Whats the highest visibility colour at range???

[paddy]

I was flying my Sceadu the other day and got it a bit too far away and too high, the only thing that was causing difficulty though was seeing what the orientation was. The skid braces are white and the skids silver, the heli is the colour configuration of the older sceadu. What colours could i put on it and where should i apply them to make it more visible at range??

[Bender]

believe it or not, green is the most prominent colour to the human eye,
so flouro-green, but ugh
I use flouro orange with contrastingwindscreen (painted black) and some white stripes, seems to work
Saying all that, I find my sceadu the hardest heli I have to orientate, dont know why.
p.s. the silver boom dont help, black seems better

[Sao]

I find it depends on the background and also the type of sungalsses i have on at the time, some of my sunnies cut out certain clours making them nigh on invisble.

Most of my helis are Fluro orange and yellow

[kiwipilot]

I'd say hi-viz flouro yellow and flouro-orange (as worn by safety stewards at events etc)

You can spot them miles away.

Again, it depends on the conditions though.

[antsis]

My R60 has flouro orange and yellow on the canopy. I also put an orange strip along the boom and on the fins. Works well.

[FrankS]

Another tip which could be useful is to get some yellow sunglasses, these really improve the contrast.

I bought some shooting glasses after I'd been clay shooting in the US, cost me 17 US dollars, visibility is excellent and as they are for shooting there is no distortion at all.

[Captain_Bodge]

I find flouro ornage, yellow, or green to be best. I can vouch for the fact that at great heights (>500ft) the flouro colours are all you can see - many's the hour I've spent guiding two orange wingtips around without being able to see the red main wig or the yellow fuselage of the glider they are attached to!

[Ade_Law]

there is more to it that just one colour.

You need contrasting colours, prefurably 3. One that shows in dull light (bright) one that shows in bright light (dark) and one that shows in both.

The light and dark are pretty obvious, Black and White. Now you need an intermidiate. the Green we used on my Dyna-x canopy worked very nicely

Lastly you have placement. Its important for the panels of colour to be in places where they change shape a lot depending on orrientation.

The result of this theory was my Dyna-x Canopy as seen at goole last year.

http://www.rcgroups.com/~ade/dmhc/video/adriangoole.wmv

Ade

[Sao]

I've actually developed a love for Jan's canopies white with a red screen. Never thought it would be soo visible in the sky but it works really well
So well I have also painted my hard to see hornet in the same white with red canopy scheme and it is a lot more visible than it was before. I've also added a flash of fluro green to the lower side on the hornet canopy and that has made it even more noticeable.

That canopy does look good ade as does your flying





you flash git

[Ed]

It's funny how you go full circle in this hobbie.
I have just watched Ade's video and was surprised how similar some of the moves were to the ones that i carried out the first time i flew in wind and the heli came nose in.
The big difference between experience and lack of is that Ade landed his heli and mine ploughed into the ground after a vigerous 10 seconds.
Looked good though!

[Sao]

Did you catch it on video? I love a good smash up from time to time

Especially when its not my heli doing the smashing :P

[Ed]

No thank god!
I was in trauma, it was the third wee i had the heli and was just hovering.
It took me months to get it right again, one thing breaking after another, missed the whole summer that year
Don't want any reminders of that

[Janek]

Best colour is difficult to answer, but bright yellow is always good.

The worst colours are :

1) White or silver, when it's a cloudy or foggy day. . .
2) Green, when you're below the tree line, and Spring has come and gone, but Autumn hasn't . . .
3) Blue, when it's not a cloudy day
4) Black when you're nightflying and have forgotten to switch your lights on
5) Grey, at any time, unless it's on of the rare occasions when (3) applies
6) Day-glow pink, because you get called a poofter

[Sao]

Well I have found the opposite of one and two

My white canopy is very visable on cloudy days, although to be fair I have not flown in fog.

I also oddly find my fluro green section on the hornet stands out better against the tree's and grass than any other colour!

I think I may have the eyes of an alien 8O :lol:

[Captain_Bodge]

Flouro green is OK but ordinary green is definitely not. Mind you you should try flying a scale fighter painted in brown/green camouflage... when the only thing you can see is the red spinner!