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Thread: Choppergirl's DayGlo Cotton Candy Color Scheme for Dorothy

  1. #1
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    Choppergirl's DayGlo Cotton Candy Color Scheme for Dorothy

    Someone posted the color heat absorption chart below on HBA....

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    ...which listed red and black as pretty high up as colors that absorb solar radiation.

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    I thought well, lets see if I can come up with an alternative color scheme to my Coca Cola Color Scheme, using some colors lower on the chart, since I want to try something really radical and cover my super slow flyer in boat vinyl, which costs next to nothing (maybe $100-$150 to cover entire plane).


    Since I don't want Yellow (overused) or Light Blue (sky color) on my plane, that left me with mostly Pink, Purple, Blue, Light Green, and maybe Orange.

    I decided to run with Pink and Purple and see what I could come up with...



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    My first thoughts? It's Bubbaliscious!

    Seems to me at a distance no matter what high visibility colors you chose, all colors just blur into the background sky at a distance, and the highest visibility color to have, would be a mirror like finish (polished alluminum, for example, which I did) that would glint in the sun like a signal mirror when hit at the right angle.


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    Last edited by choppergirl; 07-22-2017 at 08:05 PM.

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by choppergirl View Post
    Seems to me at a distance no matter what high visibility colors you chose, all colors just blur into the background sky at a distance, and the highest visibility color to have, would be a mirror like finish (polished alluminum, for example, which I did) that would glint in the sun like a signal mirror when hit at the right angle.
    Speaking as someone with 45+ years' experience in trying to spot other aircraft in flight: It's contrast that counts.

    You're right about colors blurring into the background at a distance; color schemes like the Brit's "sand and spinach" really become a greenish gray blob at a few hundred feet. Color, too, doesn't matter much...after all, the Germans used purple in their camouflage schemes in WWI.


    It's about how the airplane stands out from either the ground background or sky background. White or Cub Yellow seems best, in my experience. Polished metal glinting is great, but there's a whole range of angles where it *doesn't* glint, and at those aspects, it looks gray.

    Gray is actually one of the worst colors, though at least a bare-metal airplane is a light gray. Absolute worst I've seen was a dark gray that just seemed to disappear. There's a Robinson R44 at my home drome that's dark gray, and there used to be a Mooney. Both are tough to spot. Sadly, the dark maroon on my old Stinson was just about the same way.

    Besides color, if one is designing for visibility, one should make it ANTI camouflage. The purpose of camouflage is to break up the outline of the object to make it harder for the human brain to recognize. Take a look at the Albatros above....the cream-colored middle of the fuselage breaks up what would be one large blob into two smaller blobs. Which make them harder for the brain to connect. If you take a white wing and paint a wide, dark border around it, what you end up with, visibility-wise, is a smaller white wing.

    Friend of mine found his Fly Baby on Google Earth. It has a WWII RAF paint scheme, and it's a heck of a lot less noticeable than a nearby Cessna that's almost the same size....

    Upper surfaces are green and brown, and the above photo shows how they merge.

    Almost nobody paints airplanes for (positive) visibility, so I'd just go ahead with whatever way you want it. Though you might emphasize solid blocks or colors, rather than breaking them up.

    Of course, with ADS-B coming into play, there's no reason for anybody to be looking out the window. Their eyes will be glued to the cockpit TV screens, so the color scheme doesn't really matter.

    Ron "Bandit at ten o'clock" Wanttaja

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    Quote Originally Posted by rwanttaja View Post
    Of course, with ADS-B coming into play, there's no reason for anybody to be looking out the window. Their eyes will be glued to the cockpit TV screens, so the color scheme doesn't really matter.

    Ron "Bandit at ten o'clock" Wanttaja
    Scary, but probably true.

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    Quote Originally Posted by choppergirl View Post
    Someone posted the color heat absorption chart below on HBA....
    My daughter and I both like your paint scheme with pink and purple. As for being conspicuous in flight, well...

    http://www.classicwarbirds.co.uk/art...40-warhawk.php
    http://io9.gizmodo.com/5872484/why-w...ink-camouflage

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    I love German fighters from WW1, esp. the Albatros's, they have the best individualistic paint schemes by far. They have a big influence on me. I'm going to name my Cosplay Troupe Choppergirl's Flying Circus just well.... because... those awesome painted WW1 fighters.

    I hate though to give up the black and white invasion stripes... they look really sharp on a tail.

    I kind of came to the same conclusion too (from tests walking further and further away from my computer screen), color schemes are mostly for on the ground, in the hazy diffused light of the sky everything blurs into everything once you get past a certain distance. But I do want my name across my wings to be readable across my wings at least while flying low, or you know, while hanging from the prop. (=^x^=) It's a barnstormer thing ;-) got to shamelessly self promote.

    I picked Highway Clearview typeface over Airforce Stencil All Caps since everyone is familiar with Clearview from reading highway signs, and it's also the same font used on Airport signage. Lower case letters are more readable from a distance than all caps because of their ascenders and decenders.

    I added the chess piece when I heard Katy Perry's Dark Horse song. That's me, a Dark Horse https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_horse

    My brain works like a tactical battle computer in combat, which I think is nicely represented by my favorite "L" jumping chess piece. It's widely recognizable symbol and I like to be riding a horse. Plus it goes with my Alice in Wonderland theme, which had not only playing cards, but chess pieces. And well there was the Rocking Horse Fly.

    I didn't know that about the pink spy planes, learn something new everyday...
    It took me a while to find that Flybaby under the wing.

    My plane has just about the same wingspan (36' 1/2) as that pink P-40 Warhawk (37'). I look like an ant on the ground carrying a leaf around, when I move half a wing around.
    Last edited by choppergirl; 07-22-2017 at 08:57 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by choppergirl View Post
    I picked Highway Clearview typeface over Airforce Stencil All Caps since everyone is familiar with Clearview from reading highway signs, and it's also the same font used on Airport signage. Lower case letters are more readable from a distance than all caps because of their ascenders and decenders.
    The changing font size between the left and right wing kind of leaves me cold. Having "Chopper" on one wing, and "Girl" on the opposite but in larger size really looks haphazard. One of your previous examples showed them in the same size, with no effort to fit "Chopper" only on one panel. I'd recommend switching to that.

    I really, REALLY like your "Egyptian" version. I'd kind of prefer you'd use it atop the wing instead of the plain characters. Put diagonal stripes (slanting the opposite ways for the two wings) outboard to fill the rest of the space, and you'd have your invasion stripes.

    Ron Wanttaja

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    If I run the word across the top unbroken with same size font, I run into a problem on the underside when it's interrupted by the fuselage. It could be worse I suppose; I could be 'Ultralightgirl'. Early drafts I kept the type size the same and padded it out with a number in between... CHOPPER" " 38 GIRL". Even "Dorothy" with an odd number of letters doesn't quite work. Compromises, you just try to design creatively around them :-/

    Doing an entire Egyptian theme (Sort of Sci-Fi Egyptian) across the entire plane would be cool. I thought about putting hieroglyphs across the leading edge of the wing, and having an Ahnk for a control stick. Emblazon an outstretched wing goddess across the top or bottom might work also.

    Anyway about it, I'm creating an aweful lot of superfluous painting and detail work for myself. I figure I make stencil templates to trace on pencil marks or some jigs for the placement of graphic and everything and save them, and if I ever have to recover I can go back to them.

    I'll fly it with no paint at all well before I paint it, and then paint on graphics in stages. (rudder, tail, elevator, fuselage fairing, bottom of wings, top). If I wreck out the starting gate, I won't have wasted a bunch of time painting only to have it destroyed.

    I could paint the entire fabric in a blue gingham pattern with red Ruby rudder pedals... :-D
    Last edited by choppergirl; 07-23-2017 at 02:05 AM.

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    Now, if I could only get the millions of Star Trek fans behind my Volmer Jensen VJ-24W Dorothy restoration, without having to resort to the above....


    Galileo Shuttle Restoration

    Starship Enterprise Restoration

    Smithsonian budgets millions to restore one of Volmer's last flying machines that never flew but in imagination.

    I fly mine in my imagination every day, but I am decidely working with a pocket full of belly button lint here :-/

    Why?

    To boldly go where no one has gone before...

    Last edited by choppergirl; 07-24-2017 at 09:32 PM.

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    More donated parts to Dorothy via USPS today...

    Exhaust, Mikuki carb, 2x coil packs, air filter, fuel pump, motorcycle type twist throttle handle, seat belts



    RPM gauge with hour meter built in, a second EGT/CHT gauge this time *with* sensors; Tailwheel



    Donated Chotia 460 motor mount... polishing it up with Harbor Freight aluminum polish and cheap HF drills this morning...




    44x17 Propellor I bought for $100, with prop bolts and mounting hardware (taped under propellor)



    Mint Chotia 460D's, straight from 1984 time capsule wrapped in Dallas Newspapers from 1984....!
    $99 for both of them, and I got a free Chotia Woodhopper airplane with them



    Never been done before: Volmer Jensen VJ-24W with a Chotia 460... this is what a flyby might sound like:



    Airmap 500 AirNavigation GPS circa 2003 I bought on eBay for $20 with free shipping (using make offer button):



    Donated Alluminum Pedals from a Spitfire (ultralight) backwards and upside down in picture:



    Donated Ball Vario M-20 straight outta of 1986! Marty McFly and Back the Future!
    Maybe the last one in existence, who knows, but it's a conversation starter on my wrist anywhere! ~



    Donate old junk lying around your hanger while you can, to get it into one of the most epic airplanes evaaaa :-D
    ...before I have all the parts I need, and military jets are scrambling...

    CHOPPERGIRL on HBA
    Last edited by choppergirl; 07-28-2017 at 07:56 AM.

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    (log in to EAA forums to see cartoons)

    More Cartoons and Drawings






    Last edited by choppergirl; 07-29-2017 at 07:46 PM.

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