Art, I found this on the web:

*******************************************

When the Air Force needs an authentic A-2 flight jacket for
hard-to-fit aviators, it comes to Flight Suits. Why? Because it knows
it can depend on us for quality materials, superior workmanship, and
guaranteed fit.
The original 1930's Army Air Corps A-2 was made from horsehide,
but the Air Force changed the specifications to seal brown goatskin
when it re-issued the A-2 in 1988. The design has remained the same as
in World War II.

The A-2 you get from us will be exactly the same jacket we supply
the Air Force. You can have an A-2 just like those we made for the
USAF Thunderbirds and President George W. Bush.

*******************************************

Do you like George Bush in that photo? That would decide the matter
one way or another


On 13 Sep 2003 01:45:24 GMT, (ArtKramr) wrote:

Subject: Bomber-jacket leather and our law
From: "Tex Houston" 777
Date: 9/12/03 6:32 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:


"Mike Yared" wrote in message
...
from http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm
Buy Pakistani?
The Pentagon is about to waive "buy American" provisions of U.S. law
and
allow Pakistan to provide the goatskin leather used in the distinctive
U.S.
aviator bomber jackets. The Defense Department has notified a U.S. leather
tanner that it will waive provisions of the law known as the Berry
Amendment
that requires the Pentagon to buy key components from U.S. manufacturers.
In
April, the Pentagon announced it would buy 12,000 to 30,000 of the brown,
fur-collared bomber jackets over the next several years.

I'm around the USAF a lot and I don't remember any such item as a brown
fur-collared bomber jacket as current issue. A-2 aircrew jacket maybe but I
think someone is describing a WWII item.

Tex




If you go to my website and click on "After Koblenz" I am wearing a fur
collared flight jacket, but I don't recall the
designation. It sure wasn't an A-2. The shot was made in 1944 at Florennes
Belgium after the Koblenz mission.

.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com