At the dawn of aviation, airplanes were not a very comfortable means of transportation. The cockpits of the planes at that time were open, without heating or even protective windshields. In conditions of extremely low temperatures, strong winds and precipitation, pilots needed warm and waterproof clothing that could withstand the cold without impairing the pilot’s ability to handle the aircraft. The first flight jackets appeared in the USA, France and Belgium as early as the First World War.

By the Second World War, the situation had not changed too significantly: the planes got enclosed canopy cockpits, however, pilots still had to deal with low temperatures during flights. Work began on creating a special suit for pilots, which would combine comfort and good protection from the cold.

Leslie Leroy Irvin was one of the pioneers of the pilot suit design, which he developed in America, in 1926. It included a matching jacket made from thick tanned leather lined with sheep fleece, trousers with zippers along the legs and special boots with zippers. The suit was named “Irvin” after the creator and almost immediately the British Royal Air Force pilots were dressed in it. The Irvin suit remained almost unchanged until the end of World War II. The design turned out to be so successful that after a few years it was adopted by American pilots.

Similar suits came to the Soviet Union during wartime along with aircraft supplied under the Lend-Lease Act. American and British flight suits were highly valued in the USSR. For example, Alexander Pokryshkin, three time Hero of the Soviet Union, flew his “Aerocobra” wearing this suit. Sometimes such suits could even be given as rewards: the “Dmitrov Kremlin” Museum-Reserve houses the suit which was presented by the Soviet Command in 1943 after the Battle of Stalingrad to Pyotr Khudov, Hero of the Soviet Union.