Design a new CAP-distinctive Uniform

[jimmydeanno]

Using Air Force components doesn't say "That guy is in the Air Force"? I don't see the logic.

It's distinctive enough that the two people standing next to each other wouldn't be confused for being in the same organization.  That was my point.  The same colors and jacket design would imply a relationship, which is another point.

Second, people would have to buy an enlisted coat. If they already have an officer one, then they are now spending money on another one, and losing the use of an existing one.

Negative.  Removing the epaulets from the officer coat makes it an enlisted one.  Minimal cost in alteration.  My tailor told me he'd do it for a whopping $12.00.

The Air Force uses the white shirt for enlisted members as a semi-formal uniform. Hence the basic uniform concept is already in use.

This is where the nametag, sleeve braids and CAP emblem come in.  Distinctive enough...

We have one organization, not two. We may have different status' on missions, but we're still one entity. Corporatizing is part of our problem.

Adding ribbons doesn't alter the fact that it does look airline. Having a set of wings adds to the concept. It's the Civil Air Patrol, not the Civil Airline Patrol.

We have two faces of our one organization that have been separated over the years, even more so in our uniform types.  We have a distinctive "AF Style" uniform and a distinctive "Corporate" uniform.  We have Air Force missions and we have corporate missions.  We have "AF Funding" and we have "Corporate funding" - so really, we operate as though we are two separate organizations.  Having a single uniform that incorporates both sides, I think, is a good thing.

Also, I don't think "corporatizing" is our problem, if anything being too "Air Force" is our problem.  It put us in a situation where we expect to be handed money every year, completely ignoring our fiduciary responsibility to keep our organization fiscally sound.  If we have a $5 million drop in appropriated funds, we need to start scraping the bottom of the barrel for money to do anything.  If anything, we need to start acting like a corporation that depends on a non-steady revenue stream and look for alternate funding options to pad our bank account enough so we don't go bankrupt.  But, that's a whole other topic all together.

You're seeing an increase of corporate missions, etc, which is good, IMO.  But again, two different sides of our corporation trying to play nicely together.  But right now, you can see a visible differentiation.

But as you said, we are the Civil Air Patrol, not the Air Force Air Patrol.

The sleeve insignia is more expensive, no "might" about it. It was also one of the reasons that the concept was not adopted by the Air Force. As to the specific cost, I don't know it, but someone here does, they'll chime in.

I had to pay $100.00 for my soccer uniform to play adult indoor coed soccer for 6 months.  My brother-in-law had to spend $240.00 putting his daughters into brownie uniforms that they'll grow out of in the next year.  Sometimes, things are just part of playing the game. 

My wife just spent $500.00 on her new AF Mess Dress and another $600.00 for the other uniforms.  I don't think that ~$30.00-$50.00 (considering the number of lifetime Captains we have...) is all that unreasonable.

Additionally, I highly doubt that there are tailors local to every CAP unit that would know how to properly sew them. A lot of them don't get the single sleeve braid we have on our coats right. I had to hand sew mine myself (which took a lot of time) because the cleaners on base didn't get it right.

The great thing about that is if they do it wrong, you don't have to pay for them to fix it.  Give them a picture, show them where you want it, it'll be fine.  People aren't as dumb as they may appear...

As to the coat, it will cost to replace the one you have. That's an expenditure. It's not cheaper to replace something you already have with something else.

Again, I wouldn't have to replace it.  It would cost me $12.00 to convert it.  I'm pretty handy with the sewing machine (I do all my own BDUs and such), I could probably do all my own alteration work for free...including the sewing of the sleeve braids...

Sleeve stripes were a non-starter for the Air Force. With coats, people felt that it looked like a Coast Guard style; with the stripes on epaulet sleeves, people were thought to be old USAFA cadets. I was active AF when McPeak changed it, I heard these thoughts expressed many times over first hand.

So the Air Force didn't want to wear them.  We aren't the Air Force, and apparently they don't want us to look identical to them anyway.   Police departments use sleeve braids, fire departments use sleeve braids, the Navy uses sleeve braids, the Coast Guard uses sleeve braids, airlines use sleeve braids, a lot of European countries use sleeve braids, and on, and on...insignia on the shoulder for the AF uniform is an Army tradition anyway...

It didn't work then, it doesn't work now just because a few years have gone by.

...for the Air Force...

The concept is still the Air Force's. It doesn't become public domain because someone feels like using it. It's also not original.

If you're going to design something new, then make it something new, not something taken from Air Force history. A lot of these designs in this thread are either using variants of Air Force uniforms, police uniforms, or suggesting something based on science fiction (I'll accept that those are mostly tongue in cheek, but with some you never know).

The CSU was actually uniform in design and components.

It wasn't all that original either.  It used the white shirt (which is in the design above), it used AF style pants (in the design above), it used the AF flight cap (in the design above), it used the belt (in the design above), it used the shoes (in the design above), it used the tie (in the design above) and it used the jacked, only made it double-breasted.

It appears to me that the contention was the way we displayed our rank.  So, if you're going to have a uniform that is "almost" an Air Force uniform and switch it to grey sleeves so it's "almost" the Air Force style uniform we wear now, why not merge the two and change the thing causing the contention - the way we wear our rank on it.  Which is what is accomplished above.

Then again, it's doubtful many or even any of the suggestions presented here would ever be adopted. I imagine that the Air Force would accept small but noteable changes, not drastic ones.

Very true, but you never know.  But the first step in developing a new uniform for everyone would be to get the Air Force to buy into it so that later down the road we didn't get the TPU fiasco again...

[BuckeyeDEJ]

There could even be a 5th combination to replace the mess dress:  Bow tie, no name tag, and miniature medals.

I think there might be a public health problem with just wearing a bow tie to a dining function. Pants, shirts and shoes might be a good idea.



Really, though, this is a dead horse. Consolidate the blazer and "white and grays" and there should be a sufficient scheme of parallel uniforms to the Air Force combinations.

[Smithsonia]

I can't believe that there is a member in all of CAP that would purposely want to offend any Air Force Officer.
Wearing the Air Force Uniform is a privilege. Sometimes taken to the extreme by those that are a little (lot) (very) over weight, but there are many of those in the Air Force too. Why do you suppose they sell 44 Short Air Force Dress Slacks at the BX near me... that however is not my point.

The Air Force should come to a definitive stance on what is TOO CLOSE TO THEIR UNIFORM and therefore offensive to them... and what is not. Just put it to them straight up. Then once we have an answer we should be cleared to avoid the pitfalls and make a uniform to our liking. Of course they passed approval on the CSU then seemingly withdrew approval. However, this time we've conducted ourselves with respect to the Air Force. If it ever happens again then we are servile suck ups.

If we point out that our own uniform (new CSU) will lead to fewer of our members wearing the Air Force Dress Blues and causing offense then I am sure the Air Force can be pacified in this case. Which it seems to me was the reason for the CSU versus the Sport Coat combo last time.

[kd8gua]

Really, though, this is a dead horse. Consolidate the blazer and "white and grays" and there should be a sufficient scheme of parallel uniforms to the Air Force combinations.

The only problem with that is Blazer is a seperate uniform to Gray and White. It isn't "Gray/White with dress blazer." As such it has a whole seperate section (albeit small) in the 39-1. Not to mention the subtle changes in text in regards to the pants. In the blazer section it specifies dress-style gray pants (ie. no demin type materials) whereas the Gray/White section does not get as specific about the style of gray pants.

On the hat, please no army scrambled eggs.  Use clouds, lightning bolts, and arrows.  Or we could just get rid of the darned thing - just have a single flight cap (also grey) for males and females, like the AF does.  Certainly no silver chin strap.  It just runs the price up (once again more army than AF.)

The female uniforms look like the navy female uniform cut.  Unless a woman has the figure of someone who runs 10 miles a week, it's not going to be very flattering.  The men's longer coat will hide a man's "full figure". (On me the problems are I'm two axe-handles wide).  Do they have anything that's longer and not so form-fitting for our women members?

As far as service caps, Pershing caps, or however you name them, in a mass produced market, the "Farts and Darts" is not readily available, and that's what I took into consideration when choosing "Scrambled Eggs". The two most mass produced cap visors, aside from blank, are "Scrambled Eggs," and something I'm just going to call "flaming bugles," used on Fire Dept caps. The silver chin strap comes standard on a lot of these style caps. Oddly enough, at the end of the day, whether the hat is a black Delta Airlines hat, a USAF blue hat, or a navy blue police hat, the prices are all the same: between $40 and $50 for a standard cap, and typically $20 more for the embroidered visor, often with the silver strap thrown in.

It also appears to me that the public safety uniform manufacturers do not take into consideration that not all women have the same measurements, and as such tighter fitting uniform styles like the one I posted do not look right on every woman. The simplest solution I've seen is that the men's coat I posted is available in less form fitting unisex styles too. I haven't seen too many pages with prices, but, if a company is mass producing basic S,M,L,XL, etc with the associated Short, Reg, and Long sleeve lengths, the price should be considerably lower. It's like going to The Men's Warehouse and getting fitted for a blazer and spending oodles of money, or going to Wal Mart and buying the Large:Long blazer for $50. At the end of the day, both coats achieved the same purpose. Sure one may not have "hung to all the curves" just right, but it still gave the wearer a professional appearance.

As far as the sleeve rank proposal goes: The USAF wouldn't approve of it because of what I could almost consider "inappropriate" use of their uniform. We would be starting with USAF NCO jackets and adding silver bands of varying widths to emulate a Navy-like rank insignia system. The USAF already canned this idea for themselves, so I don't know why they would allow CAP to use it on a USAF style uniform.

The only way sleeve stripes could at all possibly work is if Vanguard started making USAF NCO-style Blazers (which, the NCO coat already does look 99% like a blazer) with CAP buttons, in a non USAF shade of blue (therefore not having to contain the DoD Certification label) with the same shade of trousers. Personally I still think one could get away with a unified shade of gray for pants and blue for the coat - whether my own proposal for a coat or the sleeve stripe style. At this point, you have what amounts to a blazer with prop buttons. Now you can go hog-wild and put ribbons, badges, nameplates and all that good stuff on it.

The hard part is the sleeve stripes. First, most alteration shops are not going to carry the correct silver braid. So this would amount to either the individuals having to buy their own braid, at roughly $4.00 a yard for silver 1/4" and 1/2" braid, or squadrons, wings, etc. having to buy industrial size rolls to dispense to individual members as they promote. Then for each promotion, more braid needs to be purchased. Now, I don't have any abilities with a sewing machine, all of my BDU patches are hand sewn, but I have tried sewing braid to sleeves before by hand, and it's extremely difficult, especially if you're not opening the sleeve seams to wrap the braid under. So, for each promotion, you're looking at $4.00 for braid and probably around $20.00 for a tailor/seamstress.

The current CAP epaulets are just under $8.00. One thing that is being left out about sleeve stripes on the coat, what sort of insignia is going to be worn on the white shirt? Almost universally epaulets are worn for officers on their shirts under their uniform coats. This means that not only would members have to invest in custom tailoring for their coat, they still need to buy the gray slides for shirts because I'm not too sure Capt. Kangaroo (bad joke, I know) is going to want to parade around in a long sleeve dark color coat in the middle of summer just so he is properly wearing rank insignia. With the current setup on the Blues, anyone wearing the service coat, who only has, say, one pair of slides (on the aforementioned coat they are wearing) and who feels it too warm, too formal, etc. to wear the service coat, can remove said slides from the coat and place them on the shirt in 2 minutes tops. This saves members who are short on cash the cost of extra slides that will eventually no longer be necessary.

In the end, I think sleeve stripes are a little too much hassle and cost to be affective. The CAP slides have their purpose, whether they are gray which matches a Gray/White combo just fine, blue, which would look better on USAF style uniforms, or Maroon... Okay, well... the Berry Boards really had no purpose, but that's another story.

[The CyBorg is destroyed]

I can't believe that there is a member in all of CAP that would purposely want to offend any Air Force Officer.
Wearing the Air Force Uniform is a privilege. Sometimes taken to the extreme by those that are a little (lot) (very) over weight, but there are many of those in the Air Force too. Why do you suppose they sell 44 Short Air Force Dress Slacks at the BX near me... that however is not my point.

The Air Force should come to a definitive stance on what is TOO CLOSE TO THEIR UNIFORM and therefore offensive to them... and what is not. Just put it to them straight up. Then once we have an answer we should be cleared to avoid the pitfalls and make a uniform to our liking. Of course they passed approval on the CSU then seemingly withdrew approval. However, this time we've conducted ourselves with respect to the Air Force. If it ever happens again then we are servile suck ups.

If we point out that our own uniform (new CSU) will lead to fewer of our members wearing the Air Force Dress Blues and causing offense then I am sure the Air Force can be pacified in this case. Which it seems to me was the reason for the CSU versus the Sport Coat combo last time.

What you say makes sense.  I've seen AF SNCO's who are clearly out of CAP's weight limits, not to mention the AF's, but again that's another matter.

I don't want to purposely offend anyone in the AF either, but right now I'm unsure as to what, uniform-wise, wouldn't offend them.  And, to be honest, when the CSU first came out, I saw the blue epaulettes, hard rank and (then) U.S. collar brass and thought "uh-oh."

This may sound callous and I don't mean it to, but with a lot of these designs being put forth, there are no Air Force components being used, unlike the CSU, which did.  With that being the case, then how can they actually squelch any CAP-distinctive which uses no AF components whatsoever?

Maybe I'm misinformed, but they have no copyright on every shade of blue in the book, nor on hard rank, which, as has been pointed out, is used by a lot of police and fire services, as well as the Customs and Border Protection Service.  When I pull into US Customs from Canada I see shoulder brass that looks like warrant officers, majors and lieutenant colonels, but they're not (I asked).

As long as there is no violation of U.S.C., Stolen Valor, state laws about impersonating law enforcement (which can all be checked by CAP's legal beagles), what would be the obstacles in place, as long as it is clear to all that it is a CAP uniform?

Also: how did grey come into the picture to begin with?  I first joined CAP in '93, and it obviously pre-dates me, but I see nothing in CAP's uniform history to establish grey.  I'm not trying to be a smart Alec; I'm just asking.

[Smithsonia]

Another thing that seems goofy about this is the Air Force (or CAP take your choice) wanted our uniforms simplified. SEE HERE: http://www.uniforms-4u.com/c-air-force-uniforms-1077.aspx

The Air Force has 17 combinations on their dress uniform guide. And this doesn't include duty uniforms, flight suits, specialty uniforms, or configurations for tropical wear, sweaters, etc. Those are just the straight from the gate dress uniforms. Our uniform choices are far less.

I am not arguing for more choices just pointing out the paradox.

ALSO - Be aware that Gray (as in a full gray dress uniform) is usually not an American uniform. I would imagine that is a reaction to the Confederate States Grays followed by the Gray German uniforms of WW1 and WW2. Gray has never been a generally accepted American military uniform in the last 150 years except at West Point, at least that I can find in a quick search. Now that the Army has abandoned greens -- greens are now available and greens and khakis were our first uniform during WW2. But I am not arguing for that just giving another option. 

[BuckeyeDEJ]

Easy answer: Take the uniform decisions out of CAP's hands and let the Air Force Uniform Board and the Air Force Uniform Office at Wright-Patt run it all.

How do you like that?

[BuckeyeDEJ]

Be aware that Gray (as in a full gray dress uniform) is usually not an American uniform. I would imagine that is a reaction to the Confederate States Grays followed by the Gray German uniforms of WW1 and WW2. Gray has never been a generally accepted American military uniform in the last 150 years except at West Point, at least that I can find in a quick search. Now that the Army has abandoned greens -- greens are now available and greens and khakis were our first uniform during WW2. But I am not arguing for that just giving another option.

The blazer combination is actually the IACE "uniform," if I remember correctly. So that's why we have it as it is. The white-and-gray appears to be an offshoot of the blazer combination. So there's why we have the gray.

Green, however, isn't a color generally associated with aviation. The ground is green.

[ol'fido]

 Mostly been staying out of this one. Kinda been watching where the thread was going. I think we have a lot of good ideas out there to replace the CSU and/or the grays/whites. Why and how the CSU went or is going away is irrelevant. It's going away. Let's move on.

I still like the idea of the old khaki uniforms myself. We could get supplies from the same outfit that is supplying the Navy. I don't see the fact that they are wearing it should deter us. The shirts might need to be altered depending on whether we wanted collar rank insignia or to stick to the shoulder slides. Although, if we went that direction I would change the slides and nametags to blue. Continue to use the AF flight and service caps as well as ties and various other accessories. The black leather flight jacket would look good with this combination as well as the blue nylon AF jacket. With the khaki uniform as the base, the AF shlouldn't have a herd of small farm animals about the use of these items.

I would keep the BBDUs and the Navy flight suit/utility uniform.

The golf shirt would also be retained and worn with the tan uniform trousers or civilian khakis or BDU/5.11 type trousers.

I like the idea of a uniform that looks like a uniform and the grays and whites/ blazer doesn't do that although that's what I'm wearing this weekend for CLC.

[The CyBorg is destroyed]

olefido: My guess is that it would probably be best to use NO USAF items for a CAP distinctive uniform.

For a flight cap, I would go with tan with dark blue piping.

Tan jacket with blue CAP distinctive rank slides.

[Hawk200]

It's distinctive enough that the two people standing next to each other wouldn't be confused for being in the same organization.  That was my point.  The same colors and jacket design would imply a relationship, which is another point.

I maybe misunderstanding this, but it seems that you want the appearance of association, but enough separation to claim independance. Essentially, the ability to thumb a nose at the Air Force and say "This isn't your uniform, we'll do what we want."

Removing the epaulets from the officer coat makes it an enlisted one.  Minimal cost in alteration.  My tailor told me he'd do it for a whopping $12.00.

Still requiring a modification, and an outlay. Just because it can be done, doesn't mean it should. Even if it is only 12 bucks.

This is where the nametag, sleeve braids and CAP emblem come in.  Distinctive enough...

No, it's not. Claiming it is doesn't make it so. The Air Force made it clear what differences are required for CAP to wear their uniform. We do not have the authority to go modifying their uniform, and then claiming "Oh, it's distinctive enough." It's not our place, and that's the same thing HWSRN did, and created all kinds of hassles. We are not an autonomous organization, we need to stop trying to act, or even think like one.

We have two faces of our one organization that have been separated over the years, even more so in our uniform types.  We have a distinctive "AF Style" uniform and a distinctive "Corporate" uniform.  We have Air Force missions and we have corporate missions.  We have "AF Funding" and we have "Corporate funding" - so really, we operate as though we are two separate organizations.  Having a single uniform that incorporates both sides, I think, is a good thing.

We have different pots of money and different rules for different things, that doesn't make us two separate organizations. There is plenty of precedent in the military; a pot of money for airplane parts, another for toilet paper. It doesn't give separate faces to them.

Right now, there is no requirement to be in a corporate uniform for corporate missions, or to be in an Air Force variant for Air Force missions. If there ever is, then we will be a truly schizophrenic entity.

The only way to resolve that problem is either elimination of Air Force missions, or to eliminate corporate ones. If we're to be performing both there will always be two sets of rules.

Also, I don't think "corporatizing" is our problem, if anything being too "Air Force" is our problem.  It put us in a situation where we expect to be handed money every year, completely ignoring our fiduciary responsibility to keep our organization fiscally sound.  If we have a $5 million drop in appropriated funds, we need to start scraping the bottom of the barrel for money to do anything.  If anything, we need to start acting like a corporation that depends on a non-steady revenue stream and look for alternate funding options to pad our bank account enough so we don't go bankrupt.  But, that's a whole other topic all together.

Being an Air Force Auxiliary doesn't preclude us from doing missions for compensation. It also doesn't exclude units and wings from doing their own fundraisers. We do that now, and have been since I joined in '94, well before the corporate stuff came in.

You're seeing an increase of corporate missions, etc, which is good, IMO.  But again, two different sides of our corporation trying to play nicely together.  But right now, you can see a visible differentiation.

Two sets of rules will always exist with the different kinds of missions. We don't have different "sides", the same chain of command is in effect whether the mission is corporate or military. We still have National HQ, Regions, Wings, Groups and Squadrons.

But as you said, we are the Civil Air Patrol, not the Air Force Air Patrol.

Not what I said at all. Your statement is an outright lie.

I had to pay $100.00 for my soccer uniform to play adult indoor coed soccer for 6 months.  My brother-in-law had to spend $240.00 putting his daughters into brownie uniforms that they'll grow out of in the next year.  Sometimes, things are just part of playing the game.

Your soccer league and your BIL's daughter Brownie uniforms are completely irrelevant to the situation. I'm not forcing you into those acqusitions, nor am I altering those uniforms requiring you to make additional purchases.

You are however advocating a change that would require me to do so.

My wife just spent $500.00 on her new AF Mess Dress and another $600.00 for the other uniforms.  I don't think that ~$30.00-$50.00 (considering the number of lifetime Captains we have...) is all that unreasonable.

Again, just as irrelevant as soccer and Brownie uniforms. Unless your wife is an officer, that's not even a required uniform.

To you, $30 to $50 isn't unreasonable. The thing is you're not the measuring stick for CAP in general. You have to account for everyone that the change affects.

Besides, we just eliminated a uniform. How do you think another is gonna go over? Both to the Air Force, and the members.

[Hawk200]

The great thing about that is if they do it wrong, you don't have to pay for them to fix it. Give them a picture, show them where you want it, it'll be fine. 

I didn't pay them to fix it, I took it home and did it myself. They had a few pictures, done from different angles, and instructions. And still did it wrong.

Again, I wouldn't have to replace it.  It would cost me $12.00 to convert it.  I'm pretty handy with the sewing machine (I do all my own BDUs and such), I could probably do all my own alteration work for free...including the sewing of the sleeve braids...

That works out well for you, but not everyone has the abilities. I've done all my stuff by hand since I can't really get the hang of a sewing machine. It turns out well because many people don't believe I did it by hand. But neither you nor I can expect others to do the same thing.

So the Air Force didn't want to wear them.  We aren't the Air Force, and apparently they don't want us to look identical to them anyway.   Police departments use sleeve braids, fire departments use sleeve braids, the Navy uses sleeve braids, the Coast Guard uses sleeve braids, airlines use sleeve braids, a lot of European countries use sleeve braids, and on, and on...insignia on the shoulder for the AF uniform is an Army tradition anyway...

So you want to jump on the traditions of police, fire, Navy, Coast Guard, airlines, and a lot of European countries instead? That's simply trading one tradition for another. Still nothing original. But the desire to avoid the Air Force way is telling.

...for the Air Force...

Once again, the nose thumbing (or the appearance of it) at the Air Force.

It wasn't all that original either.  It used the white shirt (...), it used AF style pants (...), it used the AF flight cap (...), it used the belt (...), it used the shoes (in the design above), it used the tie (...) and it used the jacked, only made it double-breasted.

It appears to me that the contention was the way we displayed our rank.  So, if you're going to have a uniform that is "almost" an Air Force uniform and switch it to grey sleeves so it's "almost" the Air Force style uniform we wear now, why not merge the two and change the thing causing the contention - the way we wear our rank on it.  Which is what is accomplished above.

True on the CSU, but I'm fairly convinced that it was how it was "revealed" that was the issue, and not wholly the rank. First worn to an Armed Services Committee hearing when no one ever knew anything about it. I

It was like a child being told not to do something, and doing something slightly different that was technically not forbidden, but was still within the spirit of the original admonition. Hard rank on the service coat was denied, so a new service coat was created that had it; but it was a "corporate" coat, so the Air Force didn't have a "say" in it.

Considering the CSU used so many AF components, and allegedly drew the Air Force's ire, why do you think this concept won't do the same?  Sleeve rank and a white shirt are even more minor than the CSU, and presents a design even closer to the AF standard uniform.

As the the gray slides, they were obviously approved by the AF. Otherwise, we would have had yet another uniform fiasco.

But the first step in developing a new uniform for everyone would be to get the Air Force to buy into it so that later down the road we didn't get the TPU fiasco again...

I think the first step would be to try to repair some ties with the Air Force, and quit trying to blow them off or separate ourselves from them. All of our dark times in history are a direct result of doing so. We all know those times. Everthing was a backlash to something stupid that CAP members did. Trying to design a new uniform is a very obvious example of this.

[Hawk200]

The Air Force has 17 combinations on their dress uniform guide.

How are you seeing 17 combinations?

[flyerthom]

Why add another uniform or change from what exists?  The grey/white combination looks smart.  All that should be done is find a shade of grey that works best and make that uniform.

Add a gray jacket cut in the same style as the blue service jacket and use the gray slides and it's done. simple easy and quickly.

[billford1]

I'll be glad if we just stay with what we've got and forgo another uniform mess. The CSU looked nice for those who were eligible and could afford it. I've identified with the looking like a team mindset but I hope we don't end up with a gray uniform that will make us look like Bus Drivers. I'd say stay with the AF uniforms and make sure that no cadets are affected by the by the gray uniforms we wear that look dysfunctional. I just work to get the best looking dress gray slacks I can get my hands on. They may be the wrong shade but they look good.

[PhotogPilot]

More on Silver-Tans
http://usafflagranks.com/usaf_summer_service_dress_coat.html

Note the reference to fit guidelines for "waist 36 and up and portly sizes"

Just some historical reference to the discussion

We might as well set the Wayback Machine for 1965, our Smurf Blue nametape came from that era.

Just some historical reference to the discussion
http://www.scribd.com/doc/1420657/US-Air-Force-History20of20USAF20Uniforms

[dogboy]

It's very obvious that yours is the only sensible proposal. Let's review the issues:

1. uniform is needed for those who do not meet weight standards (and perhaps grooming standards.

2. uniform has to be more dressy than the current white aviator shirt/ gray slacks combination and more military than the polo shirt or blazer uniforms. In short, the uniform must have a dress jacket.

3. uniform must not resemble air force blue uniform too closely.

4. uniform must be readily available and affordable.

These requirements make ideas of reviving "silver-tans" or obsolete uniforms impossible. They are produced only as expensive reproductions.

In contrast the Fechheimer 38800 is a distinctive color (LAPD blue is almost black). Readily available and relatively inexpensive (about $140). The minor changes required (regular epaulets, no badge tab, CAP or Hap Arnold buttons could be member-done or perhaps the manufacturer would do it. Obviously, gray epaulet slides are the appropriate grade insignia, to match those wearing Air Force style uniforms.

[Gunner C]

Why is that "obvious"?

[The CyBorg is destroyed]

Why is that "obvious"?

I would not necessarily use the term "obvious," but I think what PhotogPilot is trying to do in the supporting statements to the argument is the following:

Cost considerations
Trying not to PO the Air Force
Using extant grey rank slides

All of these have merit; however, I don't think that hard rank should be ruled out for a uniform that is clearly not an Air Force uniform.  Again I refer to where I have said that the system of bars, leaves, eagles and stars are not proprietary to the AF.

Having said that, I believe a CAP-distinctive uniform should not use any Air Force items, which is where I believe the CSU got in trouble, especially given that the originator of that uniform design apparently (?) showed up at a function wearing it with no prior notification.

[chadderby]

Here is the new CAP Distinctive Uniform
http://www.angelfire.com/nd/bluebanana/CAPUniform.jpg