Why do I never see army pilots wearing their aviation badge?

During my army career we always wore our wings, silver pin-on for our greens, sewn on for our BDU, and printed on our leather name tags on our flight suits. It must be a different army now.

In the 60's through the 70's on two-piece Nomex, we had sew on wings. When one-piece Nomex and Nomex flight jackets came out in the late 70's, we had Velcroed name tags with our name, rank, and wings upon them. I had either sew on wings on my cap, or the metal wings pinned on whether they be Army Aviator, Senior Army Aviator, or Master Army Aviator wings. Always wore the metal wings on the chest while wearing Class A, or B uniforms. When the wings go on, they never come off!

I don't know how they do it now, but when I was in we definitely wore ours... and we were very proud of them. We worked hard to earn them. I was in when it was still the FAST test we had to take to qualify to go to school. They switched it over to the slow test before I got out of the service. lol

When I was a unit commander all my pilots and crewmen wore their sew on badge

CW4 Edgar is right - FOD. I flew with some ARNG folks last year and asked them the same question.

Badges? We don't need no stinking badges. Besides, if you want to know if someone is a pilot just give them a second and they'll tell you.

NAM 68/69 AH1G-Cobra..... sewing same on is just extra work, besides, I stand on my lanai after all these years, look down, wave my arms...……… and still can't fly...LOLLLLLLLLLL

I’ve e never seen any not wearing them. We are pretty damn proud of those. Most are seen on or Velcro nowadays, so perhaps you’re just missing them? It was easier back in the one piece flight suit days when it was just a patch, and there was a lot of pride in wearing the pickle suit. But the Big Army has to ruin that. God forbid someone look a little different...beck, there’s even a quote by aviation leadership that is the Army lost all of its Warrant Officer pilots, it would still be the Army...so that’s how much we mean to the Army leadership. Hopefully that changes a bit with the incoming Army Chief if Staff, as he’s an aviator. And a damn good leader and commander , too.

If you've ever been around them you know pilots assholes.

The Aviator Wings, Senior Aviator Wings and Master Aviator Wings should be worn. Graduating Flight School in 1983 we all wore one piece flight suits with leather name tags that had our name, rank and wings on it that velcro'd onto the flight suit. In Germany I was also issued some Vietnam Era two-piece Nomex and I had my name, rank, branch, and wings sewn on them. This pretty much remained standard through the 1980's and into the 1990's until we started receiving some two-piece BDU's. The two-piece BDU's used the leather name tag with Velcro backing described above (there were also desert tan two-piece that I thought were the best two-piece Nomex made). I personally wore one piece after 1987 through 1999. All the time, name, rank and wings were worn. The new ACU's are what happened to the wings. Initially, nothing was supposed to be sewn on them for different reasons; security if downed, integrity of Nomex (an old myth), etc. The Army had long wanted Aviators to look like the rest of the force vs. wearing unique flight suits. With the ACU they finally got it done. I was recalled from 2006 to 2008 and went to Iraq. While there I wore the ACU flight suit without wings (just rank) and the desert tan two-piece with name, rank, branch and wings sewn on. I wore these primarily, as they were more comfortable. I believe that wings should be worn with pride, same as rank. Just as rank indicates experience and leadership role, wings also indicate experience. When you walk into a briefing with your customers, it used to be nice to be able to look at a uniform and see who did what and how long they've been doing it. With sewn on rank, branch and qualifications it was easy to see who you wanted to talk to. Needed to talk to an aviator? Look for the Aviation branch insignia. Needed to talk to the aviator with experience? Look at the rank and/or wings. Needed to talk to your artillery support? Look for the Artillery branch insignia. You get the picture.

In my opinion, combat uniforms should still have sewn on insignia's (rank, name, branch, qualifications). Pin-on anything is a no-go around aircraft. If a uniform needs to be sterilized for an operation, keep a clean one handy.