Which do You Prefer: Flight Cap, or Service Cap?

[Guardrail]

When wearing the blue service dress uniform, which do you prefer: flight cap, or service cap?

[SJFedor]

Depends on the uniform combo. If I'm wearing short sleeve, usually the flight cap. If I've got the service dress jacket on, I'll usually wear the service cap.

There's no option for both!!! 

[LtCol White]

Preference really kinda depends. If you wear service dress it will depend on the formality of the event. More formal should be the service cap and less formal should be the flight cap.

[MIKE]

Depends on the uniform combo. If I'm wearing short sleeve, usually the flight cap. If I've got the service dress jacket on, I'll usually wear the service cap.

He said service dress, not service uniform... Maybe that's what he should have said, but service dress is pretty specfic.

[Al Sayre]

I prefer none of the above...I'm just not a hat person.  Given a choice I would not wear either.

[davedove]

I like the looks of the service cap with the full service dress uniform.  It just gives the whole outfit more of a "uniform" sense to me.

That being said, the flight cap is much more practical.

[baronet68]

Even in the most formal of occasions, a service cap is a pain because you have to find a place to put it after you take it off of your head.  The flight cap is much easier since you can just stick it into your belt.

[Dragoon]

Personal opinion - saucer caps are for russian generals.  Or 1950s bus drivers.

[Camas]

I wore the service cap most of the time when I was in the Air Force with blues or 505's but then that was over 40 years ago when service caps were worn much more often than they are today.  I still prefer them though normally only with the service dress uniform.  If you're outside in the hot sun those flight caps are worthless.

[Eclipse]

I wore the service cap most of the time when I was in the Air Force with blues or 505's but then that was over 40 years ago when service caps were wore much more often than they are today.  I still prefer them though normally only with the service dress uniform.  If you're outside in the hot sun those flight caps are worthless.

Service Coat = Service Cap

Other times = flight cap

Unless it's raining, as I have a rain cover.

For a couple of years my encampment senior staffers wore wheel caps w/ their blues, regardless of sleeve length, etc., as the event takes place on a navy base, and the RDC's, etc., generaly all where wheel caps, and it would make it easier for them to identify the leaders.

However we stopped that last year...

[Robert Hartigan]

The service hat was not even issued when I went through USAF BMT in 1994. You are hard pressed to find a USAF officer/enlisted that owns a service hat. I know that the unit I was in had one that was "rented" if someone, enlisted or officer, needed one.

[ColonelJack]

But that was during the massive changes from the McPeak uniform, which actually eliminated headgear completely in its first draft.  I don't know if service caps are issued now during BMT, but I got mine in '75 when I was at Lackland.  Still have it, though it doesn't fit any more.  (Comments about me being a "fathead" will not be appreciated.  They'll be funny, but they won't be appreciated.)

Jack

[Robert Hartigan]

McPeak was gone when I enter BMT. If you think about it, eliminiating the service hat is a cost savings service wide.

[ColonelJack]

Sorry, I should've been more clear -- the early 90s was a time of changing again, after McPeak's changes (returning US to the lapels, epaulets to the officer coat, etc.).

I disagree completely about the service cap, though.  To me, the service cap is the most military of all headgear.  Flight (or overseas) caps are close, but for a while even the Boy Scouts wore 'em. 

Jack

[MIKE]

Beanies for everyone!    Wear it with service uniforms, and BDUs in garrison.

[davedove]

Beanies for everyone!    Wear it with service uniforms, and BDUs in garrison.

Only if they have little propellers on top.

[Hawk200]

McPeak was gone when I enter BMT. If you think about it, eliminiating the service hat is a cost savings service wide.

It may have been cost savings, but it wasn't appreciated when McPeak showed up at Nixon's funeral wearing a flight cap. It was reinstated later as "optional" headgear for most ranks.

[JohnKachenmeister]

Shirt as outergarment:  Flight Cap

Jacket as outergarment:  Service Cap

TDY:  Flight Cap.

[DNall]

The only time a service cap could be appropriate is in full service dress during a formal outside ceremony of some importance (not pass-in-review). Between that and how massively impractical, expensive, & annoying it is, I can't see owning one. I got one of the old style ones free & the hat device was in the box. Still sitting in my closet never worn. It's got a rain cover too & I got an umbrella & don't stand formation in the rain. It's nice for honor/color guard in the AF though & I wish they'd auth an enlisted device so we could use it for that purpose. Otherwise it'suseless & you look like a bus driver wearing it.

[Hawk200]

It's got a rain cover too & I got an umbrella & don't stand formation in the rain.

You carry an umbrella in uniform? Wow, DNall, that takes guts. When I was active duty, a guy wouldn't be caught dead with an umbrella.