On the reference, Julian, I simply cannot remember where I read that... I
was surfing various government and military web sites when I chanced upon
it, sometime in the past ten years if that helps...

Black planes were normallyused only for night hunters, being too visible
during the day, and that was universal among the combatants of WWII...
Remember, in those days you had to fly up on someone's tail to blast them,
so low visibility was crucial for survival at night... Much of the aircraft
in the battlefield had their paint mostly stripped off and repainted to
match their environment - and too hell with some armchair general's orders
back in the states...

Look at the picture of Yeager's, Glamorous Glennis in actual battle dress,
it is a smudged, dull, grey to match battlefield murky/smoky conditions and
prevent reflections...
In today's battlefields, the ID is made by the electronics and the missile
launched from miles away... Visibility is now an issue for air traffic
control and rescue crews, not air to air combat...
denny

"Julian Scarfe" wrote in message Do you have a
reference for the study?

I remember the RAF Tornados getting painted black all over some years ago
after similar studies.