Hello,
These came out of a collection and were labeled as Flight Solo Wings. Its wool with a very stiff guaze back. Does anyone know what exactly they are, what they were issued for, and when? What does the number specify? THANKS!

These are class wings from the 60's - 70's time frame (maybe longer). They come with different color numbers and are numbered 1 thru 4 and I believe they were worn on ball caps. I have several with different numbers and different color numbers on them. They were not solo wings, but student pilot only insignia. I'm sure some of the Army aviator types on this forum can clairify the info I've given and possibly correct some of it.

The solo wings I wore in 1987 looked just like that, but had no numeral.

These are my solo wings from 1967. We did not have a wing with a number on it during that period. These wings were worn on our baseball caps. Each student company wore a different color hat, mine was yellow. I suspect that the different color numbers match the color of the hat worn by the student. Don't know when these numbered wings came into being but it was after 1968.

Terry

Yes, mine had the S over the shield in my class color (maroon). So the numbered wings would have been after 1968 and before 1986.

My solo wings were from 1979 and they had the S no number.

12 Mar 89 Hooper Stagefield, S then as well.

Hawkdriver, yer an RLO?

This is from 1999, a little faded from being in the sun.
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You wear that thing mowing, or did you just have that many rechecks?

I was, then about Captain, realized the errors of my ways and converted to the dark side. If it makes you feel better, being a NG aviator in a huge class of RA guys, the WO class was smaller, so to even out the classes, the class leader had to identify 12 of us to go over to the WO candidate class. Funny that there were 12 Guardsmen and 12 slots. All 12 of us went over to the WO class and had the best time, the candidates knew how to party and took us "RLO's" under their wings and taught us well. The RA guys ate themselves up with petty rivalries, comparing ceckride scores and setting up pecking orders. Glad to be in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen now!

Hahaha, close. It was a nice vibrant shade of 'burnt umber' but a summer of working stadium shows faded it out.

Glad you realized your error. Didn't it feel good to be free of all that silly command stuff? Now instead of herding the cats you are one of the cats.

Yessirree bob! I must be one of the bigger cats, they called me in today to "help" with a problem on my day off. Gonna cost them a lot for that one.

At least yours faded, mine bled through when it got wet, can barely read the solo info on the bottom of the bill.

I had the identical experience in flight school, I volunteered to go over to the WO candidate section in primary to balance things out. Mainly to get away from the Woo Poo crowd. Spent ten years as a commissioned officer in the RA then took WO IP slot in the Guard in 1989. Knowing what I know now I would have started out as a WO.

Heheheh.... so this is what I've got to look forward to?

Looks like Company Command will be next year, and after that, who knows!

I'll post some of my Army Aviator wings when i get back home. We never got fancy hats or solo wings. Just more crap from the Bravo Company cadre. If ever there was something broken in the Army, its that friggin company. 2000 people in a COMPANY?? And yet it was SO efficient

My class was split about 50/50 AC/RC and it was exactly 50/50 in the Longbow course. For you non Attack guys out there, that's the slow, mean lookin helicopter with all the armament on it. You know, the one that's a hell of a lot more maneuverable than you guys are?

Jon

The only difference between a Apache and a hoover vacuum is that the hoover keeps it's dirtbags on the inside, and opposed to Apache pilots, the hoover quits whinning when you shut it off!

Has nothing to do with hats, but couldn't let it go

Man...

You Hawk guys sure do sound like broken records. Ever get new material?
See, most gun drivers will be admittedly self deprecating on the shortcomings of our birds (hey slow the f' down!), but you start pickin on hawk aircrew and they've gotta go get a tissue to wipe their nose and you've gotta tell em to take their thumb out of their mouth!



But we love em all the same.

We seem to forget that a 47 can walk off and leave both of them behind.

Oh, and I completed the 64 transition in 2005 unfortunately had a medical retirement in 2006. Oh, well, 27 years should be long enough for anybody.

1971
Ramrod Stagefield
Mineral Wells, TX

We colored the "S" with a Magic Marker.

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Oh God, now we just need the 58 community to pipe in!

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Been there done that, I had that transition too. If you can call it a transition, two week course.

In 27 years I qualified in UH1s, CH47B, C, and D, OH58A/C and AH64As. Missed out on the CH54's by a few months.

Got my wings in July 07. Qualled on TH-67/OH-58A/C, AH-64D and AH-64A.
Current in the Alpha, looking forward to getting our new birds next year.

The best transition I ever received were my retirement orders. I do not miss it one bit.

Dooooooooh! Butter-bar!

LOL... sounds familiar.

You guys haven't lived until you've flown an OH-13 with a M-60 mounted on the skid at 60 knots doing perimeter patrol, looking for VC rocket launchers around the base camp at night. Now that was a kick in the butt!

Would an OH-13 with a spray boom count while the pilot clips a fence post doing return to targets?

Close, but did the fence post shoot back? I've watched a crop duster doing his thing in a OH-13 a couple years ago. Huge gonads I must say. I must admit my hats off to all the gallant men and now women that pilot helicopters, especially those flying in the middle east these days. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I managed to acquire a little over 1500 combat hours in UH-1C"s and AH-1G"s and only got shot down 7 times. It wasn't much of a war but it was the only one we had at the time.

From the looks of the bottom of the 13, it did look like the post shot back.
I ammassed 500 hours on my last run in Iraq, didn't take a single bullet, they are some of the worst shots I have ever seen. Our last Vietnam era pilot just retired, I can tell you that I would rather fly Iraq than what he and you went through in Vietnam. My hat is off to anyone shot down seven times and is still talking about it.

I was somewhat lucky, most of the shoot downs were due to bullet damage to the aircraft and not the crew. Only got personally hit four different times, the last was almost a killer when I took a round through the chin and arm and broke my back in the crash, an RPG took out one of my pitch change links and brought us down like a rock, that one got my attention. But we wern't facing surface to air missles like you guys, the biggest thing we encountered were 57mm and 37mm during Lam Son 719 and lucky for us our 20mm had better range than their 37mm so we could stand off and lay waste to them when they would fire at us.

Amazing stories!

We didn't have much of a missile threat, the SA-7s they had were so detriorated that the seeker heads wouldn't cool properly and most of the time would malfunction, good news for us. The worst threat was the RPGs, every once in awhile, they would get a lucky shot. We had an aircraft take a RPG in the transition section in our sister Bn from about 30 yards, lucky shot, but everyone died. Made the news and our tactics changed from that. Had one aircraft take a single .30 cal in the transmission, just a lucky shot and it caused the aircraft to go down, another took 12.5 in the tail and took half of one tail rotor paddle off, that was lucky that it didn't do worse. The rest were all holes through the rotor blades or tail boom.
Always wondered what I would do if I ever got shot at, fear, anxious, what. The first time I ever saw tracers coming at me, it was anger, "who the hell are you to be shooting at me!" Was shot at a total of five times, not a single bullet hole. Because of no holes, no CAB, but I guess that is luck.