Club Obi Wan

In my research (obsession) on A2 flight jackets, I continually came across books by author Jon. A. Maguire. They sell his books on the Aero Leather website. I found many of his books on Amazon. The two I purchased are American Flight Jackets, and Silver Wings & Leather Jackets. I'll be getting a few more later.

Warning. The color pictures of authentic flight jackets are not a good thing for "jacket addict" Numerous pictures of the squadron patches, artwork, blood chits, etc. Plenty of text and research went into these books. Quality stuff. It has definitely helped fan the fire of getting a few accurate A2 replicas.

I have the book, Art of the Flight Jacket by John Conway and Jon Maguire. It's still in print but is upwards of $40.00. I lucked out and found an ex libris copy.

Art of the Flight Jacket is primarily about A2's and focuses a lot on the jackets of B-17 crews. What time periods do the books you mentioned cover, and are many of the pictures in color? I love the old flight jackets, especially the A2's. Good luck if you decide to purchase a repro.

If you really want to discuss old flight jackets, you ought to register for the Fedora Lounge. They have people that obsess over the historical accuracy of a repro. A2 like some of the COW members obsess over THE GAP! (or the width of the storm flap, or the side the zipper is on, or what the zipper is made of, or how deep the action pleats are, or... )

Silver Wings & Leather jackets, covers artifacts and jackets, etc. of the allied flyers from the WWII. American Flight Jackets covers jackets from WWI to Dessert Storm, but plenty of WWII A2 pictures and history.

The art of the Flight Jacket sounds like another good book. I have joined the other site but haven't had much time to dig in yet.

The best flight jacket forum I've seen is http://www.vintageleatherjackets.org/index.php.

Also, on the A-2 front, John Chapman at Good Wear has just come out with a repro of the Holy Grail of A-2s... the very first A-2 contract by Security Aviation Togs. Until now the only available repro of this jacket was made in Japan, cost something like $1500+, and was not true to period photos of the SAT contract (notably, it lacked a wind flap, which may have been accurate for SAT's civilian jackets but certainly was not for the A-2). SAT A-2s are easily identifiable by the use of buttons instead of snaps on the pockets. They are also cool as #### in period photos with the old group patches. Just amazing.

For a true A-2 or leather jacket geek, it does not get any better than this.

http://www.goodwearleather.com/pages/ne ... swear.html

If you like the art on the A2 jackets, you might want to consider giving this a try: http://www.amazon.com/Vintage-Aircraft- ... =1-1-fkmr0 It's a book on vintage nose art and has some great pictures. If you ever want to have nose art painted on the back of your jacket, this book is loaded with great images and would be a great resource. It's mostly of B 17 nose art but also has fighters as well. Most of the pics are in black and white though, as they're the original pics. Many of the planes in the book were later shot down.

I just never realized what a fan following the A2 jacket has.

I'd argue they're crazier than Indy jacket fans. At least we only have essentially 4 jacket models to work from (one from each movie) versus the many contracts for the A-2!

Not to mention all the variances within each contract/manufacturer. Then there's the cottage industry that sprung up to supply all the demand for them in the war years. I'm also finding out that many of the squadron patches, and even the division patches were never authorized and that many had them custom made in England. A perfect example is the patch for the 8th Air Force. The unauthorized patch design was more popular than the official design.