Color Schemes, the good the bad and the visible

[Rcmaster199 at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/5/2003 7:02:42 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
s.vannostrand at kodak.com writes:


> Subj:Re: RE: Color Schemes, the good the bad and the visible 
> Date:3/5/2003 7:02:42 PM Eastern Standard Time
> From:<A HREF="mailto:s.vannostrand at kodak.com">s.vannostrand at kodak.com</A>
> Reply-to:<A HREF="mailto:discussion at nsrca.org">discussion at nsrca.org</A>
> To:<A HREF="mailto:discussion at nsrca.org">discussion at nsrca.org</A>
> Sent from the Internet 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here's a contrary opinion to the thread on high visibility: 
> 
> There is a top FAI pilot here in Texas named Paul Villarubia (hope he 
> doesn't mind).  A few years ago the season started before he could get on 
> his color coats.  He flew all season with an all white plane.  Paul is a 
> winner or top finisher in almost all outings.  I was in Sportsman at the 
> time and asked him how he could see the plane's attitude.  He said, "It's 
> not a problem, I'm flying the plane, I know what it's doing".   
> This was astounding to me since at that time I was totally dependent on my 
> eyes to see what the plane was doing and make constant corrections.  
> However, it's valuable to build skills to fly without depending on that 
> tight eye-finger feedback loop.  My current Aries always gets comments 
> about the color scheme, and I admit it is not that visible.  However, I've 
> learned to fly with less dependence on 110% visual dependence.  This is an 
> important skill when flying the first round at 10:00am in a contest (with 
> the Sun in your eyes) and also is useful on flat light days. 
>   I'm no where near Paul's level on this, but flying without total visual 
> dependence is a good thing.  High visibility color schemes are fine, but 
> you might want to try to fly a poorly colored plane on a bad day just to 
> exercise your mind. 
> 
> Recently (at last year's Jetero contest) Paul was still flying practice 
> rounds when all of us had packed up because it was too dark.  I couldn't 
> believe he was still flying when the last of us left him for the local beer 
> hall.  As we were leaving I noticed him taking off again.  simply amazing. 
> 
> --Lance 

Lance 

maybe Paul has gifted eyesight and he can see that all white plane, 
regardless of attitude. If he is a young guy, that is understandable. If he 
is in his forties, his time is right around the corner.

With my eyes, it was just about an overnight change: one day I could see well 
and the next I couldn't. And I had my glasses on the whole time. The Rx 
didn't change; I still measure 20:20 corrected, but I'll be damned if I can 
see that mongrul in certain attitudes

Another thing to consider when flying the monochromatic plane is who is 
judging and if they can detect the errors. My guess is that it would be more 
difficult to pick up the errors, or they may appear less blatant and be 
rewarded with a higher score. You may have something there worth further 
investigation

But,having said that, I also have no doubt that if he can beat the likes of 
Earl, Andre, Mike, Bryan and Todd in TX, he is damn good pilot

Did I leave anyone out? 

PC in FLA

Matt

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