Wearing Enlisted Wings after Commissioning?

[DSCSTL]

Quick question....I was an enlisted aircrew member and I am off to AMS in the near future and then off to UPT. I read AFI 36-2903 and all it says about wings is that they are mandatory. Do I wear them on my service dress before I earn my Pilot's wing's or are they a no-go?

[capt4fans]

Quick question....I was an enlisted aircrew member and I am off to AMS in the near future and then off to UPT. I read AFI 36-2903 and all it says about wings is that they are mandatory. Do I wear them on my service dress before I earn my Pilot's wing's or are they a no-go?

Yes you wear them on your service dress before and after you earn your pilots wings.

I transitioned from Nav to Pilot and still wear two sets of wings on blues, service and mess dress.

Edited January 10, 2009 by capt4fans

[Guest Rusty Pipes]

Yes you wear them on your service dress before and adter you earn your pilots wings.

I transitioned from Nav to Pilot and still wear two sets of wings on blues, service and mess dress.

Yup, you can wear them on everything. You'll even wear them on your name tag while at UPT. I was a Nav before going to UPT, but I only do the bi-plane thing on my mess dress. I see a lot of guys wear them both on their service dress too. I don't do the service dress thing, but it is mostly because we have too many stupid "I did my job" ribbons so with 2 sets of the big wings I'd have the top set almost on top of my shoulder. I've seen some guys who actually wear 2 sets of wings on their flight suit name tag... that looks pretty gay.

[Wing Sweep]

I'm a prior 1A271. During UPT I wore my enlisted wings. Since UPT, I've only been wearing pilot wings. The two exceptions to this are service and mess dress uniforms, on which I wear both sets.

[lj35driver]

I've got pretty much the same experience that the guys above have mentioned. Keep on wearing them until you graduate UPT and then wear them on your service and mess dress if you want. You worked way too hard as a sweaty to just throw them to the wayside.

[Scooter14]

I was a prior nav at UPT. I wore my nav wings all the way to graduation on all my uniforms. Today, I just wear my pilot wings on all the uniform combos. I think two sets looks funny. I am very proud of my navigator past. Those who know me know what I did before I was a pilot. Every now and then I'll break out a whiz wheel in the briefing room and try to teach the other pilots stuff.

[Riddller]

"2" to everything above. I wear my aircrew wings in my flightsuit right now, and have been since the start of UPT. I got a little crap in T-6's because the place they ordered the cloth nametags for the studs didn't have my wings "on file" and the place that did (Mardon Co.) didn't have the little picture they put next to your name on the tag "on file". Therefore, I wore my leather nametag with my wings all the way through T-6's. Sorry, but I worked my butt off for those wings (school was even harder than UPT) so I'm going to wear them. It wasn't a problem in T-1's because they used Mardon Co. for their cloth nametags.

As soon as I get my pilot wings, though, I'll only wear them in my flight suit. Like others said, I've seen guys with two sets of wings on their patch in flightsuits (including jump wings), and I think it's gay too. I've got jump wings so technically I could have had them on my flight suit patch too, but no thanks. Right now in Blues I'll wear both wings, but as soon as I'm done with UPT, I won't wear the jump wings, just the Pilot and Aircrew wings.

[Guest TransAm525]

As mentioned, yes you can. I wear the double wings on all my uniforms (prior Flight Engineer). The double wings catch a lot of attention (not what I was after), especially from the enlisted side knowing I was once in their shoes. I worked too hard obtaining my enlisted wings just to toss them aside. Some evidently think the double wings are gay, but it's about pride, professionalism, and experience, not winning a popularity contest, so wear them as you please. The double wings also seem to set a positive tone when interacting with the enlisted crewmembers, establishing credibility. Depending on your unit's name patch design and the company they use, the double wings may not look good. Our unit uses Mardon, and the wings came out much smaller than I predicted, making them very hard to distinguish from all the possible Air Force wings, which is why I'm considering going to solely the pilot wings on my flight suit name patch.

Here is a clip from AFI 36-2903, which allows you to wear your enlisted wings as an officer:

5.9.5. Prior enlisted officers. Officers who formerly served as enlisted members may wear the highest

awarded occupational badge for the career field in which they served as an enlisted member. When

serving as an officer in the same career field as when enlisted, count both time in the enlisted and

officer career fields to determine the earned badge level. Time in Sister Service career fields is not

used to determine earned badge level for Air Force occupational badges.