Our g-suit still allowed access to the shroud cutter pocket - Maglight was better to preflight w/ than the L-shaped flashlight that weighed a ton and drained D-cell batteries in no time flat.
Helo guys were only folks I regurally encountered who used the shroud cutter pocket on their flightsuits. We had them secured chest level in our torso harnesses. In fact, back in the day, it was great sport to rip the pocket off nugget's flightsuits. One day, Mongo, a rather large helo pilot entered our Ready Room and one of our nuggets who had been through the rite of passage went for the kill and was rewarded with a resounding clank as a shroud cutter fell to the floor after being liberated from its prison.
As to the L shaped flashlight, I served with it up to last DIFOPS tour at which time I acquired a maglites. It not only was it heavy and clunky, it only lit area scant inches from the lens, which I suppose worked for preflights, but maglites or gooseneck flashlights seem much more practible.
My folks bought me a nice flight jacket w/ the reddish orange collar and a Bureau of Aeronautics label for me Christmas of 1979 while I was a senior in H.S. Bought it at a flea market in Norfolk, VA for $50 back then. It was a size 42 and still fits okay, but the sleeves are ridiculously short. I still wear it every now and then.
I got stuck getting issued the ugly brown naugahide jacket when I was going through Pensacola in 1984 during a period when the quality control on the jackets was pretty low. It never did break in nicely. Took me almost 25 years before I finally made it back down there and the nice lady in Supply who probably issued my first one swapped out for a nicer, larger one w/ supple leather. Interesting, the USN is punched in top to bottom on the flap of the new one, rather than sideways on the wind flap. Not sure why they changed that...
There was a time when respondents to the RFP could substitute material that appeared like goatskin instead of the real deal so there are a great number of jackets out there that fall into so-called Naugahyde. So let the buyer or trader beware....best see the product firsthand.