Black Nose Cone on 70's Airliners

squonk

I've been wondering about this for ages and haven't managed to find out the information myself. Looking at EI-DVM brought it back to mind!

In the 60's and 70#s all airliners had their nose cone painted black. I always imagined this had something to do with improved reception for navigation systems. I know that mightn't make sense but it's my perception. In the 80's then the nose cones were painted the same colour as the rest of the plane.

Was there a particular reason the nose cones were painted black or was it just a style thing?

Thanks!

STEVE35

As far as i thought it was they painted black under the cockpit glass to reduce reflections and glare into the cockpit.

CaptainSkidmark

Glare from the sun?

BostonB

Dunno if true, but....

According to the instructors in two different weather radar courses that I have attended, it had to do with the transmissivity (electronic transparency) of the radiomen. Up until the 1980's, the typical paints used on aircraft had very poor radar transmissivity. The paint which had the best properties for the radar just so happened to be black (or I think, gray). Now days, the paint manufacturers have improved their products to the point where it isn't a big factor anymore and you can paint radomes in just about any color.

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/528832/

Plowman

This post has been deleted.

Tenger

BostonB has the best answer.

And its true that aircraft used to have black panels under the cockpit to prevent glare from the white paint blinding the pilots.

-At the moment Malev have blue noses (In JFK their B767 were called Old Blue Nose by the controllers)
-Not all but a good portion of Alitalia planes have the black nose, am not sure why.
-Some BA B757/B737s had a black ring around the base of the nose cone piece, again not sure why.


Every now and then you can see an airliner with a black nose, on Airbus this is the default colour before livery is applied. You can see this on some pics of pre paint greenish colour aircraft being tested in TLS. If delivered in a rush from Airbus the carrier may not get the chance to repaint. (An EI A320 had a black nose for about 4 months 2 years ago)

Stovepipe

Hi there,
BostonB has it right.It wasn't unknown for radomes to generate false returns on a radar.Painting the surface on top of the nose as a glare shield is correct and is still done, depending on the size of the nose of the aircraft, but in a lot of cases, airline pilots can't actually see the nose from their seats so it doesn't matter what colour it is.
You'll often see replacement radomes and doors and small panels unpainted because that's how they are supplied from the manufacturer and it's up to the airline to paint them.If it's a wildly different colour, then it's been robbed from another aircraft for temporary use.
regards
Stovepipe

Turbulent Bill

I think BostonB has it right. Black painted surfaces are good at radiating and absorbing energy (at least at UV wavelengths, probably the same for radio waves), which makes them good for radar. Materials and surface finishes have come on a lot though so it probably isn't necessary anyone.

As a corollary, a lot of the early nuclear bombers (British V-Force etc.) had white-painted undersides to reflect rather than absorb at least part of a nuclear flash.

squonk

Very informative answers! Thanks everyone for answering this for me!

Manic Moran

You'll note it on the radars of a lot of military aircraft as well. Phantom IIs, Sabre Dogs, they had black radomes. By the 1970s they had graduated to different colours, but it wasn't until the 1980s or so that radomes were the same colour as the rest of the aircraft.

NTM

GoGoGadget

Just curious if this has anything to do with older paints being lead based?

I couldn't imagine lead being too radio wave friendly.