Black Nose Paint

[cheesegrater]

Why do so many aircraft have the area between the cockpit windows and the nose cone painted black? Is it because it makes the aircraft look better or is there some other reason? Interestingly only old liveries have this feature.

Here are some examples:

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0750112/L/

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0256974/M/

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0542096/M/

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0341297/M/

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0879236/M/

[Woodlouse2002]

To reduce sun glare from the normal glossy paint reflecting off the nose and into the pilots eyes.

[SkyNoz]

Yah pretty much just used as a anit-glare sheild against the sun on flights, like how football players put the marks under their eyes to block sun light. It's the same way used in aviation, to prevent glare or briteness from occuring.

[Hagar]

Yah pretty much just used as a anit-glare sheild against the sun on flights, like how football players put the marks under their eyes to block sun light.

I always wondered why they do that. I thought it was to make them look fierce.

[beaky]

You'll also see it on multi-engine planes for the same reason... the inside faces of the nacelles are often black, so if the crew is looking that way, to spot bogeys or friendly traffic, or just to look at the engines, they won't get blinded if the sun hits the metal just so...

Black stripes on the wings (anticipating another question) indicate a walkway... usually this paint is textured and/or rubberized so you don't slip and/or step on some fragile part of the wing while inspecting or working on the plane while on the ground.

[Woodlouse2002]

Black stripes on the wings (anticipating another question) indicate a walkway... usually this paint is textured and/or rubberized so you don't slip and/or step on some fragile part of the wing while inspecting or working on the plane while on the ground.

Or, if on the leading edges of the wings n fins it is I believe antiice paint of some description.

[Hagar]

Or, if on the leading edges of the wings n fins it is I believe antiice paint of some description.

Not paint but usually a rubber boot.

[Woodlouse2002]

Not paint but usually a rubber boot.

Ah. It was paint on all my models.

[Nexus]

It's not paint.
It's inflatable De-ice surfaces.
You inflate them with bleed air and the built up ice cracks and falls off.
Only drawback is that if you use it too soon they wont work, you must have ice on the leading edge since.

You can also use electric heat instead of bleed air (obviously it wont inflate), but common for both systems are that you cant have them running for longer periods.

[Hagar]

Ah. It was paint on all my models.

[Mushroom_Farmer]

Woody!!!!  ;D

[Ivan]

Its more like a fashion statement nowadays... most planes dont need it anymore.

- Krasair Il-96 is just for livery consistency (if you look at the reflections there is no difference), nose angle doesnt need a glare reducer
- John Travolta plane is for historic accuracy but they managed to do it with the correct paint type
- AA Astrojet... that one needs it for sure. Normal livery has the white/red stripes on that position
- Convair: long nose
- Tu-154... depends on operator, Czech Airforce has a fully white nose

[cheesegrater]

It's not paint.
It's inflatable De-ice surfaces.
You inflate them with bleed air and the built up ice cracks and falls off.
Only drawback is that if you use it too soon they wont work, you must have ice on the leading edge since.

You can also use electric heat instead of bleed air (obviously it wont inflate), but common for both systems are that you cant have them running for longer periods.  :)

Edit: corrected sucky grammar, sorry (Ozzy is porbably going haywire now...)  ;D

Okay, I'm imagining black ballons inflating inflight and dislodging the ice.

Are you talking about the nose or the wings?

Anyways I think it is a cool fashion statement.

[Nexus]

Cheesegrater, I wrote leading edge in my message.
Now I'll leave it up to you to decide weither it's the nose or the wings I mean.

[RitterKreuz]

yep - and note that some aircraft with tail mounted engines like the cessna citation will have heated wings AND de-ice boots.

The heated wing portion is on the leading edge of the inboard portion of the wing ahead of the engine intakes which prevents ice chunks from flying into the intakes. (Boots leave big chunks of ice to fly off into the slipstream)

one thing to consider about de-ice boots is "Ice Bridging". You have to actually wait for quite a bit of ice to accumulate before inflating the de-ice boots... if you inflate them too frequently in moderate icing conditions the ice will start to develop in the shape of the actual inflated boot creating a small void between the deflated boot surface and the ice - next time you inflate the boots they only serve to fill this void and do nothing to remove ice!

its pretty cool to watch de-ice boots work. the ice chunks just blast off into the slipstream at 250 knots