I am 63 years old and have not been active in this hobby for over 30 years except for flying an electric park flyer recently. I have aquired a 40, four channel, trainer kit. I would like your recommendations on the best color combinations on my plane when I cover it so that I can easily see it's orintation at higher altitudes. Example; Would black on the underside and orange on it's top be good so that I will see if it's banking left or right be better? Thanks.

The eye's ability to pick out colors works to about 500-600 feet for objects the size of our airplanes. But the eye see's the grayscale of the color for much farther. So you pick out two distinctly different colors so you can tell them apart within the range that the color receptors work. And you choose them also to be different shades of gray when farther away. For example, light yellow and navy blue. The yellow will go to light gray and the navy will go to dark gray.

What shade of orange?

Welcome back stranger. Black seems a little gloomy. How about Red on the bottom, white on the top and maybe a stripe in the color of your choice on top of one wing running from leading edge to/through the aileron. Make it about 8 inches wide so it will show well at altitude and only on one wing. Fuselage could be a mix of red/white?

Or not.

I have two currently flying planes that I can see orientation by color real well.
One is pumkin orange on top and black on bottom the other is blue on top and yellow on the bottom.
I am in the late assembly stage of a Cap 580 that is mostly yellow with paintball splotches on top and red and white target motif on the bottom (looks like the logo for Target stores) Should be easy to spot.

Welcome back!
some colors are "seen " better than others. as said before all go dark at a distance. my teacher 20 some years ago told me to make mine bright yellow with a med blue 6'' stripe LE to TE out towards each wing tip on top, and the fuse yellow on top and blue on bottom. do the tail similar to the wing but to eyeball scale. the wide tip stripe helps you see the bank or roll of the wing in a turn. I put a blue bar in the middle on the bottom of the wing to give me even more orientation. just don't make it look any thing like the top. there has been a lot of study on this topic and lighter on top, darker on the bottom with a "V" prominently striped on top pointing forward is a common result of the studies. I do this on SSC fighters and still have trouble in poor light . there are some new er neon colors and i have used 'em for fun but the sun will fade these quicker than others. i have used chrome.... it looks just like what it reflects and can totally disapear or flash sun light in your eyes. [:@]

good luck!

pretty much in line with what has already been said; different scheme top and bottom. from my own experience all flat black is a definite bad thing (that one lasted about 2 flights till i totalled it) but the best thing is something that is totally different not only in color but pattern as well top to bottom and also left to right. I have one that is mostly red, but has a bunch of hotrod stickers (automotive stuff) on top of the right wing and none anywhere else. it also has silver stripes on top of both wings, but not on the bottom. it has one wide white stripe on the bottom of one wing and just plain red on the other. unless i fly so far away that i can't even tell what direction i am going, it is pretty easy to tell the orientation of the plane most of the time. towards sunset or early morning or sometimes in bad weather it can still be tough to tell orientation, but for the most part the whole contrast thing works pretty well.

Yeah, you need some sort of contrast that is visible. You will find that at different times, on different days, the plane will appear brighter than on others. It all has to do with the contrast with the background. An overcast day will show different from a bright sunshine day.

There are so many different combinations, but, as said, the contrast must be drastic, like black and white.. yellow and blue, red and white, something that is really visible. But, as DaRock pointed out, this all becomes a mute point after a certain distance where they all seem to look alike.

One thing I try to do besides contrasting colors and large stripes (no, the checkerboard squares are not visible 500 feet away) is if you get slightly disoriented, wag the wings slowly, right to left. If the plane with the wing closest to you wags first down then up (right then left) then it's going away from you. If it's upside down, well be very careful!! [:@]

Thanks to you all for your response. I think I'm going to go with OzMo's idea.