White maintenance coveralls? Until when?

[TheyJammedKenny!]

It looks like civilian ramp personnel in the UK were wearing white coveralls well into the '80s.  Such an impractical color for being around dirty, smokey, leaky aircraft!  Were there other colors worn, like yellow or dark blue?  I ask, because I would like depict 1/72 ground crew wearing the right gear in the 70's and 80's.  

[busnproplinerfan]

Good question, wish I knew. I used to know some guys that worked at TCA but they are gone now. I might know someone who just retired from Air Canada, I'll ask.

[MrB17]

Aircraft Maintenance personnel wore white coveralls in the Canadian Forces at least during the 70’s,80’s.

When I was in servicing, snag crew, we wore white usually dirty. We had a brand new clean set in our lockers, only to be worn during VIP visits.

The VIP’s must have thought that we hardly did anything, with perfectly clean white coveralls!

 

Jeff

[busnproplinerfan]

I asked my friend, he doesn't know.

[Pete in Lincs]

So far as I remember, For shows like Farnborough, the manufacturers crews wore white overalls. 

I think there are pictures of groundcrew on TSR2 wearing them too. 

In the RAF they were worn for seeing in visiting VIP flights probably up to the 80's.

[junglierating]

Like Pete says in the FAA white ovies for ViPs however AEO and SMRs still wear white.

Otherwise blue overalls on board ....and maybe green or stone coloured ashore depending on theatre....to be honest unless it was uber dirty usually combats ....at least on Junglie squadrons 

[MikeC]

On 11/27/2021 at 1:04 AM, TheyJammedKenny! said:

It looks like civilian ramp personnel in the UK were wearing white coveralls well into the '80s.

Are we talking large international airports (eg Heathrow); large civil industrial/mixed use airfields like Filton or Cambridge; small regional airports; civilian contractors working on military bases; or what?  Because ground personnel dress varied far too much to say that white overalls were the norm.  They may have worn company-issued overalls; their own "day clothes"; or anything in between.  I believe government-surplus flight line kit was quite widespread in the post-war years and into the 70s. 

 

I'm sorry, but what I'm really trying to say is that the question is impossible to answer simply.  But there is hope, because it means that up to a point you can use whatever you may have to hand, and dress the figure(s) however you please.

Edited November 28, 2021 by MikeC

[TheyJammedKenny!]

@MikeC: Thanks for putting this into sharper focus.  I'm referring to civil aircraft maintenance, fuels, baggage hurler handler, and other flight line activities at Heathrow, Gatwick, or Manchester, and smaller (but not tiny) civilian regional airports with regular service up through the beginning of the 80's.  Good to know, based on your comments, that there's wide variety.

 

Would government-surplus flight line kit be white?  

[viscount806x]

OK, I worked at LBA,CWL,LHR between 1967 and 1992. Overalls colour varied between companies and also between maintenance areas. For example, BEA hangar staff (not supervision who always had white) wore navy blue overalls and apprentices in green. Rhoose maintenance staff wore green. ALL ramp (traffic departures/arrivals) at various airports wore white overalls including the most lowly jobs. When  a ground operations man accidentally, on a dark day, got killed when a kite pushed back with him still standing on a mainwheel tyre and out of view  behind the main gear leg, removing the ground power plug after starting, poor visibility and grey overalls were I believe cited as factors. A mandatory directive was invoked shortly afterwards, continuing to this day for anyone in a ramp area to  have the requirement to wear a 'hi vis' fluorescent tabard. I'm not sure if grey overalls continued after that but I think they got quietly dropped.

 

Hope that gives a bit of an insight

[fatalbert]

We used them at hatfield till the early

90's

[proplineruk]

I worked for Dan-Air at various airports in the UK from 1973 until the 90,s we started out in white, then in the 80,s we were in Royal Blue, as the previous people said it depends on the company you worked for, what colour of overalls you wore.

Sorry if this does not help ,but you want to find out the company of the airline you are modeling, but white is a good bet most of the time, even though if was a totally impractical colour, for working on old leaky piston engines and early jet engines , in the early days it was not considered a problem , like it is today.

[TheyJammedKenny!]

All of these insights help a great deal!  Thanks so much, all of you.  90 percent of aviation happens on the ground, I think, hence my question.