Introduction
Flight scarves are the unwanted stepchildren of USAF militaria collecting. Massive webpages and series of books are devoted to unit patches. You will have little trouble researching flight helmets, flight suits, flight jackets, and survival gear. But, if you want to learn about a flight scarf, good luck! Little, if anything, appears in print about them. Furthermore, enthusiasts who can tell you if a rivet is in the wrong place on an F-111F and if a stitch is missing on an obscure unit patch can be completely bamboozled by a scarf.
Modern flight scarves are descended from the silk scarves that early aviators wore when they flew in open cockpits. Early military pilots liked them because the prevented chafing around the neck. A pilot’s head is on a swivel! During World War II and the Korean War, plain silk scarves were issued and some custom scarves were produced on a local basis, predominately in the Far East. Mass manufactured scarves began to appear in the Vietnam War era. At the same time, more complex design elements were introduced and scarves became increasingly popular items of unit pride and identity.
In 1974, Rama World, Inc., a California company, began producing custom scarves and further popularized their use in units around the world. This company produced the vast majority of modern flight scarves. Other manufacturers included Corporate Logos, Inc. (USA), OAR Products (USA), Aeroemblem (USA), Sir Christopher Hatton (USA), Designs by Anthony (USA), Flight Suits Ltd/Gibson & Barnes (USA), Aero Scarf Works (USA), Ace Novelty Company (Japan), Alec Brook (UK), Jamy Ltd (UK), Bill Brooks Squadron Supplies (UK) and Terrane Ltd (UK). There were also many unknown local manufacturers.
Flight scarves, by their very nature, were made in low quantities. A large run would be in the hundreds. For some units, as few as 25 people might have actually worn a design. Collectors could only acquire them in three ways… from the manufacturer, from current or retired unit members or from another collector. So, considering that many scarves were used and thrown away or ended up in the bottom of a box that just didn’t quite make the next move, some are quite rare indeed.
Just about every unit has had at least one scarf. Most units produced multiple designs. For the majority of scarves, identifying the unit is not difficult, it is written on the scarf. But, then there are the other ones… the ones with silhouettes of an aircraft or patterns of stars. Unless you were in the unit or have a little help, you will never accurately identify them.
Flight scarves have fallen out of fashion since the early 2000s. If you look at old pictures of, lets say, Bitburg Air Base in the 1980s, every pilot was wearing a scarf. Today you are very unlikely to see one worn. They may still be issued, but are considered “heritage” items.
So, flight scarves seem to get no respect. We thought we would change that. We have developed this website with three aims in mind: 1) to serve as a vehicle of showcasing our collections and the collections of others; 2) to elicit help in identifying scarves that we can’t identify; 3) to preserve the identity and history of USAF scarves.
Our aim is to keep it simple. We are interested in which scarf designs belonged to which units. We have arranged them by air base. Our reasoning is this method generally puts similar units together. So think in terms of the type of aircraft flown and where it was based (Wikipedia is an excellent resource). In our website the wing and associated units will be on the same page with the squadrons. We believe this is better than having the units displayed chronologically and having disparate scarves side by side.
Obviously, this is a learning process. Our information is only as good as what someone told us. This information can be spot on or somebody’s wild guess. So if you see a misidentified scarf, we would love to hear from you. If you see a typo, we will cheerfully correct it.
If you have a scarf you would like identified or wish to add to our website, send us a scan. If we don’t know what it is, we will post it and see if someone else does. And of course, we purchase scarves and donations are always accepted. Contact usafscarfcollector@gmail.com for more information. Also, feel free to post on our companion blog.
The scarves on this website are not for sale or trade. Don’t even ask! We do occasionally receive duplicate scarves from our dealings. Contact us for a trade list.
Some Cautions about Identifying ScarvesThe first rule of scarf identification is there are no rules. Most units had very logical designs that incorporated major design elements from their unit insignia and scarf colors would correspond to insignia colors or aircraft fin flash colors. For other units, there is seemingly no connection to unit colors or insignia. Complicating matters is that most scarf designs evolved over time with different designers and vendors. So, in short, anything goes!
Unknown solid color and simple pattern scarves are almost impossible to accurately identify. If it was acquired from a crew member who was at a certain airbase at a certain time, it might be possible to assume that it belonged to a particular unit. Without provenance, there is no way to know. A simple solid-colored scarf could have belonged to scores of units.
Accurate identification of some scarves can be extremely
complicated. Two scarves may look exactly alike, but have a
very minor distinguishing feature that separates a
very desirable unit from
a very
common one. Fortunately, many of the graphical designs used in
scarves were the same as were used in the unit insignia.
Check the gallery at
This website is not definitive. There were thousands of unique scarf designs produced, many of which will remain unknown or unidentified. We try our best, but the number of people who can help us is surprisingly small. This site is only intended to show the possibilities we know about.
We have also left some mystery. We are not listing the scarf dimensions, nor are we showing images in high resolution or describing the fabric type. Our intent is to show some distinguishing features that will help in identification. In many cases, there are some surprises that are not shown. No one to our knowledge has counterfeited modern flight scarves and we wish to provide as little help as possible to anyone who will.
Also, our scarves are scanned or photographed originals. Nothing has been photoshopped. While most scarves are pristine, others are faded or have folds, sweat, stains, or rips from use. Among the "used" scarves on these pages are ones that belonged to a Lieutenant General, a General, a Colonel, and two Lieutenant Colonels. Between them they were awarded several Distinguished Flying Crosses and had service in the Gulf War and Global War on Terror. One was even a Thunderbird. So, some of these scarves have actually "been somewhere."
About UsThis website is a collaborative project of David Ernstes and Leo Perez with the programming assistance of Kurt Willson.
Our ThanksForemost, we gratefully acknowledge the support and cooperation of Rama World, Inc.'s Jed Dudek, Sheri D'Ambrose, and Rachel Dudek. Besides supplying flight scarves to crews around the world, Rama World also manufactures leather and cloth name tags, patches, pen pocket tabs, bag tags, flags, and T-shirts. If you are a member of a military organization requiring any of these services, we enthusiastically recommend Rama World. Don't hesitate to give them a call.
We are also grateful to many individuals and collectors for sharing their expertise and assisting us in sourcing scarves. We give a special thank you to Ian Warner, Richard Burnett, Cameron Halbrook, and André Wilderdijk. We would also like to recognize Emil Balusek, Craig Brown, Lance Brown, Hugo De Groote, Rex Downing, Jim Flaviani, Al Fushi, Jonathan George, Richard Giglio, Jim Gunn, Peter Hall, Kevin Helm, Danny van Houttum, Alan Johnson, Hank Johnson, Mark Jones, Mark D. Jones, Russell Kowalski, Curt Lenz, David Lochiatto, John McNeil, Erwin Meier, Neil Miller, Gerry Morris, Henk Pool, Jerry Polder, Richard Romano, Christian Sabon, Rodd Steele, Steve Szulczynski, Randy Troutman, Jan-peter van Viegen, and Wes Wittkopp.
Resources Links and FriendsArcher's Online Military Patch Collection
Eagle County - F-15 Eagle information and news
F-117A: The Black Jet - An excellent resource about the F-117A
USAFpatches.com - The USAF patch collector's homepage
F-111.net Scarve's - A nice collection of USAF F-111 scarves
US Air Force Patches from RAF Lakenheath - A website with many hard to find RAF Lakenheath patches
Six Pack Sabon's Patches and Stuff - Fellow collector Christian "Six Pack" Sabon's USAF patch Facebook group
USAF Flying Training Patches - The only website in the world dedicated to preserving Flying Training and Class Patch History and a great resource for clues in identifying training class scarves.
Tex-Cen Trading Company - Military insignia business of Emil Balusek, a great patch collector and friend.
Mark D. Jones Blog: Life, Love and the Human Condition - Mark D. Jones has an extensive blog about his life. He served in the USAF and included are photos of his flight scarves. It is a valuable documentation about what it was like to be a Cold War fighter pilot posted in Europe.
Keywords
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