I know there is a RAF tartan and dress for pipers but is there any time that a Member of the ACO/RAF would weara kilt in Uniform.
I know an Army chap who constantly wears a kilt with his mess dress (RLC) and it’s looks rubbish and at a recent Burns supper a RAF Officer was wearing a kilt with no 5’s.
Any ideas?
Other than bands, I think the answer is yes, likely to be No5’s only, maybe not on all occasions, and probably only if using the RAF tartan. I’m probably wrong though - I seem to remember some guidance came out when the RAF tartan was first released a few years ago. Was it in the RAF News?? On the Facebook page?? Army might be different?
I did ask the question myself about No5 jacket plus kilt for a wing burns supper when I first moved down here. Nobody knew the definitive answer and they seemed happy enough to let me do it (and seemed disappointed when I didn’t… they probably missed out on a mess fine!), but I came to the conclusion that I’d rather wear one or the other so went with the kilt. It might look ok for some tartans, look rubbish for others, but I’m just not convinced.
Came across this while at Leuchars AP1358 says:
So the RAF Officer shouldnt be wearing it.
Was just about to post the same reference!
Wikipedia (you know, that well known, always accurate reference site… 
) says this:
which would probably tie in with some references I’ve seen elsewhere to Scottish mess functions allowing kilts with No5’s, but the reference in the Wiki article is to an RAF Tartan website, so not exactly official or definitive!
For the ACO it’s very clear. AP1358C says:
With regards to the grey Douglas vs RAF Tartan options, I suspect that AP1358 hasn’t caught up yet, and that the RAF tartan is probably allowed as well as the Douglas. AP1358C definitively states that the RAF tartan should be worn, and it appears that many RAF pipe bands now wear the RAF tartan. Interestingly, for ACO personnel, the band dress regs say no rank badges!
[quote]Highland Dress
(1) Pipe bands, subject to the approval of OIC Air Cadet Pipe Music, may wear Highland Dress as follows:
a. Glengarry with appropriate hat badge
b. Blue grey Highland Jacket
c. Wedgwood blue shirt and black tie
127 Version 1.01
d. Kilt in RAF tartan with sporran
e. Socks
f. Blacks shoes or brogues
Notes:
Although authorised for wear, Highland Dress is not scaled for issue at public expense.
Rank badges are not to be worn with Highland Dress[/quote]
So it seems a fairly definitive no for the RAF and ACO, except bands, Scottish RAuxAF (and possibly by Stn Cdrs approval).
This video shows the exact uniform and RAF tartan kilt that ATC pipe band members wear. My eldest lad is one of the pipers.
[quote=“Gunner” post=7322]This video shows the exact uniform and RAF tartan kilt that ATC pipe band members wear. My eldest lad is one of the pipers.
[/quote]
Yes: our Pipes and Drums are wearing what tends to be called within Scottish military pipe bands ‘blue patrols’, for jackets, with their kilts (which are of the tartan sett known now as ‘Modern RAF Pattern’). And very good they look in it, too.
Strictly-speaking, their jackets are really tailored Argyll pattern Highland jackets, rather than ‘patrol’-style, since they’ve got turned lapels, they’re not high-collar. I’ve sometimes seen Black Watch RRS pipers wearing proper blue patrols that have a stand-up collar, there may be other formations that also still do this.
The wearing of a semi-dress highland uniform by military (and civilian) corps of pipes and drums is a tradition that goes back many years, and is a good practical alternative to the full-dress doublets worn by, say, the massed pipes and drums of the RAF on formal parade (that being the combined cadres of volunteer highland bandsmen from across the wider RAF).
Yes, not worn on undress ‘blue patrols’, but the status of the individual ACO bandsman is indicated by the wearing of their personally-appropriate capbadge.
I’m puzzled by this quote:
[quote]
[quote]Highland Dress
(1) Pipe bands, subject to the approval of OIC Air Cadet Pipe Music, may wear Highland Dress as follows:
a. Glengarry with appropriate hat badge
b. Blue grey Highland Jacket
…[/quote][/quote]
The ‘Highland Jacket’ worn by the ACO is most certainly not Blue-grey: it’s (in RAF terms) Midnight Blue, from a distance almost black. The only time I’ve ever seen actual blue-grey (standard RAF pattern colour) highland jackets being worn has been by the band of 2622 Sqn RAuxAF Regt, and they were probably tailored from No1s.
Back in the earliest days of the ATC, any Cadet bands only tended to be military (brass/percussion/woodwind/lyre) as opposed to being highland pipes and drums. Single ATC pipers in the 1940s would just have worn normal issue Service Dress uniform with forage caps. This was despite the fact that in that era Auxiliary Air Force pipers and escorts from Scottish squadrons were wearing (on some duties) Grey Douglas kilts with BD blouses and blue bonnets (oddly, not forage caps or glengarrys). It wasn’t until the 1950s, when the ATC was issued with BDs, that kilts started to be seen being worn by Air Cadets, and only rarely at that. Any pictures I’ve seen appear to show a range of tartans, including Ulster Irish variations, but apparently never the ‘true’ Grey Douglas Air Force tartan (which pre-dates the ‘new’ RAF tartan by over 60 years, in appointment).
And oddly, onwards from that time, all of the (then many) established and volunteer RAF pipe bands in the late 1950s and '60s (especially from the Apprentice Schools) appeared to just wear No1 dress, but with added shoulder-coves, plaids, cords/lanyards…and standard SD peak caps (which in that era already looked quite ‘Scottish’, since rather than having normal black mohair cap-bands, they were wearing multicoloured diced designs on the cap-band, similar to Police/Fire uniform caps- this was standard wear for those Airmen, not just on bandsman duties).
Back to the OP: The situation for kilts being worn (or not) as part of RAF mess dress is rather odd. The regulations might be viewed as being too restrictive (compared to, I believe for example, the RN). There are traditions as old as the RAF itself (or close to that) which have seen the kilt worn as part of certain Air Force orders of dress, and it’s possible that this very non-operational area of concern justifies representations being made in it’s favour (optionally, of course).
wilf_san
[ps perhaps it’s worth noting the irony that within Scottish Army highland regiments that traditionally wore the kilt, normally this would never be worn in the mess after 1800hrs, being replaced by tartan trews to avoid fines and other penalties. On a related note, Lowland regiments never wore the kilt at all: this was perhaps just a combination of traditional custom, and the fact that at one time it was an offence for which the wearer could have been executed (maybe a bit extreme in the context of a modern-day mess function !-) . All this Highland/Lowland Army differentiation was swept aside by the Royal Regiment of Scotland restructure, with traditionally-unkilted soldiers being kitted with kilts, and I’ve no idea how the most recent Future Army Dress revision perhaps also affects that- in fact, does that bin all the Army’s rainbow range of mess-dress?]
RRS wear kilts/trews with a different cut of service dress/ patrol (blues) jacket (green in the case of the RRS)
As for the mess dress, no we still have our rainbow range as you put it, and I’m damned if I can work out which cavalry regt wear what!