Mustache March
Handlebar, pencil, or toothbrush? A gallery of famous aviators' 'staches in honor of a fuzzy Air Force tradition.
- By Rebecca Maksel
- Air & Space magazine, December 2012
Courtesy NASM.
The “toothbrush” mustache is normally associated with Adolf Hitler, Charlie Chaplin, and Michael Jordan. We’re not sure why famed helicopter designer Igor Sikorsky opted for this style. A September 1984 Popular Mechanics article notes, “Igor Sikorsky’s thin, drooping moustache, gentle eyes and his famous fedora hat give him more the look of a pensive professor than a canny genius with a genuine love of people, who has more practical aeronautical engineering tucked away than any man alive.”
The Sikorsky Historical Archives goes one step further, describing the Russian genius thus: “His thin black mustache, drooping to the corners of his mouth, suggested a Tartar tribesman, but his soft dark eyes bespoke the mysticism of an Asiatic holy man.”
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Comments (1)
You missed one of the most classy: Don Gentile, 8th AF, 4th FGp Ace, a pencil-thin, Clark Gable look. I still have the one I grew in the USAF '69-72. Several of us airmen had them, and all of them pushed the USAF Grooming Standard to the limit…and as beyond as we could. Remember, this was the 70's. Trying to approximate a Fu-Manchu was tough, but we gave it our best!
Posted by Richard Moffa on March 16,2012 | 06:09 PM