It's Official, OCPs are Coming!

[Breckey]

I love the green bag for for most sorties and I really love it for days I'm not flying. I just don't want them to take away the option to wear the bag.

[FishBowl]

My little bro is an Army helo guy. He says the consensus where he’s at is they want the green bag back. Two-piece has its advantages, but the pilots prefer the looks & comfort of the green bag. The two-piece sizing is weird and probably requires alterations. My two-piece’s sleeves are about 6-9 inches past my wrist. 

[B.L]

Couldn’t stand the 2 piece when I wore it. The sleeves are too long and the pencil holders are on an awkward spot on your sleeve which either means you can’t use them because you need to roll your sleeves up 6-9 times. Or if you did you it they poked you in the face (sts) anytime you put your arms up. The only positive I got out of them was being able to take the top off when flying when it was balls hot out. I’ll keep my bag thanks!

[Guest]

Couldn’t stand the 2 piece when I wore it. The sleeves are too long and the pencil holders are on an awkward spot on your sleeve which either means you can’t use them because you need to roll your sleeves up 6-9 times. Or if you did you it they poked you in the face (sts) anytime you put your arms up. The only positive I got out of them was being able to take the top off when flying when it was balls hot out. I’ll keep my bag thanks!

If I wanted to wear an Army uniform, I would have joined the Army.

[MooseAg03]

If I wanted to wear an Army uniform, I would have joined the Army.

That’s my issue with it. Whatever happened to celebrating Air Force heritage?

[nunya]

1 hour ago, MooseAg03 said:

That’s my issue with it. Whatever happened to celebrating Air Force heritage?

 

Really?  That went away with nose art, squadron bars, and O clubs.  We're way past heritage into the realm of corporate blob.

[JustHangingOut]

10 hours ago, JQuintana said:

Really?  Because the AF helo community pretty much loves our two pieces.

For all of the reasons stated so far.

Basically it comes down to...sure they make sense from a SERE perspective, and its nice to be able to wear combat shirts when it' super hot, but as others have said, the designs are pretty shitty, material is shitty, sizes are shitty, and most of all it takes away the sense of pride of being a pilot.  Pilots now fall in line with the rest of the Army and are therefor treated like the rest of the Army.  When they first switched over, units used to be able to wear "unit" patches over their name tapes, but now that has been taken away.  There are a couple brigade commanders out there that have written memos allowing their flying community to wear them to give their units a sense of pride and morale back, but as morale has been continuously stripped away from the flying community from the big green weenie.  Taking away their flight suits was just more salt on the wound.  As petty as that sounds.

[bronxbomber252]

Couldn’t stand the 2 piece when I wore it. The sleeves are too long and the pencil holders are on an awkward spot on your sleeve which either means you can’t use them because you need to roll your sleeves up 6-9 times. Or if you did you it they poked you in the face (sts) anytime you put your arms up. The only positive I got out of them was being able to take the top off when flying when it was balls hot out. I’ll keep my bag thanks!

At least on the newer versions they have pencil pockets under the flap of the left sleeve pocket so they solved that issue.

[pawnman]

8 hours ago, ihtfp06 said:

If I wanted to wear an Army uniform, I would have joined the Army.

You can always wear the blues.

I, for one, am looking forward to no longer blousing the pants the way you do with ABUs.

[JustHangingOut]

12 minutes ago, bronxbomber252 said:

At least on the newer versions they have pencil pockets under the flap of the left sleeve pocket so they solved that issue.

 

 

 

Most of the IP's at Fort Rucker who were used to the upper arm pencil pockets, went out into town and has one of the uniform tailor shops make them a pencil pouch that would Velcro to the top of the pouch, and have soft side Velcro so that patches could still be adhered.  To gain access to the pocket itself since the flap was covered up, they just used the side zipper.  That was one work around to the lack of pencil holders in the shoulder pocket.

[norskman]

I Flew with some Navy -60 drivers recently. They were all rocking  the green Massif two pieces shown below. They loved em. Still the traditional green color, but had the benefits of being a two piece.  Hope the AF will follow suit... No pun intended. I have little hope though considering the shoe mafia. 

[JustHangingOut]

18 minutes ago, norskman said:

I Flew with some Navy -60 drivers recently. They were all rocking  the green Massif two pieces shown below. They loved em. Still the traditional green color, but had the benefits of being a two piece.  Hope the AF will follow suit... No pun intended. I have little hope though considering the shoe mafia. 

we have been issued Massif outer jackets for cold weather and combat shirts for hot weather that are pretty legit.  They make good stuff overall, but these are pretty cool

[Champ Kind]

There’s been a slow and steady narrative in the AF that one’s worth as an “Airman” is not measured by their proximity to the flight line. I think common looking uniforms for both flight and ground duties are, in management’s eyes, a step further in that direction.

I’ll be surprised if the green one piece bag stays, and I doubt they would authorize the green two piece above for concern over making flyers too “distinctive” and potentially triggering a nonner shoe clerk.

[17D_guy]

3 hours ago, Champ Kind said:

There’s been a slow and steady narrative in the AF that one’s worth as an “Airman” is not measured by their proximity to the flight line. I think common looking uniforms for both flight and ground duties are, in management’s eyes, a step further in that direction.

I’ll be surprised if the green one piece bag stays, and I doubt they would authorize the green two piece above for concern over making flyers too “distinctive” and potentially triggering a nonner shoe clerk.

@Champ Kind I honestly think we're starting to swing back the other way from the "everyone's a warfighter" nonsense that's been crammed down our throats.

I think/hope these changes on the E-side with EPRs & PME are precursors to getting us back on track looking at mission/ops fulltime.  I also think this uniform change is part of that.  A change that makes sense for the majority of the force, saves us money, gives us something better and will force us to distinguish out loud that we're Airmen, not soldiers.

I also think they're not going to have you zipper-suited-sun-gods not be distinguishable in your 2-piece.  You'll get some flair, or perhaps scarves will come back, or silver pipping around the collar...who knows.

[Champ Kind]

[mention=1852]Champ Kind[/mention]
I also think they're not going to have you zipper-suited-sun-gods not be distinguishable in your 2-piece.  You'll get some flair, or perhaps scarves will come back, or silver pipping around the collar...who knows.

We can only hope.

In all seriousness, my comments are more geared toward the “everyone’s a warrior” mentality. I’m a Herk guy. I support the war fighters on the ground. I get that. I accept that.

Why is it that we can’t just tell support functions (I am not talking about cyber operators...) that their job is to support, and that we need them to be damn good at it. They are not executing “the” mission, but take some pride in knowing that their support enables those executing and going into harms way.

[FourFans]

“What I want to fix your attention on is the vast, overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence – moral, cultural, social, or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how “democracy” (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient Dictatorships, and by the same methods? You remember how one of the Greek Dictators (they called them “tyrants” then) sent an envoy to another Dictator to ask his advice about the principles of government. The second Dictator led the envoy into a field of grain, and there he snicked off with his cane the top of every stalk that rose an inch or so above the general level. The moral was plain.

 

Allow no preeminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser or better or more famous or even handsomer than the mass.”

 

- C.S. Lewis, Screwtape proposes a toast

 

P.S. This is a thread about a silly uniform, but I’d say the moral shines through regardless.

[jrizzell]

Mandatory OCP wear date is 2021 for all USAF personnel...That’s plenty of time for the Army to come up with a new uniform that’s differs from what we’ll be forced to wear.

[BashiChuni]

I didn’t mind the two piece. It was comfy. 

But I totally can see them make us blouse the pants lol

[cragspider]

I don’t see why we can’t make this our own and be different enough from the Army. Like wearing the flag on our left sleeve, I also don’t see anything about where we are putting our wings? Thankfully we can wear our tan boots and shirts for a little while at least. 

[Herkasaurus]

13 hours ago, pawnman said:

You can always wear the blues.

I, for one, am looking forward to no longer blousing the pants the way you do with ABUs.

I thought the ground OCPs are still bloused. They have the little straps at the bottom that the BDUs had. The 2 piece OCP flight suit is un-bloused. 

I got some 2 piece flight suits about 5yrs ago, but I swore we called them multi-cams. 

[raimius]

22 minutes ago, cragspider said:

I don’t see why we can’t make this our own and be different enough from the Army. Like wearing the flag on our left sleeve, I also don’t see anything about where we are putting our wings? Thankfully we can wear our tan boots and shirts for a little while at least. 

Our Blues/Service Dress/Mess Dress is enough "looking special" for me.  
In a utility/combat uniform, I don't want to look special!
 

I like the 2-piece overall.  It's pretty decent. More normal pants pockets are nice.

[bronxbomber252]

I Flew with some Navy -60 drivers recently. They were all rocking  the green Massif two pieces shown below. They loved em. Still the traditional green color, but had the benefits of being a two piece.  Hope the AF will follow suit... No pun intended. I have little hope though considering the shoe mafia. 

Massif makes an OCP version of that exact uniform. We have a couple people testing them at our squadron. They love it.

[Homestar]

17 minutes ago, bronxbomber252 said:

 

 

Massif makes an OCP version of that exact uniform. We have a couple people testing them at our squadron. They love it.

 

 

That’s actually a nice looking uniform. Is it worn with the blue flight cap or something else? 

Edited May 17, 2018 by Homestar
The spells

[bronxbomber252]

our guys are wearing OCP patrol caps home station and OCP ball caps down range regardless of whether they wear the regular OCP 2-piece or the OCP Massif 2 piece

[JustHangingOut]

7 hours ago, Herkasaurus said:

I thought the ground OCPs are still bloused. They have the little straps at the bottom that the BDUs had. The 2 piece OCP flight suit is un-bloused. 

I got some 2 piece flight suits about 5yrs ago, but I swore we called them multi-cams. 

You probably did wear mulitcam

Quick summary...

-army has a contest for new pattern in early 2000’s

-crye precision made scorpion (now our current uniform)

-army rejects scorpion and takes an untested digital pattern (you’ve seen this garbage)

-later the army realized it sucks, creates contract with crye who developed multicam and the army called it OCP (which is an updated scorpion)

-Army wants new uniforms again and mulitcam is a big contender

-congress, budgets, bull shit happens and they decide to use scorpion from years past but change the color swatch to match multicam under some shady copyright stuff

-Army likes scorpions new look, convinced congress and others it cheaper than buying multicam (which was already in use down range) and gets it approved.

-Army decides to call scorpion pattern OCP like it once called the mulitcam pattern

-visual difference between scorpion and mulitcam...look for vertical elements like grass blades in mulitcam and some slight color differences

That’s your info from the army (soon to be Air Guard) guy.  I did a quick google to find the article below which talks a bit about the debacle as well

https://www.google.com/amp/s/gizmodo.com/the-strange-sad-story-of-the-armys-new-billion-dollar-1616285708/amp

 

https://ovinnovations.com/pages/scorpionmc

Edited May 17, 2018 by JustHangingOut