knives, when I was instructing on 2 Sqn at Shawbury we had a visit from some ATC cadets - seated in our crewroom and answering their questions, I felt something touch my leg and heard a soft 'click'. I waited a couple of seconds and then glanced down to see the little sh*t next to me had undone my knife and then realised he couldn't steal it because it was still attached.

To further continue the aircrew knives theme,I was searching through my shed yesterday,looking for something else,and came upon this.Does anyone know when and why they changed the shape ?
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....493d1ba72a.jpg

I was told it was to stop us thick aircrew stabbing ourselves with it:)

Those old ones were quite a useful survival knife but the new curved ones were crap - apart from opening beer.

I Think the blade was changed in the mid 80s to prevent damage to dingys when ditching at sea
Graham

NutLoose was just trying to be helpful but two of the links he posted were for the patch for the J Cutter that replaced the curved blade knife the O.P. was asking about. The Americans used a J Cutter at the time and I guess that’s why it was copied by the R.A.F.
The curved knife was for cutting shroud lines and puncturing dinghies not for survival in a hostile environment!
Try looking for a pre-90’s flying coverall from one of the many second hand sellers (including eBay) and cutting off the patch.

Ex82.

those knives were primarily designed for sharpening china graph pencils. The shape changed because JPs were always stabbing themselves when attending Friday happy hours in the bar.:E

I'm fairly certain the curved blade design was being issued a bit earlier than that but I legacy models were certainly around in the mid -80's

One of these fits inside a RAF knife patch.


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....84a6cbbc60.jpg

Apparently...

Wouldn’t that knife get you 4 years now?

The change was much earlier than that: my original issue in 1968 was the stabbing knife and ISTR the curved blade arrived very early 1970, although supply could have begun late 1960s with the lazy supply chain to the RN!

Delays in flying clothing were legendary: as the Junior Joe on 826NAS I was the boss’s copilot and he declared the squadron unavailable when my two piece goon suit had a fault which couldn’t be fixed nor replaced. Heads rolled and the first of the new one piece green goon suits magically appeared out of stores to restore the squadron to full OR :cool:

That makes sense John, I was issued with my first knife mid 70's and remember it being the curved design...I also am probably one of the handful around here who has actually used the knife for it's intended purpose (1980 +- ) and I do remember that one definitely having the curved blade......

Well, you certainly couldn't cut much with it, that's for sure!

CG

Has anybody ever used this knife for something?

This is the one we used (RAAF)...Survival knife and combined parachute shroud line cutter.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....86a56d7e80.jpg

Curved blade? yes, I dropped a hint in post #27...

You only get the full horror story over beers, so short version for here is..splashdown in a pretty feisty sea, 15-25 knots of wind....had done all the good Sea survival stuff on the descent(including pulling pins out of Koch fasteners :uhoh:..yes it's that long ago...) but even though I detached the chute PDQ and despite the theory about the 'chute being blown well clear in such conditions I ended up wrapped in the ******lines, lots of them, pinned down in the water, unable to get into the by now inflated dingy ....

Knife deployed and used as advertised to cut enough lines cut to allow me to get aboard...care of course being taken to try not to cut the PSP/dingy line. Have to say it was a fairly healthy, breaking sea and I swallowed a bit of water before getting untangled and into dingy..I'm not sure quite how things would have ended up without the knife...

Sadly at some point in the subsequent proceedings I lost the darn thing, shame, would have made a good souvenir.

The one thing I learnt from my episode was that on a really bad day getting out of the aircraft may only be the start of your problems......

Ideal for de-coking one's briar, which went with the SAR Buoy slippers in the good old days!

Loski - PM for you.