"Gold" Pin Back Navy Aircrew Wings How Common? (Not combat Aircrew)

[Fly USMC]

Definitely a keeper for my collection.

 

Several months ago I took my oldest to College. We stopped at a flea market late in the day, and I saw these in a case. I figured they were the standard aircrew wing, but I hadn't really found anything so asked to look at them. When I took them out of the case, low and behold they were pin back. I know many of the Combat aircrew wings were Pin-back, which makes sense since they were produced during the Second World War, but these were the more modern Aircrew wings, that came out I believe in the late 1950's when the pin-back wings were much fewer and far between. They are also similar to Observer wings, but unlike the observer wings, these have the "A" & "C" on the sides of the anchor.

 

Prior to finding these, I don't recall seeing them in pin-back.

 

-Are there many of these out there?

-if so, what other manufactures are there?

 

Thanks, john

[MastersMate]

Hmmm. The defense logistics agency ( dla quicksearch] website has suddenly gone into the secret squirrel realm and disappeared.. You could search for the spec sheets on just about everything in the federal supply system.. The spec sheets for a long history trail of revisions that could lead to the different changes incorporated into the insignia.

[tomcatter]

I think these wings are from Korea War era or so. Very nice finding, it's quite hard to find this item with pinback and "1/20 10k" marking.
Actually it's not so strange to see post-WWII pinback wings, as they were produced up to the 1970's, even if in small numbers.

[MastersMate]

Found a spec sheet for the USN AC wings dated 1996. It references a spec change B dated in 1994 which would have a spec. change A dated somewhere between 1994 and the original specs from about 1957/58sh....

 

The USN parachute insignia, the next quals insignia was authorized in 1964sh and there is a change B dated 1969 that specifies the prong and clutch. If the original specs from 1964sh or change A from 1967 can be located might be able to narrow down the date for the pin type catch on the AC wings...

 

With the parachute insignia having clutch pins in 1969, a safe bet would be that the AC insignia had the clutch pin by 1969.... Another clue might be that the AC wings were worn only by those in a 'flight crew' status/ By 1964sh the gold wings were authorized for wear by all AC qualified crew, that might have indicated a possible change to the manufacturing specs..

[Fly USMC]

Thank you all for the great info.