In article ,
- Barnyard BOb - wrote:


There is a yellow and black RV-3 based 100 feet from me.
It's not that easy to pick out when you're looking for it. When you
do, it's the BLACK and the MOTION that catches this searching eye.

YMMV.

Barnyard BOb --


In the UK the RAF did extensive tests to find the most visable colour
for their trainers, the result was Black. All of their trainers are
now painted black, this has reduced incidents because of poor
visability.
--
---
Cheers,
Jonathan Lowe.


"Cy Galley" retorted without benefit of smiley:

Yes, But the sun seldom shines in the UK since it rains most every day.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Thanks for the levity and jocular response. However...

It was exactly under these conditions right here in
the USA, that I had my nearest near miss in 50 years.

The near miss wasn't a damn bit funny then.
Isn't any funnier now.

Do you have data concerning what color is
more visible than black on a UK rainy day?
If so, source(s) would be appreciated.

On the ground, it is the 'safety orange' that the old Yellow Cab Company cabs
used to be painted. The Cab Co. researched it, and then did some experimenting
before deploying it fleet-wide. That paint scheme (safety orange, with the
black front and rear quarter panels) cut their rate of being involved in
traffic accidents by more than 20%.

Aloft, the issue is *much* more complicated.

"Visibility" is a function of:
a) contrast to the background against which it is observed,
b) sensitivity of the human eyeball.
c) the -information- needed _from_ detecting the object.
i.e., things are different if you just need to detect "it's there",
vs. determining 'aspect', and speed.


For "just" spotting an object, a 'checkerboard' of highly contrasting colors,
with each square having a size _just_ bigger than the angular acuity of
the human eye at the maximum range that one can determine 'shape', is
most effective. One reason that the military used that scheme on a lot of
early trainer aircraft. And why stationary objects like water-towers (near
a flight path) and radio towers are often _still_ painted in that kind of
scheme today.


At 'long distance', against a 'lit' sky, it pretty much "doesn't matter" what
color the thing is, it will appear "dark" -- whether it's painted black
or bright white.

Color comes into play _only_ when the object is *close* enough for the
reflection off the object to approximately match the intensity of the
'background'. At that point, the higher the _contrast_ with the background,
the better. Orange is good -- unless the background happens to be an
orange sunset -- or against some fall tree colors. Shades of blue is generally
a _bad_ choice, for obvious reasons. Gray/grey is definitely un-good, if
overcast skies are considered. Greens -- not good against trees/crops, etc.
Red/maroon/purple -- can have problems against a sunset. White? forget
about being seen against snow. and some clouds. Yellow? hard to distinguish
against 'bright' backgrounds. In short, you can't win. wry grin

The "best" solution is to use *multiple* colors.



If I was designing a 'maximum visibility' paint scheme, *without*consideration*
of esthetic appeal, assuming that the plane spent most of it's time in
'conventional' attitude, and was _slow_enough_ for color to be meaningful
(e.g., no point in worrying about visibility for something with the flight
characteristics of the SR-71 grin) I'd do something like:

Underside of: wing, horiz. stab and elevators:
Black, with outer 40% being safety orange
Upper side of: wing, horiz stab and elevators:
White, with at least two wide, _diagonal_, stripes of safety orange
Vert. stab and rudder:
safety orange
Fuselage:
'Firewall forward' in safety orange
Behind that, black/white checkerboard, with edges of the 'squares'
down the middle of each side of the craft, and midline down the
top and bottom of the fuselage.

Might even consider doing 'reflective glitter' -- like the use for road signs
in the white squares on the fuselage, and the orange striping on the upper
side of the flight surfaces.

For 'esthetic' appeal, I might add relatively -thin- outlines of chess pieces
in the fuselage squares. Visible at relatively close range, on the ground,
but not enough to break up the 'solid' color block when viewed from a non-
trivial distance.

Again, though, this paint scheme *isn't* intended to 'look good', just be
*VISIBLE*.