Color choices for visability?

[Bill Adair]

Had a hair raising experience in the first few seconds of the maiden flight with my TD .049 powered Baby Flite Streak. Don Curry built this BFS for our club auction a couple years ago.

Anyway, set it up with 40 foot spectra 20# lines, and found the push rod is hitting the spar and limiting the down throw to a few degrees, with plenty of up. Decided to fly it that way before attempting more changes.

Don did a beautiful job with blue transparent Ultrakote on the wings, and gold Ultra on the fuselage and tail surfaces.

First and only flight was using a Cox 5X3 rubber ducky prop, and borrowed fuel with 25% nitro, and 20% Castor. Location was Delta Park, on the grass field at the north west end of the park.

Doug Powers started, and Bill Lee launched for me (no landing gear), and the BFS immediately dived causing me to input a panic amount of up control. Suddenly the airplane completely disappeared from sight! 

I could hear and feel it looping about fifteen feet off the ground, but couldn't see it!

I was helpless and just held that handle position, hoping I could figure out where it was before running out of altitude, and auguring in.

After five or six very tight loops (as estimated by the startled pit crew) I suddenly caught sight of it on the down leg of a loop, against the darker trunk of a tree outside the circle. I lost it almost immediately again, but estimated the pull out position perfectly, and fed in what I thought would be enough down control at that point. I was very relieved to catch sight of the BFS climbing smartly away, and now (thankfully) visible against the overcast sky!

Finished the flight after checking the up and down controls by climbing and diving gently a few times, and it seemed to handle beautifully, but was way faster then anything else I've ever flown!

Finished the tank, and landed reasonably well, but was way too shook up to fly again!

Seems the gold fuselage color almost perfectly matched the sparse tree leaves on the large trees outside the circle, and I was very very lucky to save the airplane.

Now I'm beginning to rethink the colors on two Baby Clowns I'm setting up. Perhaps these nearly solid fuselage colors are a bad selection from a visibility standpoint. In retrospect a contrasting stripe might have helped. Now I've got to be careful to have my airplanes launched from a position with no matching background colors.

Bill

[Shultzie]

Talk about VISABILITY...
Check out Paul's new axe that was posted on www.flyinglines.org this morn.

AWESOME CLPA ART AT ITS FINEST!!!  BEEUUUUTEEEEFUL WORK, PAUL!

[Dave Hull]

Bill,
You have a great combination of equipment that should be a lot of fun. You might try swapping out the TD venturi for the medallion and see how you like that version. I had a similar setup in a Baby Clown but used 42' of .008" stranded lines. Was a great flier.

Another thing to think about regarding visibility is light levels. I was recently flying for Bill Lee and I couldn't see the model good enough to control it when he released it. It was mid-afternoon, and he was in a shadow, and the sun was coming towards me. The fact that the plane was darker in color didn't help, but since I was wearing dark glasses to handle the glare, and then looking into the shadows....  The end result was a bounced takeoff with some damage to the landing gear. All pilot error. We later added a strip of white tape and it helped me see the plane.

Dave "McSlow" Hull

[Paul Taylor]

I know it is not funny.... but Bill that was a funny story.

[Bill Heher]

Hi Bill,

I'v found that a horizontal stripe the length of the fuse, or even better 2 stripes with a seperation of 1/8" -1/4" really helps with visibilty / orientation issues. A contrasting color canopy helps also.

With a gold fuse / blue wings I would try 2 blue lines with a stripe of white between themfrom nose to tail, easy way is to make 3/8"- 1/2" wide blue stripe and run a piece of white pin stripe tape down the middle.

Blue and Gold- just like a Cub Scout uniform / flag- seems fitting for a Baby Flight Streak.

[john e. holliday]

Bill go to a Master Airscrew 6-3 or even a 6-2(if you can find one).  I am comptemplating putting a TeeDee .049 on my Baby FLight Steak.  Flying on 35 foot .012 lines the Bodak .049 does not have the power.  Then again it may need breaking in some more.