Chrome does not show up good in the air, normally it just reflects the sky around it turning it invisible. Unless of course it's pointed at the sun then your blind. Black has always been my favorite. I don't know of a condition except dark where it isn't always easey to see.

For practice, ease and fun, make a bunch of SPAD Daggars or Darts and hand them out at club meetings to potential partners. You get 4 wings out of a full sheet of Coro. Fold um up, cut out servo holes in the fuse and have bolt in's ready to go. Get those suckers out on Friday night with a roll of 2 inch Black crepe and some kit string and you'll shut the field down. Just let folks go up and run till there out of fuel or streamer, land and get back in the air replenished as quickly as possible. Have one guy run around with long streamer and take passes at him, this is good practice. Use twice the length of string to get the midair level down. When you start being able to put your airplane in the right area, you'll start hitting airplanes until you get your timing down. That's usually how I can tell I'm out of practice when I hit tail and not streamer. Of course now I'd be lucky to hit air, it's been a couple of years, though I flew some CL combat last year.
Get used to your knees knocking together, you're not scared, it's just an overage of adrenalin.