Why are airplanes white?

Customer demand. Aircraft manufacturers have offered an incredible
number of colors and combinations over the years. In the '30s all
over yellow with a black lightning bolt was hugely popular with the
Aeronca C-2 and C-3, so much so that Piper copied it exactly on the
Cub line. The Aeronca "Bathtub" was forgotten while its paint color
and scheme became widely known as "Cub yellow".

In the '60s-'80s Cessna would reverse its paint scheme as an option,
with the accent color being the base and the white being the accent.
It was done from time to time, mostly on airplanes going into Alaska
or northern Canada, but it wasn't very popular. If you saw 200
airplanes parked on the ramp at Cessna in Wichita or at Strother
Field, maybe one or two would have the reversed paint scheme.

Bare aluminum was popular on and off in the '40s and '50s, but
horribly hard to care for and it faded away. In the '50s many of
Cessna's paint schemes were overall bare aluminum with one or two
accent colors.

White just won out over the years as a base color.

You're right, for visibility things could be better. At one time the
CAA toyed with requiring some amount of international orange on all
paint jobs. It came to naught. At least few people paint airplanes
with the stealth paint job United Airlines used for quite a while
(it's still on some of their airplanes), those airplanes completely
disappear at dawn and dusk.

All the best,
Rick

"gatt" wrote in message ...
Here in Oregon, where there is often white overcast and snow in the
mountains in the winter, there's a lot of white. It seems to me that
painting your aircraft white is akin to camoflage. Wouldn't it be better if
airplanes were missile red, cub yellow, construction orange or some other
extremely-visible color?

Once over Estacada while I was soloing toward my private ticket I saw a
camoflaged ultralight puttering along near the airfield over a forest. One
has to wonder: what completely ignorant A-HOLE makes his aircraft
deliberately difficult to see, and then flies into airspace regularly used
by student pilots? That's suicidal, but I digress:

White is a poor color for aircraft because it's hard to see except against
blue sky. Is there a particular reason it's so popular?

-c

"gatt" wrote in message
...

...snip...
White is a poor color for aircraft because it's hard to see except against
blue sky. Is there a particular reason it's so popular?

-c


Probably withstands UV discoloration better than any other color.

The word in most cases is tradition. Back in the days of #2 cotton,
we painted the fabric with silver dope and put white over that. It
made it last longer, so, we still paint corporate jets white - go
figure.

I don't know about the newer composite aircraft, but most fiberglass
gliders are restricted by their type certificates on how much and
where you can put other colors so you don't become Icarus in the
bright summer sun.

It keeps the airplane and the avionics and people inside it cooler. It is
also reasonably visible under most conditions. If you wanted maximum
visibility on the ground, then you would paint the airplane the same color
as those blue tarps, but that might not work so well in the air.

Hampton NH airport is surrounded by pine trees. For years we had a J-3
painted in Grasshopper colors; you just couldn't see it against the
ground when it was in the pattern and you were overhead.

Finally it dinged its wing, and the airport put a white "invasion
stripe" on that wing. What a difference!

A while later it got dinged again. We were all sorry that it wasn't
the other wing, so it would have two invasion stripes, but it remained
a one-striper till it got sold down the river.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! weblog www.vivabush.org

White just won out over the years as a base color.

A skipper I know is fond of saying: "There are only two colors for a
boat, and what damnfool would paint a boat black?"

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! weblog www.vivabush.org

White is a poor color for aircraft because it's hard to see except against
blue sky. Is there a particular reason it's so popular?

-c



White's the cheapest paint.

Iain

"gatt" wrote in message ...
Here in Oregon, where there is often white overcast and snow in the
mountains in the winter, there's a lot of white.

Here in the Midwest we have blue skies and green vegitation. White
shows up quite well.
--
Gene Seibel
Hangar 131 - http://pad39a.com/gene/plane.html
Because I fly, I envy no one.

Don Hammer wrote in message . ..
The word in most cases is tradition. Back in the days of #2 cotton,
we painted the fabric with silver dope and put white over that. It
made it last longer, so, we still paint corporate jets white - go
figure.

I don't know about the newer composite aircraft, but most fiberglass
gliders are restricted by their type certificates on how much and
where you can put other colors so you don't become Icarus in the
bright summer sun.

Don,

If you look at the aircraft of the '20s the colors varied hugely.
When the small, horizontally opposed engines were developed, allowing
for much cheaper airplanes, pioneered by Aeronca, the paint schemes
got simpler (apparently in trying to keep costs down), with one
primary color...which for some time was yellow. During the post WWII
boom Piper was putting out yellow and black airplanes, Cessna had
either bare metal or white as the base, Globe had bare metal as did
Beech, then white started to creep in to a greater and greater extent.

All the best,
Rick

"Bob Gardner" wrote in message

Having done my share of search and rescue missions in the Cascades and the
Coast Range, I like the contrast between white airplanes and green trees.

Interesting. So it's fairly visible against a forest, although I imagine
snow might be an issue.



-c