Pair of HAU-7/P, late '60s Flight Gloves

[BlueBookGuy]

Hello all,

 

I'm posting here a pair Flight Gloves pattern HAU-7/P, much often seen in videos and photos being worn by USAF and US Army flight personnel in late '60s - also but not only, in SEA conflict. Hope the fellow collectors will find them interesting.

No excessive infos around, in my opinion, about these interesting gloves. Their pattern will be followed by the GS-FRP fire-resistant gloves about 1969-70, the universally adopted ones by US and NATO forces (not just Aviation) through the last 45 years.

 

Thin leather on palms, and a light sagegreen fabric for the remaining wich COULD BE an early type of aramide-made, fireproof tissue? Perhaps so, with such a design departure from the well-established and high-quality B-3A Gloves being widespread used through the whole '60s - these latter, being all-leather construction but (they suggest) having a bit of fireproof ability.

In my opinion these could be considered somehow a pre-GS/FRP gloves. This pair dated 1968 is seperate from my collection's rest - just purchased because they could be not too much easy to be seen around. Worn the correct amount to be interesting (always fascinated by an item like the Flight Gloves), must have seen many flight hours who knows in what aircraft?

 

[BlueBookGuy]

[BlueBookGuy]

Perhaps, artificial lighting doesn't render 100% the correct hue of light sagegreen mixed with almost a top light acquablue.

Certainly a PERFECT match for the K-2B flight suit being worn by USAF personnel (and often, by Army flight personnel). And, a fully different color than of the similar GS-FRP gloves (always... hated that color).

 

Fabric's consistency is somehow different than of GS-FRP gloves, and a bit less elastic as well.

 

 

 

This leather insert along hand's "edge" (between back and palm) is virtually identical to the one of future GS-FRP gloves:

[BlueBookGuy]

Identical flight gloves like these, I saw in a few closeup color photos of Army UH-1 crews, and USAF F-105 and B-52 pilots.

 

[BlueBookGuy]

Again a shot of this HAU-7/P, being worn by me.

 

Thanks for watching - Franco.

[BlueBookGuy]

having mentioned the ultimate pattern GS-FRP gloves,

I post a few shots for a quick comparison with the 1968-dated HAU-7/P (the GS-FRP pictured here is from early '90s production, I got it from an Aviano-based F-16 pilot):

 

[BlueBookGuy]

the same leather insert along hand's and wrist's "edge":

 

 

closeup comparison between HAU-7/P (below) and GS-FRP as for the fabric, hand's back:

[BlueBookGuy]

A Flight Glove named HAU-6/P do exist as well.

 

A more modern item than the HAU-7/P, at least by judging a pair's label I saw years ago watching at a militaria catalog. That was dated 1988, gloves were essentially a standard ones, leather, fitted with removable inserts for additional warmth.

Could have been called a more modern variant of the well-known WW2 Flight Gloves for high-altitude or winter operations.

Franco.