Wearing Bars?
 

Ok a bit of a fun topic :E Flying corporate jets we wear bars and white shirts but especially after the flight back on the train or in a restaurant its off with the bars.
Some places you need them and the uniform bit like in parts of Africa even on ferry flights where a uniform unlocks doors.
I have seen in the past pilots of light aircraft wearing bars and some seem to love it.
I did a ferry from India to UK with an Arab FO out at night in his homeland I was dressed in a tee shirt and jeans and he asked whether I minded him dressed up.
That included an admirals cap jacket and 4 stripes :ok: His chest puffed out and he adored the attention.

Who here admits to wearing a white shirt and bars and in what sized aircraft (C150) ??? and why? Or did you see any PPLs flying SEP dressed like that in your flying club ?

Reminds me a bit of the joke of the pilot trying to impress a girl who seeing a C130 Hercules land told the girl that see that aircraft its a C130. chest puffed out he told her he flew a C150 :E

Pace

There's a set of gold bars in the bottom of my flight bag somewhere.

I think that I've worn them twice ever - both times just to stand out usefully when doing some ferrying through foreign airports.

Rest of the time - they belong in an environment where pax want their drivers and cabin crew to look smart and official, because that's just what's done in that environment. Which is to say, not on my shoulders.


Worst gold bar abuse I've ever seen was the BAe PA31 ferry pilot from Warton who used to go into the mess at Boscombe Down in a blue sweater with four gold bars on his shoulder. Yes, I too mistook him for a Captain RN pilot until somebody quietly whispered in my ear to treat him like the bottom-of-the-ladder contract pilot he actually was.

G

Only twats wear bars etc in light aircraft. And they are usually crap pilots. I once went to Skeggy with such a pilot, he flying out, me back, and we were in a Beech Muskateer (a sort of Cherokee but by Beech). He wore a flying suit with all the trimmings. I wore a T shirt and jeans.

On arrival he lost sight of the runway on final and had to go around. Because of his 3-counties-size circuit he lost the runway again and went round again. We did this half a dozen times before he landed us, and by then quite a crowd had gathered to see what loon was attempting to land at their field. I and the back seat pax got out as he struggled to get out of his grow bag saying "I don't want them to know who was flying".

So as we walked towards the club house we positioned one each side of him, jabbing our pointing finger towards him.

I wore bars once, back in the early '80's, because I was the second pilot, and my Captain handed them to me, and said to wear them. He informed me that our passage through Africa would be easier that way, and it seemed to be. A few years back I dug them out of wherever they had been abandoned, and sewed them onto a Halloween costume for my daughter. 'Haven't seen them since.

The first flying school I worked for had 2 pages of A4 plus illustrations on how to wear the uniform, including the name badge, bars, tie, jacket, NATO pullover (all company supplied). You had to provide white shirts (2 front pockets and epaulettes) black trousers (with crease down the front) and shiny black shoes. We had to get permission from Head Office to remove the tie in hot weather. There was a strict pecking order for the number of stripes on the bars and their thickness. But then, they were paying me a salary plus bonus if I flew more than a certain amount per month.Then they went bust. Haven't worn a tie or bars since.

My old club used to give out wings with the club emblem (a Lapwing) in the middle when people got their PPL. There was only one bloke who actually sewed his on to a jacket (sniggers behind his back).
TOO

Gallery | Geoffrey Boot
There's this... He must be taking the piss though, surely?!

Jeans & wellies, remove hearing aids to wear the Icom hand-held's headset.
Summer often m/c gear sans helmet and thick gloves - if that's what I drove down in - or clapped out trainers and jeans again !

mike hallam.

Sadly no, he really does that.

G

When I owned a flight school / charter I used to take my sheltie with me in the twin , his name was Wilbur Wrong and he wore the four gold bars on his front legs as well as my airport security tag hanging off his collar, I pasted his picture over mine and re-laminated it.

Never had a problem with that set up as everyone just laughed at it.

Old Wilbur really looked the part of a pilot walking across the ramp all dressed up like a real pilot.

I've only worn them on flights through Africa. Made a big difference in ease of transit of most airports!

Never had any pretensions which would cause me to wear bars.

Must confess to having propped a few up though.

I have to confess to having most of Geoffrey Boot's attire, other than the bars. I hope that under a good coat it's not too obvious and equally fireproof.

Many moons ago a friend of mine was a relatively new hire pilot at Virgin, he was traveling home on the train sporting the whole bars and uniform outfit, as the train pulled into a station prior to his stop, a family who appeared to have just returned from a Spanish holiday proceeded to unload the kids, luggage sombreros and all the other crap they were bringing back onto the platform. They realized they had left a suitcase on board, so the mum in a panic shouted to the passengers remaining on the train to throw it off as the train was about to leave. Step up Mr. Take Charge, Super Hero pilot with bars and full pilot regalia to handle this emergency as only a guy like him could. He grabbed the case from where the others had been stored and threw it out onto the platform with seconds to spare before the doors closed. As he turned around to receive the anticipated admiring glances from the women and nods of approval from the guys an old man a few rows back said “Why have you thrown my case off the train”?

I only wear mine when flying a girl on a first date in our C172 shareoplane............. chicks love that stuff

When the CAA still had a regional office at Kidlington, a chum used to pop in to Brize now and again to do the odd instructor revalidation session on his way home.

The CAA's uniform was exactly the same as HMRC - and the flying club was right next to the Air Movements cargo hangar.....

One day my chum arrived in his CAA uniform with 4 gold bars - and the 'movers' went into a flat spin - scurrying around moving various boxes out into sheds etc. It was clear that they thought they were about to be rummaged by the Heathrow customs team.

He saw this and suggested that he'd better take his rank slides off next time. But we told him not to - the sight of him in his uniform would discourage any dubious activity amongst the movers.

Personally I think that people who have a problem about the wearing of insignia by others have more of a problem with themselves.

I sometimes fly my aeroplane to work, then get into a company aeroplane and head off on the day job. I have never lived down coming back from a week long trip, throwing everything in my own aeroplane and flying back home. Dismounting from a Condor outside the flying club dressed like a Bolivian admiral, carrying a suitcase, flight case and airline issue flasher mac brought howls of abuse from the bar. Apparently there are still photographs to be found......B:mad:s

SND

I like the bars on this clip!

Bars

There is that.

Two members of a syndicate I'm in both have "problems". One works as a flying instructor so is seen on the airfield in white shirt and bars. The other feels more comfortable in an ex-military nomex growbag.

I am a little tired of getting caught in the middle when they have stupid little spats about it.

That I don't wear bars, and sometimes but not always a Nomex suit is my personal choice: so are theirs. Why the heck these two can't calm down and just get on with the flying I have no idea.

G

Being an unmarked jeans and T-shirt pilot myself, I got my first surprise when I saw one of our very active PPLs taking his biennial checkride in a genuine-looking fighter pilot outfit - on a C-172. Unfortunately he crashed about a year later (1 serious + 3 minor injuries + 1 C-182 totalled), confirming that dressing and airmanship are unrelated things.

It's also hard to ignore the desire of a few friends of mine (low hour PPLs) to stand out from the crowd, so they wear club T-shirts and vests with personal name and "Pilot" stitched on well visible areas. Can't blame them: my wife is on the opinion that I am not a pilot (despite having a license stating that I am). For her, pilots are those guys, who wear the white shirt and the bars! :)

Or maybe it shows they are related?