Color Schemes, the good the bad and the visible

[Tomanek, Wojtek]

One more thing on color schemes is the difference between the top and bottom
of the wings.  There are two schools of thought here.  One to make the
bottoms distinctively different from the top to give you positive visual
clue of planes attitude at all times - reasons are obvious.  The second one
is to make them identical - the logic behind this color scheme is that in
the roll maneuvers (primarily horizontal) the visual perception of
distinctively different top (say primarily light) and bottom (primarily
dark) will give a perception of varying rate of the roll even though the
actual rate may be constant throughout the maneuver (this is a judging issue
- ability to distinguish shape and color and tell your brain that which one
is dominant; not easy).  However the same color scheme approach you have to
relay more on the silhouette of the plane to give you clues where the plane
is.  I know number Masters and FAI pilots who belong to both camps on this
issue.  One compromise that could be to used is to have the same balance of
light to dark color (say 30/70% or 50/50% on top and the bottom but with a
slightly different design or even use one very small but distinctive
difference -say bright orange stripe or something similar.  Best thing is to
observe other planes in the air and take notes, but is you are building now
that may be difficult. 

Hope this helps.

Wojtek

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