A Flight Jacket For Every Budget

To get to the point, my recommendations are:

• If your budget is $900-$1800, check out the selections at History Preservation Associates.
• If your budget is $400, get the goatskin A-2 from US Authentic. It's the best price I've found for a decently authentic reproduction of a WWII A-2 jacket. The A-2 is the iconic flight jacket. (Here's a review of the US Authentic A-2.)
• If your budget is $100-$150, for WWII, get a US Authentic B-15, and for post WWII, get an MA-1 from US Authentic (or an Alpha Industries B-15 or MA-1 as 2nd choices).
• If your budget is $50, get a Rothco MA-1 (or Knox Armory MA-1 as a 2nd choice), which at least have some authentic features. These brands are also sold through various distributors (amazon.com, army-surplus stores, etc.). (Here is a look at the Rothco and Knox compared to the Alpha Industries MA-1.)

The following are the main flight jackets for the USAAF and USAF, with costs estimated at three levels: lowest price (not all that authentic, but at least some features of the real thing), mid range (good authenticity), and high end (greatest adherence to authenticity, often copying features of a particular historical vendor's production run, from places like Eastman Leather and Buzz Rickson's from History Preservation Associates).

Jacket	Year of introduction	Picture (click for larger)	Price Range Low, Med, High			Comments
A-2	1931		?	$400	$900+	The A-2 is the iconic flight jacket. Horsehide and goatskin are authentic; leather is not. Excellent midrange version at US Authentic.
B-10	1944		?	$250	$600	Cloth (cotton shell) jacket that replaced the A-2.
B-15	1945		?	$125	$600	Replaced the B-10. Cotton shell at the start, then nylon shell. US Authentic and Alpha Industries make good mid-range reproductions.
MA-1	~1955		$50	$100	$600	Replaced the B-15. US Authentic and Alpha Industries make good mid-range reproductions. Rothco and Knox Armory have low-cost versions (of course, less authentic and lower quality -- but $50).
CWU-45/P	1977		get mid	$130	$600	Replaced the MA-1. Still in service. Alpha Industries makes them. The mid range is nylon; the high-end (actual military version) is Nomex.

by Brooke P. Anderson
e-mail: brooke@electraforge.com

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