Flight deck jersey colors, explained

Flight deck jerseys are the colored shirts Sailors wear on a Navy aircraft carrier's flight deck so that each person's job can be seen at a glance. The Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) guide to the "rainbow jerseys" credits the crew of USS Langley (CV 1), the Navy's first aircraft carrier, with starting the system in the early 1920s. A 2017 story from USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) counts seven colors aboard that ship. Navy sources agree on the core job behind each color. They differ on who else wears it, so any statement about one color needs a source and a date.

Why the Navy uses colors

The NHHC guide says Sailors use color-coded jerseys to keep order and safety on the flight deck. The guide carries no printed date; the file's properties give October 21, 2019. NHHC lists its sources, among them Naval Air Systems Command, USS Theodore Roosevelt public affairs, and All Hands magazine.

The Ford story, posted November 13, 2017, says the colors exist because of lessons learned from the past, without naming them. Two Sailors quoted in it give the working reasons. An aviation support equipment technician in the ship's aircraft intermediate maintenance department says the jerseys assign roles and responsibilities. A logistics specialist in the safety department says that when communication is limited, the colors show who needs to be where and who is accountable for which equipment.

The seven colors

Color	NHHC guide (2019 file)	Ford story (2017)
Yellow	Aircraft directors, catapult and arresting gear officers, air boss, mini-boss	"Handlers" who direct aircraft and see to the safety of all personnel during flight operations
Blue	Plane handlers, aircraft elevator operators, tractor drivers, phone talkers	Plane handlers who also run the elevators and drive the tractors that move aircraft
Purple	Aviation fuels: "Grapes" or "fuelies" who refuel all aircraft and monitor all fuel aboard	"Grapes" who refuel aircraft on the flight deck and in the hangar bay
Green	Catapult and arresting gear personnel, air wing maintenance, ground support equipment, mass communication specialists, helicopter landing signals enlisted Sailors	Catapult and arresting gear maintenance and operation, plus photographers, ground support equipment troubleshooters, and helicopter landing signal enlisted personnel
Red	Ordnancemen, crash and salvage crews, explosive ordnance disposal	Moving, loading, and unloading ordnance; can also be on the crash and salvage team
Brown	Air wing plane captains	"Plane captains" who keep their aircraft clean and see it inspected and serviced before and after each flight
White	Quality control, landing signal officers, air transfer officers, liquid oxygen crew, safety, medical, administrative personnel	Typically safety and medical personnel and Landing Signal Officers

Yellow and blue: one rating, two stages

A July 17, 2017 story from USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) explains how a Sailor earns yellow. The Sailor must earn the aircraft director qualification. A first class aviation boatswain's mate (handling), or ABH, quoted in the story says the path takes about two years and that only ABHs can be aircraft directors.

The path starts in blue. NHHC calls blue shirts the most predominant crew on the deck: they drive tractors and forklifts, chock and chain aircraft, and run the elevators. A senior chief ABH in the story describes it: a blue shirt becomes an equipment operator, then a tractor driver, and tractor drivers are the stepping stone to yellow because they already move aircraft.

Yellow shirts also do not wear rank on their jerseys. A qualified director can be anyone from an airman to a master chief, and the story says rank takes a back seat to the qualification.

Purple, red and brown up close

An All Hands story of May 1, 2017, which follows the fuel crews of USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), says aviation boatswain's mates (fuels) are called "grapes" because of their purple jerseys. They oversee the fuel from the moment it is received by underway replenishment until it enters an aircraft. They serve in the carrier's V-4 division, test the quality of fuel received, maintain the ship's fuel piping, and fuel jets.

A November 2023 Ford story on its crash and salvage division describes a red-jersey team that stands watch in silver suits. The division belongs to the air department. The team trains on the P-25 tractor and a crane called the "Tilly," and trains in three phases: initial, overhaul and rescue.

Brown shirts are plane captains. NHHC also calls them "brake riders," because they sit in the cockpit when an aircraft is repositioned on the flight deck or hangar deck.

Where Navy sources differ

• Who forms crash and salvage. NHHC says ordnancemen make up the crash and salvage teams. The 2023 Ford story says the division's Sailors are aviation boatswain's mates. The 2017 Ford story says only that red shirts can be part of the team.
• Catapult work spans three colors. NHHC puts catapult and arresting gear personnel in green, catapult and arresting gear officers in yellow, and catapult final checkers and quality-assurance inspectors in white. The 2017 Ford story names catapults and arresting gear only under green.
• What yellow means. The Bush story defines yellow shirts as aircraft directors. NHHC adds the air boss and mini-boss. The Ford story calls yellow shirts "handlers" who also see to everyone's safety.
• How wide white reaches. The Ford story names safety and medical personnel and landing signal officers. NHHC adds quality control, air transfer officers, liquid oxygen crew, administrative personnel, and catapult final checkers and inspectors.

What to check

• Which source and date does a color chart rest on: the NHHC guide, the 2017 Ford story, or a ship's own release?
• Does a statement that red means ordnance account for crash and salvage, and which rating does it give for that team?
• Does a description of catapult crews separate green personnel, yellow officers, and white final checkers and inspectors, as NHHC does?
• Does a description of yellow separate aircraft directors, a qualification the Bush story limits to ABHs, from the air boss and mini-boss?
• Is a "grape" identified as an aviation boatswain's mate (fuels) in V-4 division, as All Hands describes?

Azcuna's ELLMENT, the E-2D Large Language Model Entity, was proposed to NAVAIR PMA-231 under Navy SBIR Phase I topic DON26BZ01-NV010. The prototype, built at private expense on publicly available doctrine, answers with a page-level citation and refuses when the documents do not support an answer. The proposal has been submitted.

Sources

1. 1Rainbow Jerseys: A Guide to the color-coded wardrobe on a U.S. Navy Flight Deck · Naval History and Heritage Command (infographic; file dated October 2019)
2. 2The Colors of the Flight Deck · USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), via DVIDS, November 13, 2017
3. 3Yellow Shirts: Setting the Tone for the Flight Deck · USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) Public Affairs, navy.mil, July 17, 2017
4. 4Grapes: Fueling the fleet · All Hands, Defense Media Activity, May 1, 2017
5. 5First Line of Defense: Gerald R. Ford's Crash and Salvage Division · USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), via DVIDS, November 17, 2023

Where this shows up in our work

• ELLMENT, the offline LLM for E-2D crews answers a crew's question from the aircraft's own manuals and cites the page, with no network.
• TRACE, the offline S1000D and IETM viewer opens S1000D, MIL-STD-3001 and PDF technical manuals on a tablet with every marking intact.