Display MoreWe thought it would be fun to catalog where uniform wings appear in the Wing Commander games. In the real military, wings, which are formally called aircrew badges, are not awarded only to pilots. Instead, they are worn by many different positions that operate aircraft. Astronaut wings are awarded to anyone that has flown in space. United States Army and United States Air Force aircrew badges are silver while the Navy equivalent is famously gold. In Wing Commander it's not totally clear… as we'll see below! In the original Wing Commander, pilots have wings on their service uniforms above the ribbons. The wings are silver and seem to feature a heart. Only active pilots are seen wearing them although Colonel Halcyon wears a similar pair of wings on his cap.
Wing Commander II is not 100% clear. The dress uniforms worn by Blair and Jazz have wings in the same place as the original game's service uniforms but the pilots' service uniforms seem to have pairs of wings on their collars. Admiral Tolwyn's uniform replaces these wings with stars, seemingly indicating his flag rank. All of these insignia are gold.
Privateer returns wings to the original position. Both Sandra Goodin and Admiral Terrell wear them. Both pairs are gold.
Wing Commander III introduces a totally distinct design for the wing insignia. Behind the screens documentation confirms that the gold-and-silver symbol worn on the left pockets of duty and dress uniforms in the game is intended to be the wings. Every main character wears them at some point, including Tolwyn, Eisen, Rollins and (at the funerals) Rachel. Wing Commander IV continues this trend, giving every character who wears a Confederation or Border Worlds the wings (including marine Decker).
Wing Commander Prophecy uses these same wings but is much more selective, giving them only to active pilots and Decker. A variety of characters that seemingly would wear them in WC3 and 4 do not including Finley, Anderson, CAG Drake and Captain Wilford (Rachel never wears a service uniform).
Wings make sporadic appearances in other Wing Commander material. The CTCG uses the Wing Commander III novel but apparently didn't have a great reference image to work for; many of the paintings give them unusual colored details.
Wing Commander Academy doesn't have wings worn day-to-day but the object of the series is to win the 'gold wings of the Cadet Wing Commander' which Blair is offered in the finale:
They're mentioned throughout the novels, including a scene in Action Stations where Tolwyn describes the pre-war process of earning wings. Voices of War, the Armada manual, mentions wings twice in odd ways. "Platinum plated wings" are said to be a prize for a flight simulator tournament and one of the character mentions the "brass wings Shotglass gave me after K'Tithrak Mang."
Finally, the movie has wings which appear on both the nametags and dogtags for any of the pilot characters, which are worn with both the service uniforms and the flightsuits. Angel's wings are gold rather than black, indicating her status as Wing Commander. Non-pilots do not have wings, including the bridge crew, the Pegasus crew and the background extras. There's also a line about wings, where the Deckmaster threatens to have Maniac's wings after his landing stunt.
