Bright-painted planes wanted by inspector

Press, 2 November 1981, Page 10

Bright-painted planes wanted by inspector

The Chief Inspector of Air Accidents, Mr R. Chippindale, has defended his opinion that there is a need for aircraft to have more visible paint schemes.

His recent statement tnar Air New Zealand, Mount Cook Airline, and the Royal New Zealand Air Force had paint schemes which were a clear threat to flight safety drew criticism from the three operators. They said that pilots see the silhouette of another aircraft before its colours become visible.

However, Mr Chippindale in reply said that he had no argument that ah aircraft first appeared as a silhouette if it was spotted before any colour was apparent. But there were colours which became apparent earlier than others.

“My comment related 'to aircraft that are not spotted by a pilot’s visual scan until they are so close that a collision cannot be avoided without a very rapid decision and suitable evasive action being initiated by the pilot,” he said.

“Such situations still occur, even with aircraft equipped with red beacons and white

strobe lights, particularly when they are flying in weather conditions which include bright light and broken or even scattered cloud or there are several aircraft in the immediate area.

“In such conditions, colour is a definite aid to seeing an aircraft on a conflicting track,” Mr Chippindale said. “In a collision situation, the merging aircraft does not move across the pilot’s field of view and this situation provides one of the key factors in effective concealment and that is absence of movement. «

“The use of high visibility paint schemes is hot an answer in itself but is a very significant aid when other attention-getting devices have failed and a collision is going tq be avoided only by last-second and violent avoiding manoeuvres.”

This was the case in the report in which he made his criticism, he said.

“The pilot of the aircraft which took the avoiding actions detected an aircraft with a bright colour band whereas the two pilots in the other aircraft did not see the second aircraft in its mainly white colour at any time.”

He said the R.N.Z.A.F. ac-

knowledged there was room for improvement in-the detection of camouflaged aircraft at low levels, by painting the upper surface of one main rotor' blade on some helicopters as well as paint- ' ing a yellow band on the fuselage. Mount Cook had added conspicuous orange bands to its aircraft. In reply to Air New Zealand, which said the cost of changing colours would be enormous, Mr Chippindale said cost appeared to have involved in the change from the conspicuous red, orange, and white to the later, green, blue, and white and hot the other way round. “The number of actual collisions and near-misses in aviation warrants every practicable step' being taken ■by operators to ensure they can be seen as often and as clearly as possible in the greatest range of flying environments. “If pilots see another aircraft far enough away they will see a silhouette before its colours becoiqe apparent. The fact of the matter is that all too often the aircraft is not seen until its Colour is all too apparent,” Mr Chippindale said.