Instrument Panel Color

The glare from a white panel will make it much harder to see outside the aircraft, but nobody looks outside these days, eh Dan? I am obviously against reducing the ability to see outside the cockpit. A clean canopy is also an important thing, and often overlooked in the preflight. He could repaint it, after seeing how bad it is, but he won't get around to it for some time, and while he is flying around with all that glare, he will be less able to see his fellow pilots around him. A white panel is a very bad idea. Grey, dark blue, or some other darkish color is fine, but not white.

Boggs

I must be missing something here since I'm never annoyed by glare from
my white shirt (another contributor mentioned only wearing dark
clothes). I wonder if all the objections are based upon observation or
simply conjecture. Have you actually seen "the glare from a white
panel"? The sky blue panel in my ASW-19b was never a problem.

On 11/24/2015 10:27 AM, Waveguru wrote:
The glare from a white panel will make it much harder to see outside the aircraft, but nobody looks outside these days, eh Dan? I am obviously against reducing the ability to see outside the cockpit. A clean canopy is also an important thing, and often overlooked in the preflight. He could repaint it, after seeing how bad it is, but he won't get around to it for some time, and while he is flying around with all that glare, he will be less able to see his fellow pilots around him. A white panel is a very bad idea. Grey, dark blue, or some other darkish color is fine, but not white.

Boggs

--
Dan, 5J

I find that if I wear a light shirt I cannot easily read the screen of my glide computer because it is mostly washed out by the glare off my shirt. This is worst when I have the glide computer on my kneeboard (in club aircraft) where its face is more often perpendicular to the sun, but is also a problem n my glider, where I have a permanent mount in a position that isn't directly in the sun often. (I've never had success with temporary suction cup mounts).

The problem isn't really so much that the sun is directly on the instrument, it is that the sun is directly on the shirt! This gives a massive reflection on the computer, on the instrument panel, and on the canopy, all of which I find distracting.

When I wear a dark shirt all of these issues are greatly reduced.

Van

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

I remember seeing studies that black is pretty bad colour for instrument panel. Instrument scan is most effective when you see invidual instruments against panel, instead of only white needles and numbers against black background. That's why you haven't seen too much black instrument panels in military or commercial airplanes during last 50 years. (In addition they are are ugly as hell, but YMMV of course).

So I think we agree that the glare shield should be dark (grey or black). The instrument panel itself can be lighter colored or black?
Dan

On Thursday, November 26, 2015 at 2:05:11 PM UTC, wrote:
So I think we agree that the glare shield should be dark (grey or black). The instrument panel itself can be lighter colored or black?
Dan

Even reflections from instrument dials can be really annoying at times. I would hate to have a white panel. As others have suggested, grey/black nextel is ideal and very tough.

Now THAT is a nice looking paint finish!

I like the anthracite primer with the cobalt blue topcoat.

On 11/26/2015 8:22 AM, wrote:
On Thursday, November 26, 2015 at 2:05:11 PM UTC, wrote:
So I think we agree that the glare shield should be dark (grey or black). The instrument panel itself can be lighter colored or black?
Dan
Even reflections from instrument dials can be really annoying at times. I would hate to have a white panel. As others have suggested, grey/black nextel is ideal and very tough.

--
Dan, 5J