Orange Flight Suit One-O-Wonders?

[DannyBMW]

Found this at an Antique Mall in Dothan, Alabama. Knife in the pocket is Camillus. What unit would this be and what time frame was it worn?

 

[DannyBMW]

 

 

[DannyBMW]

[DannyBMW]

[doyler]

Would say this dates to the time frame the 62nd Flew the F101 Voodo.They were USAF

 

heres some history of the unit

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/62d_Fighter_Squadron

[Bob Hudson]

I seem to recall the orange flight suits were used into the early 60's and when the Vietnam War started they decided bright, bright colors were not the proper attire for bailing out over hostile territory. This stateside air defense unit got the F 101B's in 1959 and flew them until they were deactivated in 1971: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/62d_Fighter_Squadron#Air_Defense_Command

 

Cool suit...

[doyler]

Suit looks dated 1961

[Johnny Signor]

62nd Fighter Interceptor Squadron ,started in 1950 , but the suit is 1960's as stated and most likely the patches as well .

[gwb123]

Orange flight suits were worn by Fighter Interceptor Squadrons who, in theory, would be flying over friendly territory defending against intruding Soviet bombers. But over time they were phased out in favor of sage grey.

[Lee Ragan]

You guys are correct, this was used by the 62nd FIS at K.I. Sawyer AFB, Michigan in the 1960's. The purpose of the orange flight suits was for search and rescue activities as it was likely these interceptor crews would be downed in the artic regions and orange could be seen against the snow. We issued ADC F-101B crews four orange K-2B summer flight suits and two of these CWU-1 suits. They got four new replacement K-2B's every 3 months but kept the winter suits till they became unserviceable. These winter CWU flight suits were not worn all that much. Some guys wore them deer hunting!

[kammo-man]

This is really nice .

 

owen

[Randy]

60s era for sure, with the F-101B/F. This has the smaller 4" unit patch, older ones were 5". The Voodoo patch was one worn by the pilot. The backseater, normally a radar operator, would normally have a Scope Wizard patch. The Master Air Defense was held by very few crew members, maybe 1 per squadron. Orange suits were used thru the 70s, and I saw some still in use by test pilots into the 80s.

 

Randy