Hi, I am building my first plane (nobler) and was thinking of using black and gold for the two main colors, and white/cream for the stripe outline? Are these a good combo to use? I'm worried that it might be to dark to see in the air. What are your opinions?

Apply some large yellow or white stripes (3-4") on the bottom of the wing or it will be hard to see. Trust Me! (Black and gold Hog.)

Gold isn't a strong color so its hard to see at a distance. Strong solid colors that are bright and dark give you good differential and thats whats easiest to see at a distance. Colors that are close together like cream and white tend to muddy together whso that doesn't work well. Yellow with black, stripes or checkers show up well. I like neon yellow. It does fade a bit after a couple of years but if there is any sunlight out at all it makes the plane very easy to see. I used Neon Yellow with Mettallic Blue on my Zero with great results.[8D]

Or you could promote you faveorite sports team? lol. Just make sure you can see top from bottom.

I have metallic plum on top and gold on bottom - at a distance the gold shows up as dark as the top of the wing unless it is sunny. I put two black and two white 5 inch diamonds on the gold for contrast - now it is visible even on hazy days.

red, orange, and yellow are the predominate colors the eye sees the easiest

I had a white littlest stick with a transparent green wing that disappeared in no time...a video graphics guy from UNC told me those were two of the colors that disappeared the fastest..add in a 20" wingspan and you cant go to far up and it only runs for 90 seconds..Rog

If you look at some or the ARF trainers, you would almost think that they deliberately cover the plane in colors that disappear in the sky. New flyers have trouble telling what the plane is doing to start with any way and with the all white color scheme he will lose sight of the plane quickly. He will think its his fault and just buy another plane!

Don't Color Me Gone. I painted my Estarter trainer according to this article and it helped immensely. At RCgroups.com. Go to Parkflyers forum. go to Parkflier links index and scroll down to Don't Color Me Gone.
RCuniverse and Rcgroups have made my new learning experience a whole lot easier. My Thanks to everyone involved.

Grayle,

If black is your base color, use a contrasting color (like bright yellow) for your trim. Use contrasting shapes on top and bottom (stripes on top, roundels on bottom, or something like that) and make them large enough to see at a distance (3-4" or even more).

Colors like neon green or hot pink also work well for visuals.

Check out the next thread on "how we see our planes". It's got a lot of good info.

papermache