wonwinglo

Flourescent paint is a relatively new invention,the name is derived from flowers which are said to 'Flouresce' at night after gathering light from daytime.
The break came big-time during the sixties when there were a lot of mid-air collisions with aircraft especially head on,scientists studied plants and came up with this remarkable paint,the idea was to have a white background and a specially formulated paint,first experiments were conducted on aircraft belonging to the Ministry of transport and civil aviation which had large panels on the nose,tail and wingtips,the paint was even used on a De Havilland Heron of the Queens Flight,one problem quickly became apparent and that was the paint soon lost its qualities and faded badly,the Queens Flight example needed a repaint fter some 6 months of service ! despite this the R.A.F decided to paint its training aircraft with the material,likewise the finish did not stand up to harsh service conditions and as a replacement a new material called 'Scotchcowl' was invented,this was a self adhesive backed plastic film produced by the 3M company,at least it could be produced in controlled factory conditions and lasted a lot better than spraying the finish,the only problem now was it needed to be jig-sawed in between the rivets and was tedious to apply,despite this it appeared on service aircraft right into the seventies,when it needed replacement it entailed removal of the old faded crazed pieces and presented many problems for maintenance units,the idea was slowly phased out and dayglo as it was called gave way to bright red and white standard markings.
It is interesting to record here that after extensive tests the colour considered most visible especially at low level was overall black ! this finish is now applied to training types,in fact civil helicopter operators and other air forces of the world are following suit,it seems that any colour appears as black at distance especially against the sky background,so the logical thinking is paint it black for maximum visibility in most conditions.
It is probable that in a few more years other colours will become the in thing,in my mind the old overall trainer yellow schemes of the thirties were by far the best,even if they do attract the insects,those who have built flying models and painted them yellow will know what I mean ?

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'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
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