Uniform Stripes

[Capt. Crosswind]

BA Braid

Thanks for the info Firestorm - so it's really platinum ?

Try giving an Olympic athlete a platinum medal !!

BA should know that Gold= First Silver=Second Bronze=Third
Good Guys wear White Hats Bad Guys wear Black Hats
Arch Villians wear Black Hats & have a pencil thin moustache.

Impressions are made in the first ten seconds.

[aviatorpk]

star

I wear four stripes and a star

[Capt. Crosswind]

Braid & Rank

aviatopk, that reminds me of a system proposed many years ago in an attempt to make the sytem mean something.
The addition of a star was to be reserved for Capts & F/O's flying on International Ops, specifically trans oceanic. In those days
many pilots on these ops were Nav qualified,which probably is the origin of the star.

[OldbutWise]

Thanks to everyone who replied regarding the above topic. I think BlueEagle's reply just about sums it up.

As for Capt Waffoo, I think his response is just a little OTT. The CFI at my local flying club is a very serious and experienced CFI. I think for all the effort he puts into flying training etc., he deserves his four stripes.

As for me, I only wear my uniform with five stripes when I'm at home with the 'other half' - she just happens to like men in uniform!!!! - But thats another topic altogether.

Thanks again.

[Tinker]

In addition to what has already been mentioned my old trainning school required PPL-CPL students to wear one stripe and the IR students to wear two. I refused to wear them after all what had I done to earn any form of rank except parted with loads of cash.

I also noticed the other day that at least one airlines operations personel wear one stripe.

Unfortunately their over use has somewhat devalued them. Rest assured that if the captain forgot them one day(highly unlikely), the aircraft will still fly just as well, any way s/he will still have the scrambled egg on his/her hat

[Cheshire cat EGHH]

Depends where you are.

A Airline uses...

4 bars = Captin
3 Bars = Senior First officer
2 Bars = First officer

A flying school may use...

4 Bars = Senior pilot (of some type like examiner or head pilot)
3 Bars = Commercial (in a flying school that does com. training)
2 Bars = Qualifed Flying Instructor
1 Bar = Commercial student pilot.

Also "un-qualifed" aviation workers use them to (this gets confusing)..

Airlines use bars to signify

*Operations Officers = thin(1inch) gold stripe
*Operations Assistant= thin gold stripe
*Operations Junior Assistant= thin(0.5inch) gold stripe
*Crewing officers =thin gold stripe
*Crewing Assistant=thin gold stripe

and also engineers wear em to!!

Not sure on the roles each one plays
But they are generally silver and vary between 2inch-1inch.

And the army use em to... Omeegawd,, I am not getting into that one!

[Ludwig]

Oh dear oh dear. This gold and scrambled egg issue is clearly very important to some. Has anyone noticed that Tin pot dictators and despots usually award themselves big uniforms with lots of gold braid and peaked caps

[KingoftheRoad]

Don't ya just luv the guys who wear their 4 bars on raincoat eppies. Plonkers.

Then there are the ex 4bars,now sporting 3, always wearing a woolley, even when it's 32C. Know what I mean ?

[El Desperado]

We've recently had a memo telling us that the company would prefer us not to wear the 'company-issued' raincoats (!), but if we really must honestly-to-god-no-it's-pretty-horrible-out-there have to wear them, then the stripes go on.

I didn't make the rules

[silverknapper]

Reminds me of the FI who had "captain *** *****" on his cheque book and credit cards.
Must say people do stare a bit when they see gold bars in the pub!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Amelia_Flashtart]

This topic set me off on a mission of sorts. Have just spent the last 15 minutes going through the bedroom drawers and have found 4 sets of eppies belong to the significant other half which he has gathered over the last 15 years with different airlines. In all cases he has been a captain on the same aircraft type.

One set is silver/platinum/pewter/tin/palladium - who knows but silver in colour and the other three are gold. They have the following stripes:
three wide gold
two wide gold with a thin gold between
three wide gold with a thin gold at the top
four wide silver (on a rather tacky sort of teal blue fabric - must have been the now defunt budget carrier in the US he worked for by the look of them)

And he currently has four wide gold with his current employer.

The airlines concerned have been in the US, Asia and Australia so not sure if there is any significance in that

Must admit this topic did make me stop and think!!! Must be bored...........

[lunkenheimer]

I wonder if the change in fashion of the stripe colours parallels the 'Gold Mastercard->Platinum Mastercard->Titanium Mastercard' evolution?;