US Navy Pilot Wings Patch

The Navy settled on gold for its aviators' wings in October 1917, after bronze, then gold and silver, then all silver had each been tried and set aside. The design itself is a winged foul anchor with a shield, and it has changed very little since the early 1920s. A Navy pilot gets those wings at the end of flight training, and they go on the left breast from then on. This patch puts the gold wings on a navy blue field under the words UNITED STATES NAVY. It is made for the pilot who wore them and for the family that watched him go.

The push for a mark for qualified Naval Aviators shows up in a 19 July 1917 letter from the Chief of Naval Operations, and Lieutenant Commander John H. Towers asked Lieutenant Henry Reuterdahl to help with the design. On 7 September 1917 the Secretary of the Navy approved a winged foul anchor with the letters U.S., and on 12 October 1917 the design was approved without the letters. Reuterdahl pushed to simplify it, with fewer feathers and broader ornaments. Bailey, Banks and Biddle of Philadelphia made the first wings, and distribution began on 19 January 1918. The 1922 Uniform Regulations described the wings with a shield and a foul anchor, and the design has held close to that ever since.

This patch measures 4.25 by 3.5 inches and is cut in the curved panel shape sailors know from rating patches, finished with a navy blue merrowed edge. A gold band across the top reads UNITED STATES NAVY in navy blue block letters, and a matching gold band along the bottom reads US NAVY PILOT. Between them, inside a thin white border, a pair of gold wings spreads across a navy blue field with a shield at the center and an anchor behind it, ring at the top and flukes and line at the bottom. The feathers are stitched in fine lines so the wings read clearly from across a room. The colors are navy blue, gold and white, and the back is iron-on.

A Navy pilot's runway is often a carrier deck moving through open ocean, day or night. Ready rooms, the landing signal officer's grade on every trap, and the long months of a cruise are all part of that life. Helicopter and patrol pilots wear the same gold wings, flying from small decks and shore stations around the world. Every one of them went through the same long road of flight training before the wings were pinned on.

It fits a shadow box with a squadron patch, a leather name tag and a photo from the flight line, or the sleeve of a jacket worn to a squadron reunion. It is also a good gift for a son or daughter whose father flew for the Navy. Press it on or stitch it down for good. Gold wings on navy blue, the same mark Navy pilots have worn since World War I.