No one should wear a flight suit who isn't flying....., ......If you're flying sure, do it, if not, don't.
You haven't been involved in an operational flying unit, so your lack of understanding of the situation as this base in excusable.
The daily flying schedule is NOT set in stone. It changes. A lot. Folks who may have been on the flying schedule when they walked into the squadron that morning may find themselves off it. Folks who weren't expecting to fly that day sometimes find themselves in the middle of a mission before lunch. I want my troops in my squadron ALWAYS ready to conduct the primary mission, each and every day. Wearing a flight suit is part of that, it places a mental condition on them that they HAVE to be ready, even when the schedule says that shouldn't have to be.
as much as I'd like to wear PJs to work... I can't.
I never wore PJs to work either. I wore a duty uniform. And I was ready to perform that duty each and every day, mentally and physically.
This is a typical generalization from those who haven't earned the right to wear the flight suit: they're just glorified PJs, and why should THEY get to wear PJs when I can't? A whine that it isn't fair, and we all should be treated equally in this world. Didn't we just all agree on a separate thread that this attitude was making America soft?
Frankly, I see the flight suit as a very obvious sign to all that the person wearing it is an air power expert. It gives them the immediate impression that when it comes to an application of airpower question, THIS person knows something a little more. Avoids any confusion for when the same types of questions are asked to an acquisition officer, or someone from PA. Put us all in the same uniform all the time, and that immediate recognition is kapudt.
Know what I do before I ask a Navy guy in his browns about the Hornet or the Growler? I look at his shoes....
In the relatively short existence of the U.S. Air Force, how many times has the uniform changed?
The Blues? Quite a bunch. The flight suit? Well, except for an "experiment" from Skeletor (which we quickly changed back to the "old style" once he departed the fix), and some updates to the material, hardly ever.
I had an AF co-worker talk about the Delta Airlines looking uniforms from a number of years ago. The flight suit is how old?
You're confusing the "Delta Blues" (also from Skeletor, and also quickly abandoned once he was gone), with flight suits. How old are the flightsuits themselves? I think we haven't changed styles (again, except for the failed experiment in the early 90s) since the Korean War.
I'm all for being proud of the uniform. An Air Force flight suits looks like a Navy flight suit which looks like a Marine Corps flight suit which looks like a Coast Guard flight suit. There is very little, off the bat, that distinguished the Air Force (America's newest flying force) from the other services....
And yet, when you look at any military member wearing one, you immediately recognize that they are aircrew. The "baby service" that is the AF doesn't have all the myriad of uniform combos the other services wear. 3 basic types: blues, ABUs, and flight suits. AF aircrews don't get to wear different shoes in our Class As or Bs like the Navy, we don't get to blouse our pant legs like an Airborne Ranger, or wear green berets when we get a special qualification.
But all this is tiring, and beside the point. Besides, my day wearing my bag are long past, so I really have no dog in this hunt. The real reason I posted: you praised this O-6 for his knee-jerk reaction / decision. And all he did was come back with a "don't punish one, punish EVERYONE" policy. A classic example of poor leadership if ever there was one.