AFE now actually sell 5 bars.

Bars are in my view are aload of crap on the light aircraft scene.

If your working at a flying school and need to rely on bars to stamp your authority on the punters your in the wrong game.

As for turning up at a strange airfield with a student in the LHS I have never yet been confused with a pax. If you look confident and carry yourself shoulders back and look the part everyone presumes your the PIC what ever your wearing. I have even tried to sneak off when the security gimp was waiting to moan at something in causal dress thet fecker always walks up to me.

MJ

WWW - 4 bars now obligatory for instructors here.

When I was flying my ickle 152 out in the States I would fly into some right pokey little dogholes on x-country flights. I would occasionally see these FTO students and their instructors with gold bars on their shoulders, ray bans across their dial and that air of pompous coolness that would suggest they fly a Lear or something equally as "arousing".

Then I would step outa my ickle 152, trapse across the apron with tatty shorts and t-shirt and a rather nasty looking mexican moustache. My shoulders would not be held back and my step sure as !!!! weren't springy..... but then it didn't need to be.

The issue here is what role I was in at the time and whether I had to look the part. I didn't need to look the part but the FTO chaps did as they were from an organisation whose purpose is to make money and maintain a reputation.

I would hazard a guess that they were as much against gold bars, shirts and ties as most posting here including myself but thems the rules and like alot of things when training one just has to lap it up and gulp it down.

VFE.

I like sewing gold bars on my underpants, that way, I can wear them where ever i like, and no one will be able to laugh at me.

Oops, sorry! Got onto this thread thinking it would be about drinking holes...

Haha

After work I was shopping in Sommerfield with my Uniform and Airport security pass still on.

A security guard asks me if I worked at the Airport as a security guard? I obviousley do not look like much like a pilot.

Take those bars and security passes of when you leave work unless you whant to look like a total prat.