Color Schemes, the good the bad and the visible

[Ron Lockhart]

A few more thoughts (that are in agreement with
Terry and Wojtek comments)

At a distance in poor visibility conditions there
is only light and dark, color isn't distinctive.

I like a mostly white top, with a spanwise dark
stripe. Red, Blue, Brown, Orange, etc are all dark.
Only white, and lemon yellow, not cub yellow,
appear distinctively light for me.

Bottom mostly dark with chord wise light stripe,
or light with large chord wise dark stripe and
dark fuse bottom.

Later, Ron Lockhart





----- Original Message -----
From: "Tomanek, Wojtek" <tomanekw at saic-abingdon.com>
Date: Wednesday, March 5, 2003 9:01 am
Subject: RE: Color Schemes, the good the bad and the visible

> Here is some good info on color schemes for a pattern plane.  As Terry
> stated, the important thing is that you see the plane in all 
> conditions.From personal (and this is very personal) I have always 
> liked the red white
> and blue color combinations and I can see them relatively well.  
> Howeverlast year at the NATs I lost a sight of my plane for a 
> split second in a
> vertical upline with a roll and had to relay on the memory and 
> thrust where
> the plane could/should be.  Normally I use dark blue, in this case 
> bottom of
> fuse and main theme of the wings was light blue and it generally 
> shows well
> against the east coast sky, but that day at the NATs the sky was 
> perfectblue with no hint of clouds or humidity - the colors 
> matched perfectly; the
> sky and the wing fuse combination.  The guideline here is to not 
> just select
> what looks good on the ground and is visible (generally gray scale
> contrasting colors work best), try to compare against the 
> background that
> you will see the plane during normal practice/contests.  White 
> tips and
> leading edges are a good idea too.  On one of my planes I did put 
> a highly
> reflective holographic silver tape (glider guys are using this 
> stuff) - it
> helped a lot during landings in the evenings when the visibility 
> is bad
> especially at low altitude and during sunny days, you could not 
> miss the
> leading edge even if you wanted to.    
> 
> Hope this helps.
> 
> 
> http://home.att.net/~district3/district_3_045.htm
> <" target="l">http://home.att.net/~district3/district_3_045.htm> 
> 
> http://home.att.net/~district3/district_3_049.htm
> <" target="l">http://home.att.net/~district3/district_3_049.htm> 
> 
> 
> 

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