Why Are Airplanes White?
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- Опубликовано: 16 ноя 2023
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Learn why most commercial airliners are painted white.
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Наука
This video seems like a bit of departure from pure tech content. This is sciencey. And I'm totally here for it
Funny they say "Captain" as this is all from Captain Joe, also on YT. and never mentioned...
I mean the definition of technology is way broader than just electronics, so it is technically on topic
@@StuckOnAFireHydrant You say YOU but the names are different - who IS you?
Are you YOU or are you @RonsarLo?
@@StuckOnAFireHydrantit grinds my gears when people think "tech" is just electronics and IT. Heck even your good ol steam engines are still "tech"
@@RetroMMA Crazy that they would use an airplane related word in a video about airplanes. And they give the same explanation for why airplanes are white, almost like they're explaining the same thing.
Another reason is that if an airplane is sold to a different operator, it minimizes the amount that needs to be repainted to fit the brand esthetic of the new owner if there's an agreed standard color within the industry. And for all the other reasons mentioned, white just makes the most sense.
Not really as much as you think. Competitors tend to do some sort of cabin refit before actually using their newly acquired planes, while they do it they tend to blast the paint off and redo the livery, as well as send of the engine for overhaul (presumably the previous owner hadn't done it recently).
Many airplanes fuselages built over the last 15 years are not made of metal, but composite material like fibers and resins.
Aaaand, I loved this format about other equally interesting subjects not completely related to tech.
Would love to watch Riley ranting about anything.
Rant = read a nice teleprompter
@@Zindiekid do you really think it is that easy to make it look, sound and feel as natural and genuine as he does? Try it!
Commercial aircraft as far back as the late 60's used composites for secondary structures like flight controls and fairings. Composites need paint even more than aluminum structures as uv light is very damaging to the epoxy resin matrix that gives them their strength and it helps prevent galvanic corrosion between the composites and the metal fasteners used to secure and electrically bond them to the airframe.
@@RicardoJunqueira didn't say it was easy, just not a rant if it's scripted
@@Zindiekid so it isn't a rant if it's not on the fly?
0:29 Did you know that on the newer aircraft with carbon composite wings/fuselages paint is even more critical then on traditional aluminium made aircraft?
If the paint is missing from the carbon skin, the UV will damage resin that holds the carbon/glass fibers together creating weak spots in them. This is why you might see pieces of high speed tape applied to surfaces where paint has gone missing, and this is perfectly safe.
Why does the paint go missing on carbon made planes? Simple, the paint doesnt adhere as well, and carbon is much more flexible then aluminum, the paint will crack and flake off.
Your explanation sounds perfectly reasonable. But I have to admit that if I see a plane covered in duct tape, I'm not getting in it. 😮😂
@@jasonhowell8 ^_^ Don't fly in NZ then, if you go to our smaller towns the planes are held together by Duct tape and dreams
If its perfectly fine add tape instead of paint then, lol
speed tape are hella strong and expensive, they look flimly but they're tough as well. Got few cuts with those@@jasonhowell8
@@jasonhowell8 high speed tape is nothing like duct tape. It's more like aluminum tape, just a lot thicker and crazy strong adhesive. It's never used as a structural component, only to cover things up.
Trust me, planes fly around with things worse then a bit of tape on the wings, and are still perfectly safe.
You can look up the MMEL of the 737, it essentially lists all that is installed in the aircraft, and how much of that system needs to be operational for a safe dispatch, and what influence it has on your flight.
For example, your allowed to fly with only 1 of the 2 engine electrical generators working as long as the APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) is functional and is running during the flight, and have a fuel heater installed or keep an eye on the fuel temp.
(Source: MMEL B-737 Rev 62 Draft)
_“Oh my God, Karen; you can't just ask planes why they're white!”_
*(Somebody* had to make the Mean Girls reference…)
3:42 And that's exactly why the Swedish train operator SJ painted their old train cars black. From the 80s. No AC. So the 30 degree celsius days are nice
Pilot here. When you passengers come to the aircraft it is cold and comforable, you can't image the oven it becomes when all the systems are off on a mildly sunny day. White paint is a must!
White is also generally cheaper to produce. Oh, and most cruise ships, boats, and yachts are white too. At least those that are intended to be used in warmer waters. Polar going ships may be painted a darker color since retaining heat would be the priority.
"White is also generally cheaper to produce." Generally is the operative word here because tech products are almost always more expensive. :-) Studies have demonstrated that colour has no effect on heat retention or repellance.
Youre 10000% wrong kid@@danmar007
Ploar ships are typically red
I would like to see those studies.
If you are warmer than your surroundings you want a surface with a low emissivity if you want to retain heat. Generally darker colours have higher emissivities and are more effective radiators. That's why your heatsinks and such are often black especially passive ones.
Air New Zealand : "Hold my beer"
Former Boeing Everett.... home to world's biggest plant making world's biggest planes painted in world's biggest paint hangers. Some high-end epoxy paints used on Commercial aircraft and some Military aircraft is pricey. But many require less total number of coats to adequately protect the aircraft and last longer. I have seen some wild and very expensive custom paint jobs. When an airlines is sold, new company will pay a fortune to have acquired aircraft to match current livery schemes of their other aircraft.
Same reason you don't wear black in the summer, or why asphalt stays warm longer than the sidewalk after dark. Black is black because it absorbs light energy, thus transferring it to thermal energy. You don't really want that in a plane full of people.
Not entirely true. Certain desert cultures frequently wear black or dark brown clothing. White reflects heat, but black radiates it. In simpler terms, white doesn't get as hot but black cools itself down faster. The net result is that in most circumstances, color doesn't actually matter significantly to an objects overall temperature, and if it does have any noticeable effect it might actually go either way (ie black objects can actually be slightly cooler). There's a video from TheActionLab on this subject.
@@Sotanaht01 That is just... wrong on so many levels. But let's start with the scientific and move onto the more cultural aspects later.
According to the Stefan-Boltzmann law, the power radiated per unit area of a surface is proportional to the fourth power of its absolute temperature. This means that any surface, regardless of color, will radiate more heat if its temperature is higher. A black surface, after reaching a higher temperature due to absorbing more light, may indeed radiate more heat simply because it's hotter.
However, a black surface does not inherently radiate any additional amount of heat, with all other factors equal. Otherwise, for the same reason that the space shuttles are painted white, they'd also be painted half black. (That's appeal to authority. But just as supporting evidence, rather than a core argument.)
Second, although it does absorb more heat, black clothes also absorb (read: blocks) more UV radiation than white clothes.
Third, believe it or not, but white cloth not being something heavy and dreadful in the heat is a relatively recent invention. You want light, breathable cloth that can hold onto moisture as a sort of air conditioning effect.
Fourth: It's actually mostly down to culture. The available materials were black. Black cloth became culturally ingrained. And eventually was deemed as holy. (Then you look at westerners imitating the "style", but with pink or rainbow, and it's absolutely hilarious how little they know, yet simply because it's different, are willing to put forth the pretext of worship.)
well technically, with clothing we are not just dealing with pure material properties. possible that dark clothing that absorbs some sweat moisture from the person wearing it is heated more by the sun because dark, evaporates the water more/faster thus creating a cooling effect that the white cloth would not necessarily provide.. its usually loose fitting in desert cultures, so it just needs to cool the insulating air between the cloth and skin. either way the cloth itself is likely hotter, but the contents underneath is the real question.
@@SangoProductions213 take a look at emissivity my dude, not many things are ideal blackbody radiators much like there aren't many spherical cows of uniform density. It varies quite a bit frequently higher in black pigmented surfaces. One of the reasons why many heatsinks etc are black.
If you really get keen you can make a paint that's white with 90% plus reflectivity and also an emissivity peak in the IR windows in earths atmosphere. This makes a paint that gives you a surface temperature below ambient in direct sunlight. NighthawkandLight has a nice video on the recipy and a few other youtubers have tested it as well as scientific literature. No voodoo science just careful balancing of properties and radiating your heat off into space.
When already stating the Stefan-Boltzman law you shouldn't forget to mention the last factor, that is the emissivity, which indicates how emissive certain materials are in terms of thermal radiation. Only for the ideal black surface rhe emissivity would be one and could therefore be neglected from the equation!
Regarding weight, when painting an aircraft a color other than white, a base coat needs to be used to get the preferred color and the best "color" for that is: white. Especially since, regardless of what color paint is used there is always a base layer of corrosion resistant primer which is a very ugly green color. So even in aircraft where you see a colored paint scheme there is white paint underneath it.
You missed Air New Zealand's bold black liveries 😢
the best liveries
BBL 😂
This channel has to be the hardest to come up with ideas. Personally, I like this one. Pepper in slightly off topic things from time to time.
I think it’s a good example of the fact that technology isn’t JUST computers - planes and all the engineering that goes into them, even the paint, is technology, so videos that aren’t about computers can help people realize that. Plus this is just neat and a reason to have the dumpster man talk is always great
2:39 Heat from the sun was my first thought, not in terms of heating the cabin but in terms of structural fatigue caused by the constant expansion and contraction as it heats and cools.
Love these videos man
Can't wait for upcoming LTT videos like "why is the sky blue" and "why are New York taxis yellow"
Love this more unusual style of the video 👍
How is this a Techquickie? 🤣
The topic is what you’d expect from Half as Interesting. This channel has apparently run its course.
Good one. Informative. Thanks
Great video and I really like the detail, I'm quite surprised that I saw this on techquickie since this is not so much related to tech.
*More science stuff please!* Great video guys!
Interestingly there are airlines that have gone with a black color scheme, Air New Zealand for example has at least some airplanes painted mostly black.
The entire fleet has the black livery now, from the jets to the turboprops. The last plane to have the teal livery has just been repainted.
Because nz natives are non white
They're not black either, more of a Polynesian brown
Heat?!?
**laughs in SR-71 Blackbird**
For a second I thought this was Mentour Pilot or Simple Flying with this title.
I thought this was Techquickie not V suase
Now, this is a really good techquickie video.
these chartered planes i used to fly in to work in the arctic were painted black which i always thought was a bit ridiculous kind of make sense now that you say the sun actually makes cooling them harder, these planes don't need to be cooled half the year, they need to be kept warm
Also... visibility of white planes on a plane of white snow is probably less than ideal.
black paint will only help it stay warm if it's got the sun hitting it. Normally making heat is much easier than making cold. Most commercial aircraft don't have air conditioning. That's why they overheat the passengers during long holds on the ground. At altitude they are in -stupid degree temperatures the whole time so they just vary the heating of the air they bleed off from the engines for cabin pressure.
I'd put $20 on them being black because the dude who owned the company thought it looked fukn sick. (and he'd be right)
additionally a black plane is far more likely to be quickly spotted if it wrecks in the snow
@@NickAlexander_is_Awesome black looks like a rock if you want visible hot pink, safety orange etc
I needed this.
In the US the most common colored planes are probably Southwest with their blue and red livery. They also offer slightly more legroom than a lot of other airlines (like an inch or two, but hey, that can be the difference between fitting into your seat or rubbing knees with your neighbor)
Here I thought I was going to learn something not obvious ahahahah. But I guess I knew the answer all along somehow. Cool to know about the weight thing though!
Great info..
i didnt know that i needed that techquickie in my life - but i did
Great video
Gotta love when the end card doesn’t actually redirect to the “why circuit boards are green” video he’s talking about
It's HEAT TRANSFER WEEK!
This is the fourth video in 2 days harping on about the topic.
Best quickie ever!
there are seats with extra leg room, I can highly recommend them to tall people, especially for long flights, also I recommend not taking a normal seat as a tall person, after a few hours it gets really painful
I understand you produce primarily for the US market, but is it possible when you add written measures to a video put metric in brackets or something. I know I can google it, but many US youtubers add metric to theirs, and it's always nice to watch a video from start to finish and not have to pause to get a conversion.
Very importantly, white reflect Radar much better than black, and civilian craft needs to always be easily scanned, even when their transmitters are off.
Care to elaborate? Dunno much about radars
That was actually my first guess, but I'm not so sure. Radar uses radio waves that aren't part of the visible spectrum, so visible color shouldn't have any effect. You can certainly make a paint that does or doesn't reflect radar well, but I doubt color has anything to do with it.
Though maybe it does. Stealth aircraft are very commonly black or darkly colored. Maybe that's not a coincidence or entirely secondary (visual stealth would be secondary to radar stealth).
@Sotanaht01 I'm not an expert, but i think the shape of plane matters as well.
Colour is basically what reflects off a surface. Perfect black reflects no visible spectrum radiation, perfect white reflects all. So I'd assume that "white" generally reflect better also non-visible radiation - thermal radiation was mentioned in this video too.
shape matters more than any other factor. That's why stealth aircraft avoid 90 degree angles at all costs, bomb bay doors are jagged, etc. It's all toward minimizing the radar cross section and delay detection.
Hats up to you myan!
Please make more videos on these kinda things
Also easier to sell, since you can just put new logo stickers on. At my work we have matt black aircraft here we have a problems at gate where the radar sensor to tell the pilot when to stop at gates doesn't work, because the paint just absorbs radar, we have to have a marshall to guide us into the gates. And doing seat config in summer outside is like being in an oven.
This is something is think of while high lol😂
great video but it would be nice if the link to the recommended previous video at the end actually worked 😅
Expanding the type of contents here I see
Nice Information....!!!👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻
Interesting, I recently flew a times to Jordan and back with Royal Jordanian which even has several black painted planes in their fleet 🤔
Vid was so good and usefull
Some Braniff airliners were works of art.
Good to know!
Technology is not just Computers and I love knowledge of any kind. More general science/tech stuff coming? Nice!
Suggestion for future Techquickie: Rich Communication Services (RCS).
RCS difference to SMS/MMS and messaging apps. Key features and why we should use it.
Think it could be a good subject to educate about. :)
... know that it was briefly mentioned in a episode about SMS.
this is why the pepsi concorde couldn’t fly at mach 2 and they refused to paint the wings dark blue along with the fuselage - it would’ve gotten too hot. the concorde could only be as efficient as it was with an all-white livery
Aestheticly pleasing in the bright blue SKY. Would be my answer
2:10 love this one! XD
3:34 calling it tarmac is a misnomer. Tarmac is almost never used at airports because it can at times be unable to hold the weight of a fully loaded airliner. Most airports commonly use concrete or asphalt.
I'm not positive how this SciShow content ended up on LTT, but I LIKE IT.
As an avgeek this is very informative
Your best vid ever. :)
0:01 If you've ever been born at an airport. 🤣
Techquickie = all kinds of tech ! And I like it !
Yup, space is not cold. Space isn't anything. Which means that, without things like an atmosphere to dissipate and distribute solar energy, you're getting the sun's energy full blast on any part of you that's facing it. Remember folks, the sun is nothing more than a massive nuclear explosion that has so much mass that it's own gravity is equaling out the force of the explosion.
Also great example of how sound doesn't travel through space (and you should be very thankful of that fact) since it needs a medium to travel through. If sound did travel through space, the sound of that massive explosion called the sun would be perpetual and deafening here on Earth.
they should start charging for passenger weight too.
As a non typical thin US citizen who knows how to put the fork down I agree. I have to fly almost weekly for work and sitting next to a fatty who spills over into my space is aggravating.
🔥🔥🔥
Metal expands when heated. It wear down faster, reducing reliability
I think the question is why are most Americas (continent referred) planes are white. Seriously almost all eu planes seem to be colored.
It's also the best color for cars imo and for the same reasons...
Check out Air New Zealand's fleet, they fly a few fully black planes.
Air New Zealand: excuse me?
Southwest's bluebirds are my favorite. ❤🧡💙
Neat!!
So I wonder: when you paint your room with a can of paint, does your room shrink by a little less than the volume of a can of paint?
Spitballing here but I think so? That's why wall paints crack over time, because of uneven thermal expansion between the walls and the paint, so the paint adheres to the wall less
Your room's volume will definitely shrink since everything has thickness. That actual volume lost will probably be less than the amount of paint used since it'll dry and lose water
@@Mr_MikeMikeMike For sure, but after that, how many layers of paint can you use until your room is full
I love the content, but PLEASE, include metric units in the text/subtitles the next time.
Was surprised to see this channel talking about my passion (note my profile pic, lol). But hey I'll take it 😊
Literally watching this waiting for a plane
Cool !
That is some V-Sauce ass title you got going on and I’m here for it
was the shot of the ww2 planes done in war thunder?
Never questioned this before, if i saw a black Boeng i would think shadow company were attacking
Hey useful info other than tech? Noice i still love it. Moarz plz.
0:53 "Primers and paints gradually improved"... Editing error - needed to bring up a picture of Linus from the Paint Rant
Would've expected Wendover Productions to post this but I don't mind.
Appreciate the content, how is this tech related? 😂
I like this video... As a fun note, Trump wanted to paint Air Force One as a dark plane and they ignored him but he was so proud of his decision being made and made sure to show off models with a mock up of the design.
The scientists told them they couldn't paint the plane dark blue because it would make the plane too hot or something like that (pretty much what you said). Since he's not one to be second guessed, in his own mind, I think they didn't tell him and just didn't do it hoping he'd forget. That's why it's still sky blue and white underneath.
Because we fly man!
These videos should be called "Look what riley found out this week on wikipedia"
Wait... a PaintQuickie that wasn't hosted by your resident paint expert, Linus?????
I guess a white hull simply is the cheapest option out of all the colors.
This does beg the question then, of how are satelites in space cooled, consedering that besides the sun radiation they have heat generating components inside them
So is the fuel for landing free?
Oh my god, Riley!
DC-10 in the thumbnail. Based.
Another Question!!! Why the propeller painted swirls 🍥 ???
Here before the racism comment is made
Made it before you could write that, cope.
I'm late oof
Should've made it yourself, missed opportunity
sure buddy
I was here in spirit. Airlines.
The same reason why cricketers wear white clothing during Test matches to protect themselves from heat.
Wow, techquickie guys are really running out of tech content huh 😂
Metric units would have been great
Cool.
I wondered while watching this why they don't have a uv blocking heat resistant polymer coating? I feel like what I just wrote is science fiction.