visibility of silver rockets?

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If you're flying a motor that is smokey during burn and coast... and you use a highly visible recovery device... the color of the rocket really isn't that much of an issue. Thoughts?
 
I'm beginning to believe that if there's trees visible anywhere you look, you need a 140db beeper, as the rocket will end up there
I have okay luck, bout 50/50, lol. It's all LPR stuff when I launch at my house an anymore just stick a piece of piano wire in the ground over a dirt patch for a launcher. This new one that I'm developing is designed for small fields on 1/2A or 1/4A motors but it's also min diameter so it scoots. Just doing a lot of testing as I would like to turn it into a kit for grade-school projects.

Think I had 5-6 flights on it before it took off into the forest. The scare tape in this case is the recovery system and it works quite well on such a tiny rocket. I took the tape with me yesterday for my L2 cert as I was thinking about tying a couple pieces to my recovery system. Ended up not doing that but it really is very nice stuff for as cheap as it is.
 
If you're flying a motor that is smokey during burn and coast... and you use a highly visible recovery device... the color of the rocket really isn't that much of an issue. Thoughts?
That is true, but after the shock cord breaks, you still want to find your rocket in the weeds.
 
I paint all my rockets gloss white and flourescent orange, and use brightly colored chutes. Since I have to launch in the AZ desert, I take a couple of sections of 6' PVC pipe and a coupler, and a fitting with a hook on it to retrieve them if they come down in a tall mesquite bush. I also often use a locator device because I have lost a couple of rockets. If there is little to no wind, I don't use one, due to the weight. I always use an altimeter, because my goal is trying to reach the highest altitude possible with engines no bigger than a D.
 
It is something isn’t it? It is an amazing paint called Black, Rust-Oleum American Accents 2X Ultra Cover Ultimate High Gloss. Got it at Walmart. It is the highest gloss paint I have ever used. And it adheres to plastic very well.
 
I purchased some bird-scare tape recently for my mini-rocket project. It is VERY thin and fairly tough so long as a tear doesn't start. I burned a hole in it to thread the little kevlar on seemed to hold on okay. Rocket caught a gust of wind and I still lost it in the woods though, hahaha. So I have to make a few more of those now.

The shiny stuff reminds me that somewhere in a closet I have highly reflective tape I had bought for my Motorcycle to be more visible at night. I should try some of that on the rockets and see what happens.
 
Fluorescent Orange Arreaux
That is a great looking rocket!

And I think it's the best combo for visibility: black is visible against the light sky and orange is highly visible on the ground. And so shiny to reflect sunlight and flash in the sky.

What kind of orange paint did you use?
 
Should be easy to see this one I painted the week after losing my prized PML MR-1
JNHyaJ9.jpg
 
That is a great looking rocket!

And I think it's the best combo for visibility: black is visible against the light sky and orange is highly visible on the ground. And so shiny to reflect sunlight and flash in the sky.

What kind of orange paint did you use?
Thanks!
I used Rustoleum Fluorescent then over that with Krylon clear gloss
 

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It seems to me that when tracking a rocket in the sky you never see what color it is, you basically see a shadow against the brighter sky. I have also occasionally seen bright reflections from glossy rockets. I don't know if this was because the rocket was silver or maybe it just had a shiny paint job.
I was thinking about doing a study to figure out the altitude when a rocket changes from colored to a silhouette.
 
I was thinking about doing a study to figure out the altitude when a rocket changes from colored to a silhouette.
That would be an interesting study. I can say that once it's past a couple hundred feet I'm no longer focused on the silhouette and I'm tracking the smoke trail. Of course I'm referring to LP stuff, and my eyes aren't as sharp as they used to be.
 
Now I'm toying with the idea of using something like what was called diffraction tape back when it was speed shop kitsch in the '70s and trying to figure out what it's called today. Something like sparkle, prism, or glitter tape. Maybe put a band around the top of the Persian Orange #2 body tube and a patch on each side of a fin so it could blink on the way down.

I've used "Scare Tape" (reflective prism like tape to scare away birds) it is quite good for visibility - its a lot like mylar tape and is available at HD and similar.
I have used florescent paint as well - usually needs a white base, then 2-3 coats to get the color to "pop", and then a few good gloss coats...
Silver paint is hard to make look good up close, but I was flying an Estes Sasha (dark camo green with a Silver NC) and when the chute deployed, the nose cone separated from the rest of the rocket (no chute) and you could still track it coming down as the sun would glint off of it making a fairly visible flash to follow.
 
At launches I see rockets of any color, including black, sun glint IF it has a very Gloss clear coat.
Best gloss clear I have seen is a 2K clear.
 
I can track silver rockets without too much issue. I don't think they are any worse than some other colors as they tend to appear black in the sky. Of course the smaller it is the harder it will be to track and I'm proof you can lose anything.

I once lost a mini Bertha that I built using BT50 tubes. It was painted bright orange with a black nose cone and two black fins. Flew it on a B6-4 and never saw it again.

I've found that foil or Mylar streamers are my best friend. Mylar silver parachutes are also really helpful in tracking small rockets. When we fly out in the desert, I have a few small Alpha sized rockets I like to put up on C and D motors. It's amazing how visible 48" of Silver Mylar is in the Arizona sun.
 
I've done safety blue and silver before on a 5.5' tall level 1 sized air-frame (18" of 3" arount the motor mount, the remaining 2"). The thing was invisible over 2,000ft, but thanks to a good polish and wax, there was one hell of a glint from the sun. Nerve wracking to fly to 3k on a cloudy day though.
 
I'm wondering about the visibility of silver paint (and aluminum because that's what Allis-Chalmers* and Ace store brand calls theirs)? I remember that the G. Harry's handbook and the '70s Alpha Book of Rocketry had opposite opinions. This summer I came up with a nifty retro color scheme of a silver body tube with orange and black fins and nose cones. Then my silver Omega clone was lost in flight with several sets of eyes on it at NARAM. I'm thinking about going something more bland if practical of going with mostly orange rockets.

*As you may have heard, Grandpa Skow had the world's bestest little tractor dealership.
If you are talking about chrome paint or silver mylar, they reflect well in sunlight but on cloudy days they tend to blend in such they are hard to see.
 
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