islandmonkey

islandmonkey

Well Known Member
There has been a thread recently about keeping your eyes outside of the cockpit in order to maintain a good lookout for aeroplanes and other dangers. However, what is the best colour to paint your aircraft in order to increase the chances of being seen? A few years ago the RAF painted some of the fleet of Bulldog trainers black after a study found that black stands out against all background colours.

Now, I have two greyhounds. One is black and the other is brindled. Quite a few times on walks with my dogs, I loose sight of Windy the brindled greyhound because her shape is broken up by her stripes and her colours merge her into the background of trees and grass where we walk. Snoopy on the other hand, I do not loose sight of because he has no stripes to break up his shape and his black colour stands out against the background.

I have posted some pictures below of both dogs to try and show the above but I don't think these pictures are a good example. Anyway, I would be interested to hear your thoughts and opinions on Standing Out from the Background.

Snoop.jpg


Windy.jpg
 
Our helicopters at work are yellow with black trim, they get my vote for standing out the best and being safest. I plan on painting my RV (if I ever get it done!) the same.....
 
The aircraft that we most need to see is the one that looks like it's standing still (collision course). We can spot a moving object much more readily than a stationary one. I think giving the illusion of movement with strobes or wig/wags probably does more than color choice. However, since RV's are low wing, the guy below you is of greatest concern. Perhaps the lower surface should be a dark color that would stand out against a bright sky. In fact, maybe a reverse military scheme makes the most sense.
 
I guess it depends on the background

Yellow and black does seem to stand out against most any background. I uesd to fly to work each day for 15 years and most times the tower at SNA would have me make a close in right base entry for runway 19R. That is the "long runway" at John Wayne in Santa Ana, CA and it is the one used by the airlines. When United went to the color scheme of dark blue on top and gray on the bottom it was surprising to see Boeing 575s barely visible below me on half mile short final. I adjusted to it but United definitly required extra sensitivity. So what color did I pain my RV-6A? Dark blue.

Bob Axsom
 
My 6A has a lot of yellow on the upper half of the fuselage, along with the tail surfaces. Some black & white invasion strips & grey wings. It stands out among the crowd very well while sitting on the ground, but is still hard to see in flight.

L.Adamson --- RV6A
 
Lighting

Glenn is right, the yellow and black helicopters are very easy to see. I fly for the same company and occasionally we'll have something bad where we need several helicopters. Ours are really easy to see. If another company is responding they are much harder to see.

I fly my RV to work most everyday and have to got through a section of the Phoenix Class Bravo and through the Goodyear Class D airspace. Goodyear has two flight training schools there and it is very active day and night.

Keep in mind that RV's are not very big planes. No matter the color the size and speed make them tough to see. Mine is mostly red and white. I chose the most vivid red possible, Viper red. (Same as Corvette, Ferrari)

I'm fortunate to have a Mode S transponder to display traffic on my 430. I have found that I see lighting much sooner than the shape and color of the plane. I use the Traffic to provide distance and direction of the aircraft.

On my new plane, I'll be installing wig wags and very intense strobes from Aveo.

I think lighting provides one of the best aides for visibility.
 
The Navy paints all of their training aircraft orange and white. Listed below are all training aircraft currently being used. Not very attractive though for private aircraft!

t34m.jpg
T-34C
t44u.jpg
T-44
tc12.jpg
TC-12
t6b.jpg
T-6B
th57.jpg
TH-57
t45.jpg
T-45
t39a.jpg
T-39
 
The Hunter's Orange Collar Helps

islandmonkey said:
There has been a thread recently about keeping your eyes outside of the cockpit in order to maintain a good lookout for aeroplanes and other dangers. However, what is the best colour to paint your aircraft in order to increase the chances of being seen? A few years ago the RAF painted some of the fleet of Bulldog trainers black after a study found that black stands out against all background colours.

Now, I have two greyhounds. One is black and the other is brindled. Quite a few times on walks with my dogs, I loose sight of Windy the brindled greyhound because her shape is broken up by her stripes and her colours merge her into the background of trees and grass where we walk. Snoopy on the other hand, I do not loose sight of because he has no stripes to break up his shape and his black colour stands out against the background.

I have posted some pictures below of both dogs to try and show the above but I don't think these pictures are a good example. Anyway, I would be interested to hear your thoughts and opinions on Standing Out from the Background.

Just like the USN :)
Click to expand...
 
Not a scientific data point, but my RV is bright yellow with red trim and everyone tells me that it is the most visible and easily identifiable airplane at RTS. My wife used to fly with her father for CAP (this experience is partly why we have yellow and red) and it was very difficult to see white airplanes (in CO against the snow) or blues/greens. Red and yellow are the easiest colors for the human eye to see (thus the yellow highway signs) and I think these colors (along with international orange) will stand out more often than most others.

My 2c.

greg
 
I use altitude to avoid other aircraft. I also avoid VFR flight corridors. VFR flight following is an assistance.

The on board TCAS-like systems that provide direction and distance and relative altitude would probably be mo better.
 
Colors

I live in an area in SoCal where many small aircraft fly overhead at various heights AGL. One day a flight of five RVs flew overhead at (guessing) 5,5000 AGL. One was dark red underneath, one black/blue, one silver, one white, one yellow. Looking UP, I watched as they disappeared to the East. The black/blue one was visible for about one minute after the rest disappeared. The dark red one was next best.

While flying, it is also a no brainer to me - the wings must be white as that is the color that I see best in the pattern (as planes ahead of me turn base and final).

I have observed that an all white fuselage is probably the best visually and also that many of us home builders sometimes make our airplanes almost invisible in the air by putting complicated or multi-colored paint jobs on the fuselage and HS. My aircraft will have a red/dark red underside and empennage and a mostly white wing top surfaces and fuselage. It won't be as pretty as some but hopefully will be very visible. YMMV.:cool:
 
E. D. Eliot said:
I have observed that an all white fuselage is probably the best visually and also that many of us home builders sometimes make our airplanes almost invisible in the air by putting complicated or multi-colored paint jobs on the fuselage and HS. My aircraft will have a red/dark red underside and empennage and a mostly white wing top surfaces and fuselage. It won't be as pretty as some but hopefully will be very visible.
Click to expand...

It's surprising how these little planes just seem to disappear, when you're flying not that far from another RV. Doesn't seem to matter what the color is, since I've been around numerous paint schemes. I loose them, and they loose me. Most of the time, I say the **** with it, and climb to 2000' higher. Strobes don't help much either, but landing lights do............if your facing them. Therefor, I wouldn't go with a paint scheme I didn't like, hoping that I'll be seen easier.

L.Adamson ---- RV6A
 
My Opinions (open to change)

I have to agree with Andy Hill that white is a very poor colour for an airplane from the point of view of visibility. This might sound strange to some as sitting on the flightline or taxiing along the ramp white aircraft stick out like a sore thumb. But put that same all white airframe half a mile away against an overcast or broken cloudy sky and the plane disappears. In the UK and especially in Germany, I suspect gliders (sailplanes) are more prevalent than in the US. Most gliders by nature of their composite construction are white in colour. This makes them extremely hard to see. I know this from experience. A white glider that is circling in a thermal will appear and disappear as its profile changes with respect to the observers position.

Some of you have said yellow is a good high visibility colour. I have to agree with you that this is true when the aircraft has a dark background behind it. However, here in Europe, for the last twenty five years or so, farmers have been growing oilseed rape which has a bright yellow flower. So for a couple months each year we are subjected to fields of this fowl smelling crop that causes hay fever and other allergies. Here is a picture:

Rapeseed_field.jpg


A yellow aircraft disappears when flying against a background of rape fields that are in flower.

I took another photo of my dogs today and here you can see the black dog stands out against the background that is behind him and is much easier to see than the brindled dog:

Dags1.jpg


Black is not the ideal colour for hot climates or fabric coated aircraft (UV). My black dog gets very warm in the summer because of his colour.

One reply said they use altitude and avoid VFR corridors. The trouble is that most collisions and near misses occur on departure or arrival where you have to mix it with other traffic traveling at different speeds. Not all aircraft have transponders, especially gliders, so in this situation, TCAS is useless. TCAS is a good system, but until it is mandatory for all aircraft to have a working transponder then eyes should be mostly focused outside the cockpit.

Movement and flashing lights are the key to being seen. Wig wags and high power strobes help greatly in being detected.

So I am going to fit strobes and wig wags to my brindled greyhound. :rolleyes:
 
Good thread! As somone who's owned/painted my RV's in complete opposite ends of the spectrum, I have experienced both sides of this.

I guess in the end it completely depends on the mission of "who you want to see you". If you want to be seen from the air, or from the ground. It also depends where in the air you are.

My black RV was much more visible in the air than my white one if the person was below/beside me, but anyone who got above me quickly found out my black RV would dissapear into the ground. With the white airplane it's completely the opposite. The polished RV7 depends on if there is a glint of sun or not, and my red citabria seems easy to see as well.

As others have pointed out, it really depends on the geography and point of reference more than anything else.

My 2 cents as usual!

Cheers,
Stein
 
Yellow

Jon "Reno" Berndsen has a 7 that is completely, absolutely, shockingly, blazingly, bright, YELLOW and when we are looking for him to join a formation from afar, it's like he has a halo around him. He's really hard to NOT see..

Good posts. It does indeed matter what the background is, but whether blue skies or grey overcast, we can always spot Reno the fartherst away.
 
Lighting...

Andy Hill said:
Anthony...

A starter for 10 would be to go through RAF Tutor Accident Report

Certainly white is not favoured, and black has some merit. Some good discussion on lookout technique as well...

Andy
Click to expand...

...interesting, that as I read it, the Tutors had 2000 candela system strobes instead of the "standard" US FAR 400 candelas...

Apparently, much brighter strobes didn't help in this case...
 
This picture...

of my -10 was taken last December at Summerville, S.C. right after a storm. Quite a few of my friends have remarked about how visible the airplane is, and I'm not that crazy about the paint design, but I heard that the builders wanted a very visible airplane:
Jennynancy.jpg


Best,
 
Tweet Scheme?

If I remember correctly, and someone out there is probably a little more knowledgable, but Keith Ferris (one of the more famous aviation artists) was commissioned by the USAF to design the updated T-37 scheme in the late 80's, which resulted in the familiar Dark Blue/White design due to requirements for visibility and I'm sure the Navy did the same studies in coming up with their high-vis red/white designs as well. The Tweet scheme seemed to have worked out for see and avoid as it migrated up to the T-6 scheme as well. So that gets you the white top for high contrast from the top, and the dark belly for high contrast from the bottom.
 
Just for comparison:

t6ar.jpg
Air Force T-6A

t6bs.jpg
Navy T-6B

BTW, T-6B is updated T-6A with a HUD and updated glass cockpit.
 
Yellow

I recall an occsion when landed on a particular airstrip in the South Island of New Zealand. This was well south in the hill country and the only grass is tussock. In the summer it is, well, yellow. Anyway, I get out of my Super Cub and knowing there was a Cessna 185 based on the strip I started to wonder where it was. I hadn't heard it on the rdo or seen it on the way in. Well after about a minute I could hear it (well it is a 185 remember!). But could I see it? No. Why? It was painted yellow. Even with the help of the sound I still had a job spotting it in the downwind leg for the strip. If it were conventional blue/white or red/white it wouldn't have been a problem in that country.

Yellow is well known to be the best colour for visibility, but in some circumstances it isn't. Have a think about the type of country you're flying in.

Cheers,
Andrew.
 
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