Instrument Panel Color

As others have said, seems pretty sketchy to me. I flew a club glider recently that had a white Kobo as the primary Nav device. Very distracting to have white reflections in the canopy. I can't imagine a completely white panel with the cutouts for instruments having dark faces. I expect that "mottling" would be very obvious in the reflections on the canopy. You'll notice many people go beyond flat black paint and coat the tops of their glareshields with black felt which is even less reflective. There's a good reason they go to the trouble...

P3

I went a little crazy and painted my modified panel glareshield with the
self shaping bumper paint that makes an extremely rough matt black surface.
Noticeably less total reflection on the canopy.

Quite contrary to expectation it is not uniformly better. There are
angles of sun that somehow manage to align with the facets in the paint
and make a reflected sparkle on the canopy.

Painting the back of the panel in a light grey or white results in
easier maintenance - because you can see better.

On 2015-11-24 21:06, Papa3 wrote:
As others have said, seems pretty sketchy to me. I flew a club glider recently that had a white Kobo as the primary Nav device. Very distracting to have white reflections in the canopy. I can't imagine a completely white panel with the cutouts for instruments having dark faces. I expect that "mottling" would be very obvious in the reflections on the canopy. You'll notice many people go beyond flat black paint and coat the tops of their glareshields with black felt which is even less reflective. There's a good reason they go to the trouble...

P3


--
Bruce Greeff
T59D #1771

I painted my glare shield and canopy surround with dark grey Nextel
textured paint. Works a treat.
www.nextel-coating.com
Jim

At 15:56 25 November 2015, BruceGreeff wrote:
I went a little crazy and painted my modified panel glareshield with the
self shaping bumper paint that makes an extremely rough matt black
surface.
Noticeably less total reflection on the canopy.

Quite contrary to expectation it is not uniformly better. There are
angles of sun that somehow manage to align with the facets in the paint
and make a reflected sparkle on the canopy.

Painting the back of the panel in a light grey or white results in
easier maintenance - because you can see better.

On 2015-11-24 21:06, Papa3 wrote:
As others have said, seems pretty sketchy to me. I flew a club glider
recently that had a white Kobo as the primary Nav device. Very
distracting to have white reflections in the canopy. I can't imagine a
completely white panel with the cutouts for instruments having dark faces.

I expect that "mottling" would be very obvious in the reflections on
the
canopy. You'll notice many people go beyond flat black paint and coat
the tops of their glareshields with black felt which is even less
reflective. There's a good reason they go to the trouble...

P3


--
Bruce Greeff
T59D #1771