spinner painted to deter birds?

[pierre smith]

..to miss big birds. Believe me, I've spent more money because of buzzards and hawk strikes on my Air Tractor than I care to remember.

Which color should be the 1/3? The lighter color, or the darker? My Air Tractor is soon getting this treatment. The airplane is yellow with a Navy-blue stripe, as in my avatar,

Thanks,

[Rick6a]

With great interest, I've read this and a similar thread on the same subject in Dec. 2007:
http://www.vansairforce.com/communit...ht=bird&page=2
and suspect that given the relatively high RPMs our Lycomings operate in cruise settings, the strobe effect produced regardless of the
ratio of light to dark contrasting colors may not render a result nearly as pronounced compared to say...WWII fighter planes fitted
with slower turning radial engines and such. I wonder if an appropriately proportioned spiral pattern painted on our higher turning
engine/spinner would produce a dramatic effect? Anyone tried that? Thoughts?

[PropMan]

may have an answer for us. Here is a pic I took of her plane at Airventure a few years back.

[Black8]

Here is the spinner I painted on the 8 I built. [IMG][/IMG] [IMG][/IMG]

[rvmills]

Originally Posted by ignacio

the A-320's at my job have a white spiral on the centerbody "nose cone". these paintings are per manual. of course not all of them have it. same explanation, bird deter, works really good....they hit the eng inlets and leading edges instead of the eng fan blades....lol

Originally Posted by Rick6a

Snip>...I wonder if an appropriately proportioned spiral pattern painted on our higher turning
engine/spinner would produce a dramatic effect? Anyone tried that? Thoughts?

I was always under the impression that the spiral stripe was to alert ground crew to a turning engine...no spiral, or moving spiral...stay clear. Never heard it as a bird deterrent, but that doesn't mean it aint so!

Originally Posted by pierre smith

..to miss big birds. Believe me, I've spent more money because of buzzards and hawk strikes on my Air Tractor than I care to remember.

Which color should be the 1/3? The lighter color, or the darker? My Air Tractor is soon getting this treatment. The airplane is yellow with a Navy-blue stripe, as in my avatar,

Thanks,

Pierre, if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the lighter should be the 1/3...seems the lighter color would reflect more light and the smaller part would give more strobe effect. But that's an absolute lay guess.

It is a facinating discussion, and an important topic. Wonder what the "frame rate" of a bird's eyeball is. Maybe we can run a ground test with a parrot at 500' and see which spinner makes him say "Whoa" first! And that's not a poke at the topic...it is an important one. I'd really like to know the frame rate of a Canadian Goose's eyeballs!

It'd be neat to find out how to really test this...but even without tests, the spinners look cool that way, so why not...might have to try it. FWIW, I've also been taught that landing lights and weather radar are effective deterrents as well. No radar in my RV of course, but I use it at work if ATIS mentions birds, and use the LLs there and in the RV. Can't say I've never hit a bird, though thankfully only a couple small ones (that lost the fight, poor buggers) and none in the RV so far!

Cheers,
Bob

[kenora]

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2487/...88a8be1e46.jpg

here is a pretty good shot of a similar paint job in action....

My weekend job has me flying the tow plane here...we paint the spinner 1/2 black and 1/2 white and have alternating stripes on the
front of the blades. Side benifit is that its very visible on the ground (from the front).
Since we spend all day every day in the pattern and haven't had a bird strike in years (that I recall) I would have to say its a winner.

[Sig600]

FWIW, I've hit birds with and without that paint scheme on the spinner. Towed banners in college and we tried it, still mowed them down like grass.

I've also sucked birds down the motor of a 40K # Hornet in the landing pattern. They don't care what your paint job is, how big it is, etc. It's all a **** shoot. If you don't like the look, don't paint it. I personally don't think it buys you anything. Most big buzzards and what not are looking down most of the time anyway. I've seen literally hundreds not dive away until after I had passed them.

[Lux Wrangler]

I've hit birds with and without that paint scheme on the spinner.
-Sig600

More than one paint scheme has been discussed. Which paint scheme do you mean by "that scheme"? what were the colors? what was the spacing?, or pattern(s)? what was the spinner size? what was the speed(s) at time of impact? what were the bird species hit?, raptors?, prey birds? otherwise your comment isn't of much constructive use.

[lostpilot28]

I hope this idea makes sense...but why would you have to paint the spinner 1/3 white, 2/3 dark? If our engines spin too fast to have a strobe effect, wouldn't it make sense to make the pattern smaller, like 1/6 white on a black spinner? I don't know...maybe it's too late at night for my brain to be thinking about this stuff!

[smithhb]

I went 1/4th white and 3/4 blue. We have an old B-24 pilot here who told me they tested several patterns during WWII and the most effective was the 25%/75% color ratio.

We'll see. Ain't hit a bird yet.