Cockpit USA - 50 Years of Flight Jackets for Fighter Pilots, Movie Stars and You

We look back at Cockpit USA and the team that's produced and reproduced iconic American flight jackets for nearly 50 years.

David Shuck

Have you ever run your hand along a rack of shiny green flying jackets at a vintage store? Have you seen a fighter pilot or ground crew on leave? Have you seen the movie Top Gun (or the sequel)? Then you’ve encountered a jacket Jeff and Jacky Clyman had a hand in creating.

The husband and wife team have been producing and reproducing some of the most iconic American military outwear for nearly 50 years. Today, we’re looking at Jeff and Jacky’s brand Cockpit USA, the label that started as an homage to military aviation history and ended up becoming a part of it.

Taking Off

It seemed fated that Jeff would enter the world of aviation. His father started flying in 1932 as he barnstormed throughout Pennsylvania farming communities, doing stunts in his biplane and charging locals for airplane rides.

As the U.S. was pulled into World War II, his prior flying experience would make him a novice pilot in the U.S. Army Air Forces. He flew with squadrons of Army Air Forces over Burma and China and later B29 bombers over Japan. His uncle joined as an air cadet and ended up in a P47 fighter squadron escorting bomber planes over Europe.

Some years later, Jeff learned to fly wearing his dad’s old A-2 Army Air Force flight jacket from WWII. Jeff was flying in historical air shows in the early 1970s and many attendees offered to buy the jacket off his back. He’d never part with it, but when it went missing, the wheels started turning for how finite the supply was for these pieces of history.

He set a goal of making an accurate replica not only for himself but all the others in the vintage aviation community.

Enter Avirex

Over the next few years, Jeff and his wife Jacky amassed a collection of A-2, B-3, and G-1 jackets among others from WWII, both for personal interest and with the goal of reproducing them.

In 1975, they debuted Avirex, their label “…dedicated to the continuation of the apparel made famous in WWI and WWII.” This makes Jeff and Jacky some of the earliest pioneers in midcentury repro clothing, this was a full decade before Studio D’Artisan debuted Japan’s first pair of repro jeans.

After the war, there was very little posterity for preserving the designs and manufacturing techniques for the future. Much of the work was reverse engineering and painstakingly deconstructing how a jacket was put together in their small Park Avenue South three room office in New York City.

One such technique was recreating a finish on sheepskin jackets, as Jeff tells it:

They sold directly to other enthusiasts, but within a few years, other retailers wanted to stock Avirex garments. They created the Cockpit catalog in as a way to separate the wholesale from the direct to consumer business, they still produce them every season and you can see recent issues of the Cockpit USA catalog here.

These publications became collector’s items in the historical aviation community and attracted the interest of Hollywood.

Cockpit on the Silver Screen

As mentioned, the world of historical aviation is rather small, and when movie studios wanted to get the look right they called the number on the Cockpit catalog. In 1980, that was for The Right Stuff, and the Clyman team produced flight suits for the film’s opening in Washington D.C.

But the one I’m guessing you know best is THE flight jacket movie—Top Gun. As Jeff remembers:

They make a replicated stitch-for-stitch patched jacket you see on screen in the original movie as well as the sequel Top Gun: Maverick in 2022, which they also still sell on their website along with a variety of other Top Gun apparel.

Through today, Cockpit has continued to be a source for authentic outerwear.

A-2 Historian to A-2 Supplier

But Jeff and Jacky have provided jackets to more than just on-screen pilots.

In 1980, a new employee joined the Avirex team whose family had actually made A-2s, B-3s, as well as a variety of sheepskin and textile jackets used by the Army Air Forces and the Navy during WWII. He had experience with bidding on government contracts for some of the same jackets they were already reproducing.

This is how they came to make tens of thousands of spec jackets for the USAF, NASA, DARPA and other agencies including the CWU 45/p that was produced in 1984 and I’ve worn for the better part of the last decade. They still make versions of it in nylon and the spec fire-retardant Nomex.

These relationships helped foster one of Jeff’s lifelong dreams, an official reissue of the A-2 flight jacket by the U.S. Air Force. I’ll let him tell the story:

For more than 25 years, Cockpit has been the USAF supplier for A-2 jackets, and you can find the same spec jacket on their website.

Airfields of Dreams

If you’ve ever wondered how the Cockpit USA model imagery can feature models in and around historic fighter planes, in 2000, they decided they wanted to expand their aviation preservation efforts beyond just the apparel, and opened the American Airpower Museum on Long Island.

The museum features exhibits and vintage military aircraft that still regularly fly for museum visitors. Jeff hopes, “The museum demonstrates the kind of communal values to do whatever it takes to get the job done – whether in conflicts or in contributing to the good of the community.”

Cockpit Today

Jeff and Jacky sold Avirex in 2006 but continued to offer the same quality made in USA, jackets and apparel under the Cockpit USA label. In addition to flight jackets like G-1s, A-2s, and B-3s, they also produce:

• Classic field jackets like the M-43, M-51, M-65

• N1 Deck Coats

• Varsity jackets

• Motorcycle jackets

• The classic 1920s American workwear label Pay Day and have reproduced several of their key pieces in deadstock White Oak denim

They also continue to honor their promise for lifetime repairs on all Cockpit products (and Avirex ones made while they still owned it), so you can rest assured any purchase will last as long as it’s repairable.

What started with one lost A-2 jacket over 50 years ago has lead to tens of thousands more in the world today. Have a look at their website and learn more about getting your own piece of history.

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