Zip yer fly.
 

http://www.4321zip.com/images/pics/Zip_pink.jpg

In what may prove to be the best deterrent to airline terror yet, Air Canada launched air Zip in a wide range of colors
that no self-respecting fundamentalist would be caught dead on.

Take off, eh?

IIRC, Southwest has the Shamu planes...thank God I didn't have to fly on one of those.

*thinks about it* The flying whale...*rofl*

I don't think I'll ever fly anything with a Zip branding.

"Captain, there's this strange clicking sound coming from the engines..."

Apparantly, the white dots show the trajectory of the average Zip flight. Even more apparantly, they're still under construction, since the 'wide range of colors' pictures were photoshopped.

In actually looking at the site and who they are, they seem like Canada's equivalent to Southwest. The idea as a whole sounds good...and may benefit travellers (we'll keep with Canadian spelling here :) ) in Western Canada.

Do the planes glow in the dark though? ;)

Yeah, you'd think they'd maybe use different cloud backdrops, or at least get rid of that hazy vignette around the plane..

Ryanair in Ireland
 

have some pretty odd colour schemes

including the smiley plane...http://www.ryanair.ie/planes/Smileb.jpg

"Shamu" paint scheme
 

There was a USAF KC-10 paint scheme they used for a while that crews called the "Shamu" scheme

http://m2reviews.cnsi.net/scotts/modern/kc10bt.jpg

makes sense?
 

That's a camo scheme seen often in nature, for obvious reasons. SO the USAF comes out with the same scheme for airplanes, for the same reasons. I remember when they were doing this, and it seemed like a good idea.

Anyone know why they stopped? Other than they might not have wanted their fierce airplanes to look so *cute*?

Re: makes sense?
 

If I remember right, it worked well in SOME situations (Over ocean and Europe), but horridly in others, particularly in places with a sand colored background. With the threat of fighting an air war in Europe all but gone, it doesn't make much sense. They've gone to Ghost Gray if I remember right

lousy late catchup on all these old posts ....

I can't help but think of a giant flying bottle of Pepto Bismol as I look at the first image of the plane.


And actually, while we're on the subject of camoflage that was rendered obsolete, I just wanted to bring up a link to the razzle-dazzle camo used on ships in World War I.

http://gotouring.com/razzledazzle/dazzle.html

I just love the idea of bright and gaudy warships steaming along, looking like something out a Picasso painting. And the fact that the camo actually worked -- at least until sonar and radar nipped it in the bud -- makes the artist in me smile.

sapienza

Excellent link, sapienza! The SS Melita is one of those rare photos that connect past and present. Looking at old high-contrast black-and-white photos makes even recent history seem so remote, then a picture like this comes along, looking like a modern ship that just happened to be photographed with black-and-white film.

The other major instance of this was the turn-of-the-century (19th century, that is) Russian photographer who took color pictures. I thought it was discussed here, but I can't find any links.

While I'm throwing up links, here's the guy you were talking about.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/

Prokudin-Gorskii. I was just looking at his photos a couple days ago, actually.

sapienza

Those ships could be an IoTD.

Whoa @ the French cruiser!

Why did they do thay crazy camo on the ships? What was the thinking behind it?

Since radar and sonar weren't used back in WWI to guide torpedoes to their targets, sub skippers had to be able to gauge ship speed and bearing and then lead the shot so that the torpedo would hit where the ship would be 30 seconds, 2 minutes later. Whenever.

The crazy camo distorted the sub skipper's perception of their movement. It was much harder to tell which direction (no, really) the ship was moving, what speed it was moving at, where the front of the ship was, etc. So it made it less likely that the torpedoes' proper trajectories could be estimated.

Plus, it was practically the jazz age and all that military gunmetal grey was just soooooo 19th century.

sapienza

When you launch a torpedo (even today), you don't launch it at where the ship is now, but at where the ship will be when the torpedo gets there.

To calculate this (Let's assume no radar/sonar) isn't trival, and you use something called a "Position Keeper" (Note: I've worked on one a little bit)

When you take a sighting of the target (Think about the movies you've seen) The captain gives a "Mark" - That is your Zero time - you take the following readings

1)The angle to the target from your heading (aka, which way the periscope was pointing from your own bow)
2)Your own heading
3)The estimated range to the target - this requires that you know the height of the target (why they have target books)
4)The estimated speed of the target
5)The Direction the target is going - called "Angle on the Bow" - if he's pointing right at you, the angle on the bow is 0 deg, and goes clockwise from the TARGETS perspective

from items 1 and 2, you can calculate where the ship is (bearing wise) from you in real terms. Item 3 allows you to plot it on the map

Items 4 and 5 then allow you to figure out where he will be when your torps get there

The thing is, usually when you saw your target the first time, you were not in a position you could shoot! The running time/target position were such that you could not hit the target, so you took a guess

You would then try to get to a place where you COULD shoot. In the mean time, the Position keeper was keeping track of your moves, and where it thinks the target is. You then take another sighting. You take readings 1-5 again, and re-enter the readings into the PK - it would take it's estimate, and your new readings, and integrate to correct your old readings! (refine your estimates) - you could keep entering as many of the different readings, and it would estimate the rest

Well, if you could throw of the Angle on the Bow reading by eaven a few degrees, and the subs skipper went the wrong way, he might never catch up (remember, you might run down your batteries, and subs were slow)

Wow! Thanks for the low down sapienza and CharlieG.

I was struggling to comprehend how making something look so stupid could possible stop it getting hit but I wasn't aware of the methods they used to shoot at them. I guess it's because im from the fire and forget age :D