A few weeks ago there was a post in one of the forums that contained a few links to various articles about designing color schemes in such a manner to maximize visibility. I looked for a while but can no longer find it; if anyone knows where the post is would you please let me know?

Thanks!

What about this one?

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_90...tm.htm#9076359

For me, wide contrasting stripes on the bottom really helps. I also like bright wingtips but that's probably more of a contest thing...

The Key word for visibility is "Contrast"

You want a combination of light and dark colors in sections large enough to be seen from a distance.



You also want a good contrast between top and bottom so you can easily tell which side you're looking at.

This is my favorite color scheme. Light on top, Dark on bottom. This allows you to see it well whether you have a light or dark background, or if it's overcast.

and you can easily tell top from bottom

And colours to avoid are blue and silver unless they are well contrasted with swathes of coloured stripes.
Pure white doesn't work well with cloudy skies either.
I've got the Seagull SEA26A Edge 540 and it just disappears against blue skies, against clouds and against trees. I've had to panel it with fluorescent pink and green.

Even the red white and blue plane Mike is using would mess me up on most days, I'm color blind and there is too much white and blue. I have one plane I did in white and blue and I have to keep it right clost to me and if I go high to do flat spins I really have to watch it like a hawk. This week I have been flying a 30% Extra and it's white and red, I had no problems until the white clouds rolled in and even that plane started to fade in on me. My best color is always yellow and then any dark contrasting colors on the bottom. I have another plane in orange, white and black, the lay out on the top has the white and it sticks out very well from the orange but the black stripes on the bottom blend in with the orange too much. It would be a good idea to look at planes in magazines or here on RCU and see what sticks out for you. Scale warbirds for me are very hard to see even on bright days.

UltraCoat "Dark Yellow" and Black...those two colors seem to work best for me.

While at the club airport this week with some of the members I watched one guy with a YAK took it straight up right after TO. This is probably the highest I've ever seen someone do this. But it really surprised me that I had no problem telling if the plane was right side up or inverted. He has the plane painted International Orange and White, mixed on top, with the underside of the plane being totally Inter. orange. I didn't have to look twice to tell.

Tower used to have a chart of A plane with different colors and mixes to give people ideas of what colors worked well with others. I think it was Tower? Seems to me it was Monocote anyway. May be worth looking into to see if they still have it??

Thanks everyone, great information, especially to Minnflyer for going through the trouble of posting all the pictures.

I managed to find the other article that I was looking for in the internet (using Google, still no luck finding the thread it was referenced in at RCU.) Take a few minutes to read it, it has great information:

http://www.jcrc.com/News/Articles/Ar...olorTheory.htm

I've always liked a nice brightly colored leading edge on my planes. Red or yellow or even fluorescent. It's amazing how easily you can lose orientation. The previous suggestions are good as well.

I think that was a poster put out by monocote. Here it is.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXJA14&P=7

That's the item!!!! Could give people an idea of what works for them.

A couple of the people I flew combat with have gone with an underside with one half white and the other black normal camo colours on top.

Very effective

Thanks for the seed of an idea.

This thread has brought a very interesting characteristic of a covering scheme - how's it look with different backgrounds. Emmmmm ....

I've been creating covering patterns using Microsoft's Visio. I either scan the mfg's profile pics included in the manual or use the plans to construct one. Then it's time to lay out various schemes and colors. I thought that I'd toss a couple of pics to demonstrate. My 1st build was a 4Star60. One of the schemes was a geometric red-over-yellow scheme. Before today I never thought of coloring the background. I simply added a solid color blue to see how well (or poorly)the scheme holds up with the background.

pic 1 - original top view "on paper"
pic 2 - same view "on blue background"
pic 3 - gray background
pic 4 - green background
pic 5 - blue sky background

My next challenge will be to find various "sky" images that can be used for backgrounds. I was wondering how I'd spend my Saturday morning ...

Yea, I know, the color intensity (or lack)will change with different lighting conditions - nuthin's perfect ...