Quick Questions…

I had mine issued when I joined in mid 80s and plenty were still wearing them mid 90s
I only wore mine as Support Sqn and Duty Cadet whilst at IOT - no idea where it went after that!!!
Must check the loft although since I am more St Bernard than racing Whippet these days don’t think I would fit

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I certainly wore one at Finningly & then St Mawgan, late 1970’s. Cant remember when they were replaced.

I’ve always thought they looked better than the GPJ. They’re the correct colour for a start (why is the GPJ Navy blue anyway?) and then there’s the qualification badges and medal ribbons.

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It looks like the new uniform proposed in 2022 has been dropped - can’t see anything official but it has gone very quiet.

But I stand by the point that the GPJ mostly lives on a hanger in my office. Much more likely to wear just the jumper or the waterproof.

Isn’t the GPJ originally a USAF garment?

It was quite a reasonable garment. It was also helpful to have “proper” rank on the sleeves - visibility for saluting!

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It was also ‘in place of’ jumper and not with - and could be worn indoors and was not considered an outdoor only garment - although did annoy me when people walked around indoors with it on but undone - extremely gash

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triggered :scream: :face_with_spiral_eyes: :face_vomiting: :triumph:

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The thunderbird jacket is definitely best worn fully zipped up. I’ll wear the GPJ unzipped, as the uniform underneath looks significantly better than the jacket.

It was and the sharper eyed will have noticed the US NSN on the label.

And the answer is . . . Green Frog will sell them to you in you email.

Sqn id badges are sold in batches of 70 @50p per badge +£3.95 p+p

so 70 badges would cost £38.95p

I usually order them from WHQ, not sure if that’s still the case in every region with the recent changes.

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That’s not been the case nationally for years. There’s no national contract to supply those badges.

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To add the context, squadrons weren’t forwarding the receipt confirmations to HQAC, so HQAC wasn’t paying the bill.

At this point it was decided to just place the responsibility onto squadrons for ordering and paying. It’s possible that a WHQ may have taken that on and continued to support the supply…

ETA history:

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The previous system was terrible, but just punting the cost onto squadrons and the profit the Green Frog (as opposed to the historic supplier) wasn’t the finest hour of Dawns tenure.

There were much better work around but hey giving everything to Green Frog was her motto.

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Shares in the company… or at least the duty rumour was someone at HQAC had this.

Keep meaning to ask Dave at Greenfrog.

I don’t think that’s the sort of claim that should be made without proof.

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Maybe.
But having heard it direct from CS, at various National events i supported previously7. One does tend to start thinking something akin has substance.

Also worth paying attention to their quality though.

Some time ago we received a delivery of unit identifiers from them. Half of them had the 2nd and 3rd number mixed up and were unusable, as that squadron didn’t exist.

Example of what I mean; if our unit was 1234 sqn, half of the badges read 1324.

Green Frog or the old supplier in NI?