Epaulette Meaning

[Guest WillMikoyan]

Iwas just wondering, does anone actually know what amount of bars means what? I know that you get more bars as you go but what do they mean specifically, ie:

 

1 Bar

 

2 Bars

 

3 Bars

 

4 Bars

 

I know that most airline captains have 4. Do they have anything to do with your licence?

 

 

[TAA Student Pilot]

1 bar means your a wanker

 

2 bars means your a wanker, the same for 3 and 4 if your in GA. The Airlines tend to think it means something but usually it just means your a wanker. :D

 

 

[Guest VH-TJT]

1 bar means your a wanker 2 bars means your a wanker, the same for 3 and 4 if your in GA. The Airlines tend to think it means something but usually it just means your a wanker.

So true. :lol:

 

TJT

 

 

[djpacro]

happy to explain face-to-face why I wear the bars; I won't do it here as you have already judged me

 

(reminds me of the reason I stopped visiting another popular forum)

 

 

[Guest Glenn]

Ok enough with the wanker term people or I'll remove all mention of it.

 

 

[Guest WillMikoyan]

Mmm, some of those comments were a bit harsh. Anywho, I was supposed to post this in Commercial Aviation, but oh well.

 

 

[TAA Student Pilot]

happy to explain face-to-face why I wear the bars; I won't do it here as you have already judged me(reminds me of the reason I stopped visiting another popular forum)

Dave, do you wear them just when your flying (private) or only when your working? (flying or instructing).

 

Some companies it's part of the garb, it's the uniform. It seems to me to have little relevance when taxi/train/bus/ferry/tram drivers all wear them.

 

I apologize if I've offended you Dave.

 

 

[Guest Steve R]

Those who wear epaulettes in the aviation industry do seem at least to be able to spell and use correct grammar, maybe it's an intelligence thing as much as anything else.

 

 

[Guest Juliet Juliet Papa]

What about the ones with Purple strips in between them?

 

 

[djpacro]

Dave' date=' do you wear them just when your flying (private) or only when your working? (flying or instructing).[/quote']Just when instructing. Plus a tie, even when in a biplane!

I know some top instructors who wear neither epaulettes nor tie, fine with me.

 

(I'm trying hard to develop a reputation as a grumpy old instructor)

[Uncle Chop Chop]

Come on folks. Lets get back on Topic.

 

Can a Pilot get more than 4 bars or is it when he gets the 4 Bars he can get no more?

 

 

[TAA Matt]

Come on folks. Lets get back on Topic.Can a Pilot get more than 4 bars or is it when he gets the 4 Bars he can get no more?

Yeah, what happens when they reach check captain? I'm probrably wrong but do some airlines change the colour? And some put the circle on the end of the last bar of the eppulate?

 

 

[Guest VH-TJT]

What about the ones with Purple strips in between them?

Are they ones worn be LAMEs?

 

TJT

 

 

[Guest Juliet Juliet Papa]

ok,

 

1gold bar/1 purple - LAME

 

2 gold bar/1purple - Leading Hand

 

3 gold bar/2 purple - Forman

 

4 gold bar/3 purple - Duty Maint manager

 

3 thick gold bars and a thin purple - Flight Engineer

 

 

[Guest WillMikoyan]

I think the ones with the loops on them are marine epaulettes. What epaulettes are Flight Engineers or Navigators supposed to wear?

 

Just say a Qantas captain is also a LAME, does he have to wear the four bars with purple stripes or just the normal four bars?

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

I was a bit pissed when I read Student Pilot's statement about wankers.

 

I think it was not seriously meant on re reading it.

 

When you got into an Airline, one bar tended to let everyone know you were a new boy, so you kept your head down and did a bit of learning.

 

After between fifteen and twenty years of learning and proving yourself, you got to be awarded four bars.

 

You'd WORKED for them.

 

I look these days at who wears bars on their shoulders and feel that the meaning has been lost.

 

I guess army guys did the same at the drop outs who wore surplus army uniforms... the sort of little runts that wouldn't make it in the army if they had the guts or ability to join, yet they wanted to look the part... tough, brave, but controlled.

 

A paragraph from Aussie Aviation, written by one of my compatriots from DC-3s in New Guinea seems to sum my feelings on the subject.

 

"So my advice to up and coming airline pilots is th watch, listen and learn.

 

Don't be in too much of a hurryto rush into command until you soak up some real knowledge from your elders.It is called a rite of passage called apprentiship; don't sell yourself short."

 

It seems today that too many people want to start at the top without bothering with the necessary experience.

 

 

[Guest VH-TJT]

It seems today that too many people want to start at the top without bothering with the necessary experience.

If you can get to the top through a cadet ship then who wouldn't take it? I'm sure as hell not going to work my way up through GA in this country getting paid chicken feed.

 

TJT

 

 

[sixtiesrelic]

I'm meaning in most fields people don't want to do the hard yards.

 

Cadetships... most of the cadets from the sixties were quite embarrassed to admit they'd been one by the seventies.

 

I think it was because there were a couple who had VERY big heads and had plenty to say about THEIR importance.

 

THEY were rapidly put in their place by the old and bold, but the stigma stuck to ALL of them.

 

Cadetships now??? I don't think they're all that they're cracked up to be. There would be a huge feeling of uneasiness on one's shoulders having 100 G of their parent's money riding on their performance.

 

 

[TAA Student Pilot]

I was a bit pissed when I read Student Pilot's statement about wankers.I think it was not seriously meant on re reading it.

That's why I put a :D on it. The was an element of truth there though, for the blokes who wear them and have been in the game for a long time as you said have earned them. I think the idea has been debased by people flying 172's using them, bus/taxi/train drivers and people flying 172's using them.

 

Your quote of

 

"So my advice to up and coming airline pilots is th watch, listen and learn.

 

Don't be in too much of a hurryto rush into command until you soak up some real knowledge from your elders.It is called a rite of passage called apprentiship; don't sell yourself short."

 

rings true in any industry, I would add you never know everything, even somebody who has been in the industry a long time. I have been flying for a living for 26 years, every day I fly I still learn, that's why I'm Student Pilot. I might add I don't wear epaulettes.

 

 

[Guest WillMikoyan]

The arguement of 'oh what's the point if bus/taxi/train drivers wear them as well, then whats the point' is just as elitist as the other comments. These people all essentially do the same job, operate machiney in order to take people and goods from point A to point B. These people have also worn epaulettes and are just as entitled to wear as much as a pilot is. This is the same ego trip bigheadedness that sixties relic was saying is bad. While airline pilots have to go through so much more to get to the top, more than the other careers, its still part of the tradition.

 

Plus, if you aren't prepeared to slog the hard yards in GA then you obvoiusly don't love flying enough.

 

 

[Guest VH-TJT]

Plus, if you aren't prepared to slog the hard yards in GA then you obviously don't love flying enough.

I love flying; I'm just not that irrational.

 

TJT

 

 

[Guest WillMikoyan]

lol, I meant that last comment in jest.

 

Actually, if you look at it now, most cadet programs offer the same amount of training at the same pace as the university courses, at the same cost or thereabouts so some of them are worthwhile, given you have a job at the end of some of them.

 

That is, if oyu have the money to do so, so it looks like i'll be taking the long way, which is fine by me, I don't care if i'm flying a Tomahawk or a Metro or an A340, as long as i'm getting paid to fly, I don't mind. (Or even not getting paid!)