Color choices that can ruin your day!!!

[Shultzie]

Just a thought about paint schemes and how your choice in colors and paint trim can--- really SPOIL YOUR FYIN' DAY!

A few years ago...a major study of auto crashes and how the choice of colors for cars, made a significant "impact" in your chances for having or causing a car wreck?

It was noted that cars painted in either dark maroon or even those paint in metallic red were most often involved in large numbers of side impact crashes.
WHY?
After conducting color motion studies...it was found that dark red is the first color to disappear from our eye's ability to register a visual image on our pea-brains.
It was especially noted that when an object painted in dark red or maroon was then put into motion...many folks could no longer see that  object. Men and adults, especially OLD-PEOPLE..or individuals with poor eye sight had considerably more difficulty in seeing that object.
It was noted that young children or people with very good eye sight could retain the maroon object for a longer period of time.
Why?
As we know many species (not humanoidal'aldo's) can see into the ultraviolet spectrum with ease...and also are gifted with amazing  clarity to see small objects that are not only very small, but also see these objects in motion with equal clarity.

For example...and why photo darkrooms have dark red bulbs.

After I painted my FAI Avenger Series stunt model's body a dark metalic red. I kept losing track of this model, often at the worst places in the pattern. Especially exits near the bottom of the circle.

Flying in cloudy weather, or at dusk, or flying with a building in shadow in the background, or flying with a stand of trees in the back ground down wind..etc.
I THOUGHT I WAS GOIN BLIND....I so often lost visual of that model, compared to the first AVENGER that was painted in a basic white-scheme with trim in metallic maroon and navy blue.

One eve. at dusk...while practicing with that maroon model...I was really having some issues. But as soon as I switched to my older White model...I kept flying until it was almost totally dark.

I could never have done this with that FAI model.
Tim Dunlop (staff Capt of the Portland Fire Dept) always built the most beautiful dark metallic painted models and had warned me about how anything painted in dark reds were often impossible to see in low light or smoke filled or fog shrouded situations.
Bottom line:
Think twice about painting that beautiful new stunt model in dark reds or colors that can blend with backgrounds?
See an example below?

[Shultzie]

Gads...
That HORRIFICAL hat...would win first place in any STUPID HAT CONTEST!
If I were judging that flight....I would cancel ALL APPEARANCE POINTS!
 
Except I would give TOP POINTS to that "money-coat-coated white wing.

[Jim Thomerson]

Yellow or white is the best fuselage color.  That allows you to see the airplane well enough to get in that last flight after sundown.

[Shultzie]

Better choice for flying in those dark days...against buildings in shadows...and in winter, you can add at least an hour of extra flying.

Simply by using a light color for a stunt model.
(old Sting Ray that I took to the 69 nats in Phillydoooo")

[Shultzie]

Caution...about wearing stupid hats...for a fact, they can really mess up your concentration.
 A few years ago...I flew a practice flight with this old red hat on...during my lunch hour at the back parking lot, during our Christmas Jingle jam.
That big white tassle, flipped around and wedged against my glasses frame during the inverted corner of the reverse wing-over.....

How weirdly strange....it is to fly with only ONE EYE!....With that in mind, "ALWAYS USE EYE PROTECTION" at least when starting a stunt engine. Amazing how many fliers I have seen that have had foreign objects flipped up into the face and eyes.

The worst ever....was at the Spokane Internats...where a certain scale flyer that we knew who always wore a sport coat and tie....had HIS BEAUTIFUL NEW PURTY TIE...sucked into the prop of his airplane while starting it.

I CAN STILL SEE THE LOOK ON HIS FACE AS THAT MODEL STARTED TO CLIMB UP IS TIE TOWARD HIS NECK!
Only thing that kept him from being a mortality...was my quick thinking as a pit helper and managed to grab that nose and prop with my 'wiping rag that was hangin out of my pocket.
TALK ABOUT LOST IMPRESSION POINTS...AND LOST BLADDER CONTROL!
We both lived to "fly another day!"    

[rustler]

I guess this gives real food for serious thought. Do you want the judge to see how good you are, or do you want to disguise how bad you are?

[Shultzie]

I guess this gives real food for serious thought. Do you want the judge to see how good you are, or do you want to disguise how bad you are?

Yep...only is only as good as their last "toot" or pattern. Why do songs like..."I'M IN OVER MAAAHEAD!" or "YA HAD A BAAAAAAAAAAAD DAY!"