Existing Day glo U.S. aircraft?

[Tulio]

I believe -please correct me if I am mistaken here- that there is a difference between day-glo, and arctic / high visibility markings?

IIRC, day-glo was more of an orangish / yellowish-red, than the high viz red seen in some of the photos above.

Saludos,


Tulio

[RickH]

Dayglo is an official color. It is actually a flourescent orange. They quit using the real Dayglo in large quantities because it weathers too quickly. Maintenance on the aircraft was very high.

[Nathan]

Thanks for the input. And no I am not "back" yet. But I needed some awesome answers for my new website coming up.

FWIW, I was wondering what warbird still has day glo or high viz on. Not currently active aircraft.

I know there is a C-124 on display with day glo. I am also looking for info on a C-117 that is in a salvage yard off D-M. It still has day glo on it from seen on google map and I am looking for info and pictures of it.


Thx,
Nate

[Toddb]

I think this would be the newest:

[JohnB]

I believe -please correct me if I am mistaken here- that there is a difference between day-glo, and arctic / high visibility markings?
Saludos,
Tulio

Yes.
In the late 50s, Day-go (usually nose, tail and wingtips in 6' wide stripes) was put on operational (as opposed to test and other special markings) for collision advoidance. That'e were you often see it on transports, trainers, etc. Some fighters had them, but I tend to believe when we do see those aircraft, they're probably test aircraft more than operational fighters.
Anyone s free to prove me wrong.

For acrtic use, the USAF used regular red...possibly because Day-glo weathered so badly. You'l see this on C-124s, C-82s and the like as well as F-89s and 94s.
The difference between arctic markings and Day -Glo (asside from the color) was the application. Arctic usuall covered larger areas of the tail .The USN has always had its trainers in brighter markings for collision advoidance. Back in the SNJ days it was yellow, for T-28, TF-9s,TA-4 and T-2s, it was usually red or red-orange/white. The photo above seems to show orange and white. Though it may be defacto Day-Glo, I believe it'[s usually considered just considered standard training markings for the Navy.

Likewise, test aircraft/drones/target tugs and (occasionally) rescue helicopters often had bright markings.

[RickH]

The Navy markings on the T-6 use the same orange as the T-34C, King Airs and Sea Rangers. Definitely not a flourescent Dayglo.

[Roger Cain]

As needed, the NG aircraft get temporary markings in a pinkish dayglo color that can be seen during the fire season, especially here in Calif.

Here are a couple of samples I took in 2008







There were eight C-130's wearing the orange dayglo paint during the 2008 fire season, and yes, this should have been a blue sky day, but all we had was smoke for months.

I believe -please correct me if I am mistaken here- that there is a difference between day-glo, and arctic / high visibility markings?
Saludos,
Tulio

Yes.
In the late 50s, Day-go (usually nose, tail and wingtips in 6' wide stripes) was put on operational (as opposed to test and other special markings) for collision advoidance. That'e were you often see it on transports, trainers, etc. Some fighters had them, but I tend to believe when we do see those aircraft, they're probably test aircraft more than operational fighters.
Anyone s free to prove me wrong.

For acrtic use, the USAF used regular red...possibly because Day-glo weathered so badly. You'l see this on C-124s, C-82s and the like as well as F-89s and 94s.
The difference between arctic markings and Day -Glo (asside from the color) was the application. Arctic usuall covered larger areas of the tail .The USN has always had its trainers in brighter markings for collision advoidance. Back in the SNJ days it was yellow, for T-28, TF-9s,TA-4 and T-2s, it was usually red or red-orange/white. The photo above seems to show orange and white. Though it may be defacto Day-Glo, I believe it'[s usually considered just considered standard training markings for the Navy.

Likewise, test aircraft/drones/target tugs and (occasionally) rescue helicopters often had bright markings.

John, I think you are generally right in what you say regarding the Day-glo, Arctic Red, etc. But one good example of operational/non-test fighter aircraft having the high visibility orange day-glo markings were some Air Force and Air National Guard F-86L Sabres which sported these markings during the late fifties/early sixties.

[Avnut]

The Air Force Museum's C-119J used for mid-air retrieval of space capsules has Day-Glo around the nose and tail area. I have some old pictures (about 15 years back) and the Day-Glo was weathered and faded.

The company that developed Day-Glo still exists and is located in the Cleveland, Ohio area.

DayGlo
http://www.dayglo.com/

[JohnB]

John, I think you are generally right in what you say regarding the Day-glo, Arctic Red, etc. But one good example of operational/non-test fighter aircraft having the high visibility orange day-glo markings were some Air Force and Air National Guard F-86L Sabres which sported these markings during the late fifties/early sixties.

You're right, I do recall seeing F-86s in the Dave Menard book USAF plus Fifteen: A photo history 1947-64. In fact, there is a 8" x 10" color shot on the back cover. If you have any interest in 50s markings, you need to get a copy. It came out in 1993. I was at Wright-Patt at the time and got mine at the NMUSAF Gift Shop. And I just noticed, I had Menard autograph it.

Color shots there give great examples of both, you can clearly see the diference between the arctic scheme and Day-Glo...not only in term of color, but applicarion.
It confirms what I said above, day glo was usually put on in bands, on the rear fuselage and nose. The rear application loks a lot like the yellow "Rerscue" band you'd see on helicopters and HU-16s, only in Day-Glo. Also, many tranports just had the arctic red on their taills, not the forward fuselage.

There are shots of F-101,102, 105s with Day-Glo, but again Menard's captions indicate those are test planes.
There is one 105 with arctic red aft fuselage.

And to remind us to "Never say never"...There is a shot of an ARS HU-16 with the Yellow band and what appear to be arctic markings...but instread of the entire rear fuselage anmd vertical tail being red, it's Day-Glo. Wonder if it ended up like that because it had the ARS yellow band, there was no room for the Day-Glo fuselage band?

[RareBear]

I believe another reason for the demise of true DAYGLO paint was that it had a very high lead content. I managed an environmental remediation project in the late 1990's at the former Raytheon plant in Bristol, TN, and the DAYGLO paint that had been tossed away was one of the biggest contributors of lead.

Walt