BDU: Round 2
Potential replacement uniform debuts — but don’t cast aside the woodland green just yet
By Bruce Rolfsen
Times staff writer
Say good-bye to testing blue and gray tiger stripe uniforms, and say hello to testing green and khaki pixilated tiger stripes. Widespread opposition from airmen about the proposed blue and gray tiger stripes drove uniform officials back to the drawing board where they put together a new pattern that is part Air Force tiger stripe, part Army camouflage.
The new prototype uniform made its public debut Nov. 2 after a series of private presentations to Air Force commanders and airmen who wear-tested the blue and gray uniform.
Despite the moves toward a new uniform, don’t put away your woodland green basic duty uniforms yet. It will be months before the Air Force settles on the details of a new uniform and it will take up to another two years for the new uniforms to go on sale.
The Air Force figures you’ll still see woodland green basic duty uniforms for the next five years as existing stocks are sold.
The service also announced it is dropping two major changes it proposed to the uniform.
The eight-point cap is gone. The Air Force will keep its existing cap design, but with the new pattern.
And the button-down Henley collar T-shirt is history. Instead, the Air Force will stay with a traditional collared T-shirt. However, the new T-shirt will be made from a wicking fabric. Also, the Air Force will issue T-shirts in just one color. Whether the T-shirt will be black or a shade of khaki still is under consideration.
The process to find a color scheme for the uniform started soon after wear-testing began last spring.
“Immediately, we could tell that the color was an issue,” said Senior Master Sgt. Jacqueline Dean, superintendent of the Air Force Uniform Board. “We knew right away we needed to change the color.”
The question was what color scheme and pattern to use. The Air Force settled on a hybrid of the tiger stripe pattern and the Army’s colors and digital pattern.
The range of colors — from a khaki tan to a muted spruce green — is the same as the Army uniform. The Air Force did add a fourth shade of color to the Army’s three shades.
“We presented two new color schemes at Corona [a meeting of top generals] to our senior leaders at the end of September and they chose to go forward with this [pattern],” Dean said.
Switching away from the blue tiger stripes opened possibilities for the uniform, such as being “one uniform for all locations,” Dean said.
“It wasn’t one of our original objectives, but we found that since we are going with a uniform not just for home station, this was the way to go,” the superintendent said.
Although the colors and pattern have changed, several innovations from the blue tiger stripe uniform made the cut.
The changes include:
• Permanent press fabric. While the specific permanent press process is still to be decided, the new uniforms will be wash and wear. No dry cleaning, ironing or starching will be needed.
• A wide choice of sizes. Women and men will buy their pants and blouses using the same sizes they use for civilian clothes. No more making the uniform fit.
• Elasticized waistbands. The pants will continue to expand by 1½ inches. Drawstrings to adjust the waist are gone.
• More storage pockets. The new uniform continues the concept of having map and pen pockets inside the blouse. The pants’ side pockets will have an interior pocket. Following the requests of test wearers, the new pen pocket is larger than the blue uniform version, large enough to hold a thick pen such as a Sharpie.
• Fewer patches. Blouse pocket patches such as major command and squadron insignias are out. Airmen will still display their career field emblems, rank and name.
The design changes being kept are among those favored by airmen who wore the blue and gray uniform during the six-month-long wear test that started last March.
How did blue and gray score?
Air Force Times talked with eight of the 700 airmen involved in the wear test. The airmen agreed the wash-and-wear ability of the uniform was their favorite feature.
“It saved me money,” said Tech. Sgt. Christina Wolfe, an aviation resource manager assigned to the 16th Operations Support Squadron at Hurlburt Field, Fla.
While Wolfe didn’t worry about ironing the uniform, her Air Force husband continued to spend $10.50 a week for dry cleaning.
Maj. James Rich of the 1st Maintenance Operations Squadron, Langley Air Force Base, Va., shared the enthusiasm.
“The wash and wear was the real touchstone,” the maintenance operations officer said.
None of the eight airmen objected to the blue and gray tiger stripe pattern, although some did tire of answering questions from newcomers and civilians about the color.
“I liked the colors from the first time I saw it,” said Senior Master Sgt. Greg Nabors, the base fuels manager for the 16th Logistics Readiness Squadron at Hurlburt Field.
Another advantage to the uniform cited by airmen was the choice or sizes. Instead of having a handful of size choices, the new uniforms were designed for women sizes 2 to 24 and men sizes 34 to 52 for blouses and 28 to 48 inches in waistbands.
The fabric, a 50/50 mix of cotton and nylon, didn’t fray or rip, airmen said. However, they did say the summer-weight fabric faded and shrank.
The slightly thicker winter-weight fabric proved trouble-free and held its creases the better of two fabrics, airmen said.
Dean said the Air Force hasn’t decided which fabric weight it will use. However, instead of issuing summer- and winter-weight uniforms, the Air Force will issue one uniform for hot and cold weather.
“We’ve added so many different sizes, we can’t expect exchanges to carry two different weights of material and all these different sizes,” Dean said.
The black Henley T-shirt earned mixed reviews. Some airmen thought the button-up neck looked more professional than a standard T-shirt. Others questioned the extra cost.
The airmen liked the T-shirt’s moisture-wicking feature and having a name tag and Air Force insignia stitched into the shirt front.
The black color wasn’t practical for some airmen working outdoors through the summer.
“In Arizona, a black T-shirt on the flight line isn’t your best friend,” explained Staff Sgt. Corey Drury, superintendent of the public affairs office at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz.
None of the airmen interviewed favored keeping the eight-pointed cap, which looked much like the cap worn by Marines and sailors.
Tech. Sgt. Victoria Edmundson, assigned to Langley’s family resource center, recalled that off base people wondered if the hat meant she was from the Marine Corps. “I did not like it at all,” she said of the cap.
Opinions were split on the suede boots. The airmen agreed the boots were comfortable and held up well for airmen with jobs that kept them inside. And airmen liked that the boots couldn’t be polished.
However, airmen who worked on flight lines or at construction sites found it difficult to keep the suede clean. The Air Force might want to consider offering a boot with a smooth surface, Nabors said.
Dean said the final design and color of the boot is being discussed.
The uniform’s blouse and pants pockets won overall good marks. And airmen didn’t miss the absence of lower pockets on their blouses.
Rich had reservations about the small tool pocket located inside the pants large cargo pockets. The idea is that the small pocket can be used for storing tools, but maintainers are told not to put tools in their pockets, the major said.
As long as the service allows cell phones to be worn on belts, Rich saw no reason for the tool pocket.
The airmen also liked the idea of not having squadron and command patches on the blouse pockets because that saved the cost of someone sewing on patches. But some airmen favored having a way to identify an airman’s unit.
Rich thought airmen could still be allowed to wear caps with their unit’s name on the front.
Nabors suggested airmen could be permitted to wear leather-backed unit patches that attach to a blouse pocket button.
The wear test officially ended Oct. 7, but many of the airmen continue to wear the blue uniforms.
“I’m still wearing it. I like the wash-and-wear aspect,” said Airman 1st Class Sabina Lomeli, assigned to Air Combat Command headquarters at Langley.
Next test: Ground pounders
For the Air Force, the next question is how well the proposed uniform will perform for airmen whose jobs keep them in the field or working with Army units.
The Air Force wants the Air Force Special Operations Command and the Survival, Evasion Resistance and Escape School to find the answer.
Dean said the second round of testing would begin early next year. Several issues still have to be decided before testing can begin, such as how many airmen will be needed to evaluate the uniform.
The results of those tests will produce final tweaks to the uniform.
At the SERE School at Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., airmen already wonder how the test uniforms will hold up to the abuses of being in the field for a week at a time.
Uniforms take a beating at the survival school, said Staff Sgt. Ryan Jobe, a SERE specialist. Pants legs get torn around the knees. Belt loops come loose. Seats rip open.
Jobe and fellow SERE specialist Airman 1st Class Dave Bailey already know some of the minimum standards they’ll expect the test uniforms to meet.
The prototypes will have to at least match the durability of the rip-stop fabric used in summer-weight BDUs. And the uniforms can’t have zippers or Velcro closures that get clogged with snow or mud.
The airmen approve of the new colors.
“It’s a good camouflage pattern,” Bailey said. “It works in different environments globally.”
