Yellow "noses" of Me 109? Who and Why?

[Six Nifty .50s]

Originally Posted by Mirek Wawrzynski

Hi 2 all
thanks for some remarks concerning this isses, I would like to underline that we have in air warfare "Red Baron - von Rihtchofen", not any "Yellow Baron", :-)

It means that one guy in LW had made such conclusion, which was agains "holy aviation tradition" - let's pain our planes on yellow colors, which is better color then red one.
Why not red, some of them could say, we had in our army "Red Baron" and it was good and should be good in WW II. We did not want any yellow we only want red could say/add others. Strong supporters of "holy traditions".

Some of you have made quite interesting comments about 70-ties and paining on fire, testing cars. But we have the isses from about 30 years earlier (IX-XI 1940), where the first yellow/oragnes noses of Me 109 are seen flying hight over Britain, and later ect.

So, the painting by Germans the Me 109 in late 1940 was against "holy traditions" - remeber about "Red Baron"
They had to had some strong proofs that yellow is much more better then red one to broken "holy traditions".

PS
I can agree taht some resarch could proof in 70/80s that yellow is better one that red one but: How German did it make/proof it in 1940?
Nice question, :-)


Reagrds
Mirek W

The Germans certainly did not prove that in 1940. It was already known, long before that date, that yellow is more visible than red under most conditions. Notice that the life jackets and rubber rafts used by US Navy pilots were usually yellow, not red.

When I drive my car at night or in bad weather, I can see a yellow painted automobile long before I can identify a red one.

[odybvig]

The answer is quite simple:

The eye is most senitive for yellow colorwaves

Best
Olve Dybvig
Ophtometrist Msc

www.luftwaffe.no