My profession has had a long history of making the hat an official uniform requirement - probably from the days when most came from military backgrounds and thus embodied similar traditions.
I last purchased a hat back in 1997 when I upgraded to the Captain's position and thus got the fancy dancy one with the scrambled eggs on the top of the bill. To make my hat discretely distinct from all the rest of the hats I placed a sticker on the inside of the skull & crossbones. Mind you that most everyone else had a business card or name tag of some kind on the inside, but I could instantly tell from across the break room which hat was mine.
Present day you will see most of us NOT wearing hats, as the official policy has made it optional - at least at our little slice of the industry. Other airlines who still have a mandatory hat policy will have renegades who refuse to wear it out of some protest or principle of some kind; where they are then subject to ridicule by their hat police (usually the base chief pilot or some such designee).
Not coming from a military background, I always found that wearing a hat in public was always kinda silly. They usually didn't fit too well & everybody wore it differently - tilted back, or bill low hiding the eyes, and even backwards (submarine style). Never though was there a single instance of any pilot that I witnessed ever wearing his hat while actually flying the plane, headset over the top, like you sometimes would see in the movies. Though some actually swap to a baseball style hat while flying, huh?
Some would argue that wearing the hat served a useful purpose when addressing passengers in some manner of importance, or an emergency. Others found it nice to wear on rainy days when conducting the exterior walk around - until the wind blew it away, or it got stained with aircraft fluid (oils, hydraulics, anti-ice glycol, blue juice, etc.). Others found it convenient to hide that ever increasing bald spot. Others probably wear it around home just to remind everyone who's "the Captain". It's a crutch - get rid of it!
The skull & crossbones sticker had a useful purpose as a conversation starter. I remember one occasion where a young boy sitting nearby was pointing at my hat (upside down on my flight bag) as I was waiting for a flight near a gate. He leaned over to his Dad to whisper something. His Dad then asked about the sticker in my hat. I knelled down to talk to him (and Dad) and said, "As a young boy I dreamed that someday I might be a pirate when I grew up & now I are one!" Another time an elderly lady asked if I was a member of a motor cycle gang.
Just like other non-essential uniform items - the leather jacket I never purchased, or the various ties that show up around the holidays - I understand why pilots go through the trouble to differentiate themselves; the "I am not a penguin" theory. But to the minority that stills feels compelled to distinguish themselves by continuing to wear the hat (maybe out of habit), they should be aware they are being labeled with our ever increasing list of acronyms - DGTM (didn't get the memo).
I last purchased a hat back in 1997 when I upgraded to the Captain's position and thus got the fancy dancy one with the scrambled eggs on the top of the bill. To make my hat discretely distinct from all the rest of the hats I placed a sticker on the inside of the skull & crossbones. Mind you that most everyone else had a business card or name tag of some kind on the inside, but I could instantly tell from across the break room which hat was mine.
Present day you will see most of us NOT wearing hats, as the official policy has made it optional - at least at our little slice of the industry. Other airlines who still have a mandatory hat policy will have renegades who refuse to wear it out of some protest or principle of some kind; where they are then subject to ridicule by their hat police (usually the base chief pilot or some such designee).
Not coming from a military background, I always found that wearing a hat in public was always kinda silly. They usually didn't fit too well & everybody wore it differently - tilted back, or bill low hiding the eyes, and even backwards (submarine style). Never though was there a single instance of any pilot that I witnessed ever wearing his hat while actually flying the plane, headset over the top, like you sometimes would see in the movies. Though some actually swap to a baseball style hat while flying, huh?
Some would argue that wearing the hat served a useful purpose when addressing passengers in some manner of importance, or an emergency. Others found it nice to wear on rainy days when conducting the exterior walk around - until the wind blew it away, or it got stained with aircraft fluid (oils, hydraulics, anti-ice glycol, blue juice, etc.). Others found it convenient to hide that ever increasing bald spot. Others probably wear it around home just to remind everyone who's "the Captain". It's a crutch - get rid of it!
The skull & crossbones sticker had a useful purpose as a conversation starter. I remember one occasion where a young boy sitting nearby was pointing at my hat (upside down on my flight bag) as I was waiting for a flight near a gate. He leaned over to his Dad to whisper something. His Dad then asked about the sticker in my hat. I knelled down to talk to him (and Dad) and said, "As a young boy I dreamed that someday I might be a pirate when I grew up & now I are one!" Another time an elderly lady asked if I was a member of a motor cycle gang.
Just like other non-essential uniform items - the leather jacket I never purchased, or the various ties that show up around the holidays - I understand why pilots go through the trouble to differentiate themselves; the "I am not a penguin" theory. But to the minority that stills feels compelled to distinguish themselves by continuing to wear the hat (maybe out of habit), they should be aware they are being labeled with our ever increasing list of acronyms - DGTM (didn't get the memo).
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