Is there a safe colour for a Plane.

[Guest Decca]

Good call ROM, I hadn't thought of this new tech lighting, though I've been using a 9-led hi intensity torch for a couple of years (around the house). Runs on 3 AAA's, & the batteries last forever so there can't be much current draw.

 

Would pay to see what's available & how it compares with the quartz halogen lighting on price, current draw, & intensity.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

i saw a lot of this high intensity LED lighting at airventure. all quote around a third current draw over old tech lighting. try looking at www.whelan.com a popular system for both aviation and automotive.

 

i have a eveready rechargable touch single LED amazinly bright and incredible distance. has a class 2 lazar warning on it. i will be using something similar to replace my 50wt halogen i used on my Lazair for years. i'll also be able to toss a kilo or so of weight by going to a smaller battery and have the same duration.

 

ozzie

 

 

[gofastclint]

I bought a 100 led hd torch for my father in law to go fishing, he says it lights up the beach so well and lasts for 5 full nights of fishing on 3xD cell batteries. They draw so little current and last so long that most new sports bikes have them in their tail.

 

 

[Yenn]

From my experience dark blue is the best colour to stand out. Landing lights only stand out if you are in front of the plane, when they are really good. Flashing lights, strobes seem to me to be usless, I can see the plane before I see the lights in daylight.

 

 

[facthunter]

Strobe effectiveness.

 

Most research regards them as ineffective. My experience of them is they are only good at night. Also poorly installed set-ups interfere with the radio. RUDE pilots leave them on when they taxi past, and bug*** your night vision. ( You are allowed to thump them if you meet them later). LED's might be the answer

 

Powerful landing lights can be helpful sometimes, but it is very hard to judge the distance that they are from you.

 

Question. Is it a powerful light a long way off, or a weaker light closer to you? Nev.

 

 

[Guest brentc]

There's a few Jabs at YLTV on this forum have fitted flashers to their standard every day yellow landing light on the front. VERY effective. Have yet to see anything anywhere near as good for an aircraft coming towards you. Dash 8's etc if you've seen them have a flashing light on each wing towards the front, also very effective. The flasher on the front is great for looking at the aircraft on final.

 

I have the most trouble spotting aircraft in front of me in the circuit until it turns, mostly due to slim profile, hard to see and hard to fit a flashing halogen to the rear of an aircraft.

 

I would have said that some kind of multi-colour aircraft would be the easiest to see, but not just stripes, actual multiple colours, like dark blue wings and a white body for example.

 

I have a set of AeroFlash LED and Strobe Combos. Only draw up to 2.8 amps and run at up to 430 flashes per minute, however ineffective during daylight. Second most effective is the red beacon on the tail. Red Beacons can often be seen better at night than strobes. It all depends on the weather at the time and available light.

 

 

[Tomo]

A big orange earth moving flashing light... mount one under each wing to even out the Drag!!

 

 

[gofastclint]

Saw a bright light yellow car yesterday that stood out like nothing else on the road. So I'm going to say yellow 1st red 2nd and darker blue 3rd.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Suzuki have a little yellow buzz box looks bright on the road. i've been thinking of painting the leading edges in that yellow.

 

seen a few fire trucks overseas that are done in lime green, bright yellow and white. lot more visisble in low light than red.

 

ozzie

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

No doubt strobes are the way to go. We do have a dark blue Foxbat on the field here and he dissapears if siloueted against hill or mountain. A red one no doubt would be better.

 

Years ago when I was flying the Lazair with it's clear transparent Tedlar/Mylar covering and white leading edges, many people commented that it dissapeared in the air. I decided for safety (their's and mine) to paint the wingtips and inverted Vtail yellow. Nobody had any probs spotting me then. I reckon bright yellows' the go, or polished bare aluminum....Dk Blue wouldn't even be on my list...................................................................

 

 

[BLA82]

GFC, my Gazelle is bright yellow and I thought what you said would apply however I've had aircraft on my six in circuit and they ask where am I.

There was a study done in the US some years ago into visibility of colours on motorcycles to see what the best colours were to avoid a collision and the results were as follows, in the daylight of course

 

Best=Orange(who would use that colour I don't know:laugh:)

 

Average=White, blue,green and different fluro colours

 

WORST=Yellow.

 

Apparently there the way the human eyes looks around and naturally sees the colours that occur in nature ie green trees, blue skies etc is the same way it sees yellow so we naturally don't see it stand out against other colours unless focused on it. The only situation where yellow was clearly spotted was against a white background ie Clouds and Fog

 

 

[Guest Pop-top]

Nicholas Ivanhoff (Red Bull air race pilot), now he has a wicked orange colour plane. If that unnatural colour doesn't stand out against the surface or clouds, not much will :)

 

 

[skydog]

All good ideas

 

All ideas posted sound sensible to me however paint is expensive to change and I am lucky to have "Scandinavian" colours on the RV.(Avian, get it?)

 

You can get a pair of strobes from the states for about 450 bucks including the power packs off any pilot supply co and they retro-fit into existing nav light areas with reasonable ease on GA planes.

 

Most accidents occur in the circuit so I think strobes and landing lights help a lot and can be seen.

 

Best to have an avoidance system as well but I cant afford it.

 

Just for fun my flying partner put some red on the RV in paintshop.It does stand out a lot more,must admit.

 

 

 

[Steve L]

Best=Orange(who would use that colour I don't know:laugh:)

 

RAF use that colour BLA in case you didnt know haha !

 

thats probably why they use orange

 

 

[Jabiru Phil]

I reckon bright yellows' the go, or polished bare aluminum....Dk Blue wouldn't even be on my list...................................................................

 

Agree! Tick tick

 

Phil

 

 

[Guest pookemon]

I'm not sure about the polished aluminium. The problem there is it reflects light from objects behind the aircraft. Sure it'll reflect the sunlight - but only in a small area. It's a "colour" scheme that has caused the demise of many an RC model - because it just disappears into the background.

 

Canary Yellow or "Roulette" Orange IMO.

 

Either that or paint your A/C to look like a cloud - then you only have to worry about collisions with IFR pilots... ;)

 

 

[ayavner]

Wanted for questioning:

 

 

 

[Yenn]

My Corby is canary yellow and I am told it can be hard to see. Never seen it fly myself, except from the pilots seat.

 

My current project is white on top, dark green underneath and has a red fin and rudder. I am working onwhite standing out from the ground and green being visible against either blue oor white sky. With a touch of red to make it go faster.

 

 

[Tomo]

Yellow is pretty tricky to see for some funny reason.

 

 

[ben87r]

any reason why most airliners are white??

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

I understood fluoro pink was the most out-standing colour in the sky? Not sure I'd want to fly in such a plane, just saying....

 

 

[Suitman]

I picked my 'chute colours so they could be seen against any backdrop - but I'm not sure if a plane painted the same way would look so good!

 

Peter

 

 

[RetiredRacer]

I did a reserch on this subject before painting our RV9a.

 

Here is an extract from a post on another forum on our reasoning for our paint choice. And a photo is in this thread on this site (scroll down the page a bit) http://www.recreationalflying.com/threads/rv9a-registered-raa.26984/

 

To come up with a paint job for our 9a (now called "Slipstream Runner") has been a continuing headache. For you guy's that have done this before, you'll know what I mean. You keep changing designs, colors etc etc.

 

Color; After tossing around various colors, I decided to go with safety, something that could "be seen". So I got onto the forums and did a research on the best to be seen colors. Some say a dark color is the best to be seen, "you can always see a black a/c". While another stated "we have a bright yellow a/c in our club, and you can always see it in the circuit". While some others agreed a polished aluminium a/c glints in the sun like a mirror flashing at you.

 

So I went with all three. Bright yellow, a dark metallic gray (looks like black from some angles and brown from other angles and only with the reflection of the sun does it look like metallic grey). And polished aluminium. And Robyn did her usual thing and did some nice graphics with some signwriting and put them on.

 

The design; Ok, The idea of the design was #1, Keep the weight down. #2 Because most of the weight saving in the aircraft to register it RAA, was under the cowl and in the cab. Looking after the C of G I wanted paint up the front and in the natural area (wings etc) and very little (if any) on the tail. Ok I had to put some on the tail for a visual balance. But there is none on the elevators and only the minimum elsewhere.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

A white jump aircraft is very easy to spot at height against a blue sky.

 

The see though wing covering is a bit of a worry on the lazair tho.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

My Corby is canary yellow and I am told it can be hard to see. Never seen it fly myself, except from the pilots seat.My current project is white on top, dark green underneath and has a red fin and rudder. I am working onwhite standing out from the ground and green being visible against either blue oor white sky. With a touch of red to make it go faster.

Recently I was taxying along a sealed runway in my bright yellow aircraft with wingtip strobes flashing, when a large air ambulance pulled out of a taxiway across my path. I had made the radio calls and even told him where I was on the runway, but he said he did not see me. Perhaps a fluro colour and the brightest flashing landing lights might have done the trick.