Everyone is familiar with the aviator’s silk scarf. But what about the other one? In WWI, pilots often wore a scarf on the backs of their helmets that would stream out behind them. What was its purpose?
My guess: It was for wiping the castor oil off of their goggles. Since it needed to go somewhere, some dashing young aviator went for style points and others copied him. (And there are worse places to put it for accessibility.) But I’m guessing it was originally functional.
I was unaware there were two. I thought there was one that wrapped around the neck and trailed back.
Oh, and not just for planes. I recall some story of a famous French chick who was killed when her scarf got caught up in the axle of the moving car she was in. Can’t remember her name.
I believe you are thinking of Isadora Duncan.
Here’s some footage from The Dawn Patrol (1938) that shows what I’m talking about.
Wow…(re: The Dawn Patrol bombing run) the British apparently had developed antimatter bombs in World War I. Amazing the war didn’t end sooner! 
Very stylish ribbon thing though. I have nothing to contribute about its purpose or functionality.
Some kind of insignia to indicate the flight leader?
A yellow ribbon to support the troops?
I thought it might identify the pilot, but the planes usually carried identifying markings that would be easier to see.
Did the pilots always fly the same planes in WWI?
There is a reason the war didn’t end sooner - judging from the configuration of the freight cars, that pilot was using his antimatter bombs on a American railroad of the 1920s…(e.g. starting at about 1:50 in the Dawn Patrol clip, that look like a railyard full of American style wooden refrigerator cars of the 1920s)
Fantastically accurate too, but I guess that’s a byproduct of planes that fly at two miles an hour.
According to the CarTalk puzzler on the topic some years back (not exactly an authoritative source), it was to stop the pilots from ingesting castor oil (resulting in a condition unbecoming a gentleman flyer). It had to be long because you’d hold it over your mouth and as it got fouled with oil you’d let out a little more to keep the scarf over your mouth clean. Presumably they could endure ingesting a little bit of castor oil with no ill-effects while engaging in aerial swashbuckling, but breathed through the scarf while cruising.
The only purpose for the scarf was to look good in the movie. Any pilot to ware one would be out of uniform. 
I don’t think that thing can be accurately called a scarf. It’s a ribbon, or maybe a streamer.
Silk scarves were also worn around the neck to avoid rubbing the skin raw…you had to keep your head constantly moving and looking around to stay alive, rubbing it on a jacket or zipper for hours on end would turn into agony.
This was common for both world wars, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true to this day to have some type of neck…protection.
Sorry, I guess that was a little hijack there.
It serves the same purpose as a windsock on the ground, obviously.
That’s real war footage - of the attack on the Kaiser’s favorite model village.
This is the reason given in the DVD commentary for “Flyboys”, assuming you can get accurate information from a somewhat inaccurate film. Aerial combat was not a duel where you met your opponent face to face and fought under well-defined rules. Pilots would make maximum use of flying high, searching in all directions for the enemy and hopefully diving out of the sun to quickly kill the enemy, making
sure it was not an ambush with other enemy pilots or over anti aircraft guns. And do this in formation, “lone wolves” didn’t last too long. Even in formation, many pilots were killed shortly after reporting to the front.
Although the fighter pilots such as von Richtofen, Ball, Guynemer, Rickenbacker, etc got all the glory, they were secondary. The main purpose of air services were observation planes. In a front of static trench warfare, with largely flat lands, the best way to get intelligence on what the enemy was doing was to fly over their lines, observe and photograph. Naturally the other side sent fighter pilots to shoot them down, while the observation planes were protected by their own fighter pilots.
Another reason for scarves would be health. It can get chilly several thousand feet in the air ion an open cockpit at a speed of 120 mph or whatever these planes did.
A streamer of this sort served as a sideslip indicator - but it was fixed on the wing where the pilot could see it.
I have talked with a few WWII fighter pilots about this subject. Every single one said the same thing. Yeah it looked good, but that isn’t why it was worn. It was worn to keep chaffing of the neck from happening. When in combat conditions pilots kept their “head on a swivel”, looking constantly in all directions for “bogeys”. The constant turning would chaff the neck area as it rubbed up against the several layers of clothing and the leather jacket. So while it did add to the look, there was a definite practical reason for wearing the scarf.
Check out this video of a pilot flying a Sopwith Camel replica, he explains the many unique aspects of the old planes. Wait for nice surprise mid way through.
