Dayglo Paint

Perhaps it’s time to revive this thread:

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=56998&highlight=DAYGLO

and Papa Lima is no longer here to moan at you (about reviving it) this time Albert :diablo: :diablo: :diablo:

Roger Smith.

Perhaps it’s time to revive this thread:

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=56998&highlight=DAYGLO

Dayglo Paint

The RAAF had a long association with Dayglo paint. It was used on CAC Winjeels for much of their service lives and Vampire T.35’s but the most spectacular use was by Trans Australia Airlines (TAA) on their Vickers Viscounts. The entire fin and rudder was painted Dayglo. The practice didn’t last long because the painted rapidly faded.

Regards from Australia
Keith Gaff

i can , perhaps, add a little credence to the official line on the dark colours being more visible line.
back in the mid 80’s i was working on Hawks at RAF Valley, our 2 solo display aircraft (xx172 and xx238 if you’re interested!) had a blue spine painted on them , with a union jack on the fin.
during normal use it was commented on several times by other aircrew that these aircraft were more visible during low level use , with the dark, blue spine standing out.
this led to the rest of the trainer fleet getting blue spines/fins, and eventually a small batch of 11 hawks getting painted (at Marshall aerospace, cambridge) gloss black. with the succesful completion of this trial, it was decided to paint all the hawk fleet gloss black, with this later spreading to other trainer types.
this is all based on personal experience of being involved myself, or talking directly to people who were involved in making the decisions.
at no time were the black arrows ever mentioned (honest!)

Hi Bloodnok
My 😉 posts are not deadly serious,but what you say about the blue spine showing up well kind of supports my view that a correct colour combination
will show up well.
The trouble is my :diablo: side keeps thinking of an RAF beancounter saving money by not having to pay for all that tedious masking of different colour areas and saving a fortune in masking tape by just having one boring paint colour bought as a joblot from Boris in Eastern Europe :diablo: 😉

Not all the RAFs Grobs are a dayglo free zone the Air Cadets Vikings and Vigilants (along with their military serials) have sticky back plastic dayglo patches on the wings for visibilty reasons (following a mid-air between two two Vikings at RAF Sealand). The thermal absorbtion issue doesn’t seem to be a problem – so far.
Oddly enough in certain light conditions the dayglo does an excellent job at breaking up the aircraft’s outline, ie it acts as camouflage 😮

Hi Aeronut I have seen the ATC dayglo wings ,they are not a dark shade of dayglo and the skin temperature will be proportional to the darkness of the colour,black will be the hottest.The temperature difference between(say) a post office red area on a glider wing and the white area has to be felt to be believed!!

Yes I know the ‘official’ line about the adoption of black,and I also know how much dishonesty and BS comes out of HMG and related depts!!
I still reckon that a correct combination of contrasting colours would cater for a greater number of possible weather/lighting conditions.Surely a single colour can only cater for certain conditions/backgrounds.
The current UK scheme is almost exactly the same as the old Black Arrows scheme… coincidence… possibly!!! 😉

i can , perhaps, add a little credence to the official line on the dark colours being more visible line.
back in the mid 80’s i was working on Hawks at RAF Valley, our 2 solo display aircraft (xx172 and xx238 if you’re interested!) had a blue spine painted on them , with a union jack on the fin.
during normal use it was commented on several times by other aircrew that these aircraft were more visible during low level use , with the dark, blue spine standing out.
this led to the rest of the trainer fleet getting blue spines/fins, and eventually a small batch of 11 hawks getting painted (at Marshall aerospace, cambridge) gloss black. with the succesful completion of this trial, it was decided to paint all the hawk fleet gloss black, with this later spreading to other trainer types.
this is all based on personal experience of being involved myself, or talking directly to people who were involved in making the decisions.
at no time were the black arrows ever mentioned (honest!)

The dayglo orange sticky backed sheeting also found a use as zap stickers – seems like every section on a RAF station had their own dayglo logo 😉

Oddly enough in certain light conditions the dayglo does an excellent job at breaking up the aircraft’s outline, ie it acts as camouflage 😮

Same reason why overall black is a better colour for spotting aircraft than a divided scheme.

One reason for the replacement of dayglo was expense – dayglo paint faded rapidly, the tape added to the cost of colouring the aircraft as it had to be renwed more frequently

Oddly enough in certain light conditions the dayglo does an excellent job at breaking up the aircraft’s outline, ie it acts as camouflage 😮

Same reason why overall black is a better colour for spotting aircraft than a divided scheme.

One reason for the replacement of dayglo was expense – dayglo paint faded rapidly, the tape added to the cost of colouring the aircraft as it had to be renwed more frequently

Not all the RAFs Grobs are a dayglo free zone the Air Cadets Vikings and Vigilants (along with their military serials) have sticky back plastic dayglo patches on the wings for visibilty reasons (following a mid-air between two two Vikings at RAF Sealand). The thermal absorbtion issue doesn’t seem to be a problem – so far.
Oddly enough in certain light conditions the dayglo does an excellent job at breaking up the aircraft’s outline, ie it acts as camouflage 😮

German SAR helo

On the subject of dayglo, a Bell UH1 Huey has just passed me heading Southwesterly towards Chichester, painted overall dark green but the door was all Dayglo with S A R in large letters. It passed the other way a few days ago.

Richard

On a more serious note because as usual we have drifted off topic(sorry my fault!!) but there is usually a reasonable background to my 😉 posts.

To be logical about aircraft colour it would be interesting to compare any collision statistics before/after going to black and how many other countries followed suit.
To return to the Hawk in particular,head on one would initially see the headlight(which is why it is always on !!) but prob not the strobes because of their position on the fuselage.From most other angles one of the strobes should be seen first.
I am not saying black is a bad colour per se I was just giving my opinion that if you have a dark colour…. a lighter contrasting colour might show better in some conditions.
In one of those lovely little ironies of life one of the RAF ‘s primary trainer aircraft (Grob) cannot be painted dark at all because of structural temperature!!I know they are civvy registered but they are doing the UAS/AEF role.

Dear scotty
Our wonderful lords and masters rely on people believing the ‘official line’
all i am saying is the ‘official line’ is not always the exact truth and if one is going to BS then it has to be feasible BS,even better with a scientific backing .Every generation or so comes up with the ‘best’ idea and i am sorry but i have worked in aviation for 35 years and seen some cracking MOD BS.
I hope you have noticed I have been putting a 😉 on my posts so it is not a serious rant of mine,just maybe a wry smile at aviation life.!!

Dear BAZV, its really strange that when the truth is told and the answer is simple, people like you still will not accept it.
The official RAF air safety magazine Air Clues related the cost effective way in which schemes were reviewed and it was all organised by one person who kept it very simple.

Sticky back dayglo produced by 3m and no radiation hazard shown on packaging.

Black training scheme was decided on by a full scale trial which proved that contrast was the best way to make an aircraft stand out.This of course only applies to daytime !

Yes I know the ‘official’ line about the adoption of black,and I also know how much dishonesty and BS comes out of HMG and related depts!!
I still reckon that a correct combination of contrasting colours would cater for a greater number of possible weather/lighting conditions.Surely a single colour can only cater for certain conditions/backgrounds.
The current UK scheme is almost exactly the same as the old Black Arrows scheme… coincidence… possibly!!! 😉

dayglo etc

Sticky back dayglo produced by 3m and no radiation hazard shown on packaging.

Black training scheme was decided on by a full scale trial which proved that contrast was the best way to make an aircraft stand out.This of course only applies to daytime !

As seen in old photos, in the late 50s the USAF used liberal amounts of the stuff on transports and trainers as an anti-collision measure (not to be confused with the red used for safety in arctic/snowy areas or the yellow fuselage bands and wingtips for ASR aircraft). BTW: In many period b&w photos the areas look white because of the camera filters used.
See a KC-135 here:
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/061127-F-1234S-024.jpg

What isn’t widely known is in the late 50s the FAA proposed that all civilian aircraft were to have 25% of their surface painted day-glow orange.
One aviation journalist, Richard Collins, painted the wheel pants of his Piper Pacer to see how it looked and how long the paint would last before fading into uselessness.

His findings: “Terrible and not long”.

[QUOTE=pogno;1143132]……………..This type was a real b####r to get off which might be why it went out of favour. ……………….

Wasn’t it also an irritant for those using it? I recall that the team who used it some years ago when finishing the restoration of the Vampire in the museum where I’m a member reported that after a day working with the stuff they suffered latent images of it for hours!

Recently done a T33 (French) with dayglo nose, tail and tip tank stripes.

White undercoat reflects the daygo, same as any other undercoat. White is best so the top colour doesn’t deminish. Grey / yellow for darker colours, white for ‘transparent ‘ colours like daygo and yellow….

Probably….