Timeline for Why are planes generally painted white?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 15, 2020 at 20:04 | comment | added | J Lopez | I agree with @voretaq7, a shade of yellow or yellowish green would be easiest to spot. If you have ever seen a DHL plane you know what I am talking about. Those things are painted yellow AND red. I think that the reason most planes are painted white is that you can put a lot of logos on white, and that white looks cleaner than other colors. | |
| Mar 17, 2014 at 23:31 | comment | added | egid | @SteveJessop, yeah, countershading is very effective. That's partly why military aircraft are often camo on top, lighter solid underneath. | |
| Mar 17, 2014 at 19:24 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | And consider that a lot of birds and especially fish do it the other way around, lighter underneath ;-) | |
| Mar 17, 2014 at 18:39 | comment | added | Lnafziger | @user13107 White is actually pretty hard to spot when looking up at it, particularly if there are clouds. This is why some airplanes have white tops (easier to spot with the ground as a backdrop) and dark colored bottoms which stand out from the sky. | |
| Mar 17, 2014 at 16:09 | comment | added | voretaq7 | I'm not so sure about white being easy to spot - at least in my personal experience. The most visible plane I've ever seen was painted an utterly hideous shade of yellow-green (about the same color they paint the ARFF trucks) - I saw that thing buzzing away in the pattern when I was about 8 miles from the airport and never lost sight of it! | |
| Mar 17, 2014 at 16:05 | comment | added | egid | @DannyBeckett that sounds like exactly what user13107 is talking about. :) If white makes an airplane easier to spot, camouflage (not white) would make military planes harder to spot. | |
| Mar 17, 2014 at 7:39 | comment | added | Danny Beckett | @user13107 That's probably more to do with stealth/camo: Dark spot under cockpit on A-10s | |
| Mar 17, 2014 at 7:01 | comment | added | user13107 | is this also the reason why military planes are not white? | |
| Mar 17, 2014 at 5:41 | review | First posts | |||
| Mar 17, 2014 at 13:28 | |||||
| Mar 17, 2014 at 5:24 | history | answered | Slipp D. Thompson | CC BY-SA 3.0 |