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Can someone explain why the visibility marker has to be black this year instead of colored?

I preferred color which made it easier to identify planes both between and within teams.

PHXcoach wrote:Can someone explain why the visibility marker has to be black this year instead of colored?

I preferred color which made it easier to identify planes both between and within teams.

Perhaps there were issues with very light colors being used? I'm not sure, but that seems like the most likely reason to me.

Unome wrote:

PHXcoach wrote:Can someone explain why the visibility marker has to be black this year instead of colored?

I preferred color which made it easier to identify planes both between and within teams.

Perhaps there were issues with very light colors being used? I'm not sure, but that seems like the most likely reason to me.

The change should not be a difficult one to accommodate as black permanent markers are common.

It would seem from the rules statement that the black markings MUST be from a magic marker? Does that mean one cannot airbrush with black ink or thinned paint? This probably means one has to mark the covering before application, or risk damage in trying to mark the built airframe.

Chuck

coachchuckaahs wrote:It would seem from the rules statement that the black markings MUST be from a magic marker? Does that mean one cannot airbrush with black ink or thinned paint? This probably means one has to mark the covering before application, or risk damage in trying to mark the built airframe.

Chuck

I'd suggest reading the rules a bit more carefully, as you some to be inferring certain things that don't appear to be explicitly stated. Regarding your question as to WHY this is a new rule, it's due to a very unusual arbitration that happened at the national tournament last year that centered around the meaning of the word "opaque", which is how the covering was previously described. To prevent any ambiguity in the future, they chose to use the word 'black' instead.

chalker wrote:

coachchuckaahs wrote:It would seem from the rules statement that the black markings MUST be from a magic marker? Does that mean one cannot airbrush with black ink or thinned paint? This probably means one has to mark the covering before application, or risk damage in trying to mark the built airframe.

Chuck

I'd suggest reading the rules a bit more carefully, as you some to be inferring certain things that don't appear to be explicitly stated. Regarding your question as to WHY this is a new rule, it's due to a very unusual arbitration that happened at the national tournament last year that centered around the meaning of the word "opaque", which is how the covering was previously described. To prevent any ambiguity in the future, they chose to use the word 'black' instead.

Rule 5.c. states, "completely marked with black marker or black tissue." This allows only two options: marking with black marker or black tissue.

Thanks, Bernard. That was what I had read too, and thus my question. I guess to be safe (sans tissue) we'll use marker.

Chuck

coachchuckaahs wrote:Thanks, Bernard. That was what I had read too, and thus my question. I guess to be safe (sans tissue) we'll use marker.

Chuck

Coloring before applying wing covering is safer but I imagine coloring after covering can also be done by careful hands.

bernard wrote:

chalker wrote:

coachchuckaahs wrote:It would seem from the rules statement that the black markings MUST be from a magic marker? Does that mean one cannot airbrush with black ink or thinned paint? This probably means one has to mark the covering before application, or risk damage in trying to mark the built airframe.

Chuck

I'd suggest reading the rules a bit more carefully, as you some to be inferring certain things that don't appear to be explicitly stated. Regarding your question as to WHY this is a new rule, it's due to a very unusual arbitration that happened at the national tournament last year that centered around the meaning of the word "opaque", which is how the covering was previously described. To prevent any ambiguity in the future, they chose to use the word 'black' instead.

Rule 5.c. states, "completely marked with black marker or black tissue." This allows only two options: marking with black marker or black tissue.

The point I was trying to make was that you could also use black tissue. That is to say that the black markings can be either from magic marker OR black tissue. I can understand that you were trying to refer just to the first part of the rule (i.e. if you don't use black tissue you must use a black marker), but I didn't want someone to read this is miss that important part.

Regarding using black ink or thinned paint instead of a marker, I can't think of any reasonable way that an event supervisor would be able to determine non-invasively whether the black mark was from a marker or those 2 types of things, so I wouldn't recommend getting too bent out of shape about this.

As always, this isn't the place for official statements or clarifications.