Finally got my wife to go to the field with me yesterday. Started flying ny UCD with marginal landings due to wind and my poor depth perception. Decided to fly my Escapade, [Christmas gift from wife], all went well until I lost sight of it with sun to my back. It was a very gray day and the plane just disappeared to these old eyes. Damage was extensive to the fuse, so I just ordered a replacement, the wing is repairable.

I bought some daglow green adhesive backed material that i will try placing on the wing to improve visability and try to learn to keep my planes closer in.

Is the dayglow green a good color?

Gary

I would go with a darker color. Green disappears for me in bright light. Fire engine red, purple or dark blue are good for me. The sky can get a lot of different colors, but I have yet to have my planes with these colors get swallowed. Hunter orange is also a good color for long distance vis.
dan

Third crash since November. There must be something that you are doing wrong and need an outside look at what it may be. Consider having an instructor work with you for a couple of flights to see if he/she can identify what you may be doing wrong. Perhaps it's something simple, perhaps it's a basic step that you either are missing or getting wrong.

How do the crashes happen? Are they on landing? Take off? During flight? During a maneuver? Think about it and see if there is something you can correct.

By my sign-in name, you may gather that I was in the Coast Guard for quite some time (CGRetired). Well, we used to have a "safety standdown" two or three times a year. The purpose was to examine our routine and see if something was getting to routine and we may be doing something that we either ignore or just plain take for granted. It helps, believe me. We had a training session one day that discussed the "chain of events" leading up to an accident. Any break in the chain would prevent the accident. So, we would look at things we did that led to some sort of accident, no matter how low level it was, and then see what we could have done to change events, to break the link in the chain and prevent that accident.

The same goes with RC. But, it takes a little effort to sit down and think things through and come up with that one thing, or those several things.. those several links that led to the chain of events that ended up in an accident. Believe me, it works.

CGr.

From my perspective:
There are only 2 colors on bad days, or at a distance. Light and Dark. Up closer, you can see the other colors. Once you get to a certain distance, or on days with the right light, light and dark disappear, and you get the whole plane in dark gray. The trick is to understand that it happens, and to try and keep it closer in. When it does happen, you can't panic, and you have to be deliberate in bringing it back to you so you don't lose it. The point is in being aware, then recovering it. I try to use dark color on the bottom, and light color on top, as you roll it, you really see the difference.

CGR

First was caused by too much wind that just picked the plane up and pushed it back [up side down] and I did not react quick enough and it got away from me. The second was a dead stick in some fairly high wind and I tried to turn back into the wind, just before I started to flair, the wind just drove the plane into the ground. The last was a result of loosing sight of the plane in the gray background of the clouds.

Wind is a real factor at our club because prevailing winds are cross winds. This time of the year you either learn to fly in the wind or set on the sidelines.

Gary

Ditto, Contrasting colors of dark and light are far more important than the colors themselves. Medium shade colors can all blurr together.

Also, definitely work on keeping the plane closer. I am always amazed when i see people flying WAY far away or WAY up high. I usually ask them if they don't like the way the plane looks. That's the only reason I can think of as to why they fly where they can't see the plane.

Bring it IN! Keep it close!

I was about to echo Minnflyer's sentiments but he beat me to it.

Bring it in!

Especially with any wind present.

Newbies seem to always take the plane out further than they should.

I try to keep mine close and high enough to make a landing on a deadstick, at all times.

With winds, you have to dive the plane, to pick up speed, and make headway into the wind, which means flying closer, and maybe higher.

You might take a look at the color schemes on some of the competition aerobatics planes. They are designed to maximize visibility for orientation. A theme that appears alot is an arrow shape on the wings pointing forward, often in white against a dark color background.

I have seen guys crash three airplanes, and once three helicopters in one day... So it could be worse...

By the way the heli guys small machine was a glow 30 size, the other two were bigger....This was pre electric and gas heli days.

Patterns are more important than color, and for that mater light or dark. There is a great article about visibiltity and recognition of planes. The basic conclusion is make the wings and top of the plane one set of contrasting colors and the bottom a completely different set. Right now ALL of my planes have big, minimum 4" wide stripes fore to aftthat contrast with each other on the bottom. White, purple, or Yellow, Dark Red, White, green. The colors don't matter, the contrast does. The top should be completly different orentation of contrast. Make the vertical and rudder really contrast to the fuselage.

My eyes are not good for other thana morning sun at my back on a blue sky. Luckly we get quite a few of these days, but I found that with a mostly cloudy day, or a morning high fog, it's a good time to walkd the pits an BS whith the guys. When I have the sun at my back and a blue sky, I can see my plane and keep orentiation for quite a ways out. Note, I don't like to fly anything wiht less that a 60" span for visibilitiy reasons. I tried some yellow tinted sun glasses, shooters glasses I think they were called on a cloudy day. It took me for ever to pick up the pieces of just the engine, let alone the plane after that experment.

Learn what area of the sky you can fly in and keep track of the plane on a sunny day, and fly there. On days that the clouds and sun are in a battle for control of the sky.either fly realy close in or BSwith the guys in the pits. Fully grey skys finds me at home or BS'inng with the guys. I would rather come home wishing I had flown than come home wishing Ihadn't.

Don

I am blind in one eye and have 20-200 in the other(corrected to 20-20) I taught myself this: a bright plane I am looking at the top, a dark one I am looking at the bottom. It is more complicated than that but it helped in the beginning. I try to never fly if the sun is in front of me and below the level of the airplane, it is always a silhouette then. The problem I had was that the planes do lose color at a distace, and without depth perception I couldn't tell if a plane was getting closer or farther away. I would pull up elevator thinking the plane would turn toward me and it would go the opposite way. Now if I can't tell I just bank the wings Until they are bright and give up elevator. It is always good to use small corrections in case the plane got inverted. It has been a few years since I taught myself this so I do it subconsiously and don't know if I am saying it right.

Here is a video I posted a while back of a Dynaflight Butterfly I had. It was totally black(looked like it was covered with a garbage bag). If you look at about the 40 second mark I come in low in front of some trees-black on black. But you can still tell that the plane is banked toward you, because it is bright. and at the 1:15 mark on my landing approach my nephew who has two eyes thinks the plane is going away. I had no trouble with it, since I knew what to look for, but with the quality of the video I don't know if you can see it.

[link]http://www.rcuvideos.com/video/GMS-32-on-a-Butterfly-vs-This[/link]

If you can teach yourself what I did it dosen't matter the color of the plane.I don't know if this will help but it did me.-BW

To me when an airplane is flying it's like black and white TV..until the sun shines on it while in a bank or a knief edge.....

Aviod chrome as it reflects the sky and can disappear.....for colors Orange, Yellow or Pink stands out best on clear and cloudy days.....

Good flyin

I love my escapade as we have talked about roo man. But it is some what of a hard color scheme. its pretty much the same colors top and bottom just the directions of the stripes change. I left mine clean of decals. Was too excited to get it to the field the first time and never got around to doing them later. I also kinda like the clean look with out the decales. But in that case its the same color stripes just horizontal on the top of the wing, longitudinal on the bottom of the wing. at distance its a very easy plane to keep orientation. The escapade could be advertised as a 30 size plane in my book. the 46 engine is more than enough for it. and its considerably tinyer than other 40 size planes Ive been up close and personal with. Its little light and fast, all those characteristics are great for making a very exciting plane. The negative is the it seems the range to visiabilty characteristics take a hit. Im 21 with pretty good eyes still, just had a the whole pre work physical where they do hearing and eye test for my internship. And I get twisted up with this plane in a fraction of the distance it takes for me to lose orientation on other planes.

Keep it in tighter and fly the pants off it.