<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Here's a contrary opinion to the thread on high visibility:</font>
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<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">There is a top FAI pilot here in Texas named Paul Villarubia (hope he doesn't mind). A few years ago the season started before he could get on his color coats. He flew all season with an all white plane. Paul is a winner or top finisher in almost all outings. I was in Sportsman at the time and asked him how he could see the plane's attitude. He said, "It's not a problem, I'm flying the plane, I know what it's doing". </font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">This was astounding to me since at that time I was totally dependent on my eyes to see what the plane was doing and make constant corrections. However, it's valuable to build skills to fly without depending on that tight eye-finger feedback loop. My current Aries always gets comments about the color scheme, and I admit it is not that visible. However, I've learned to fly with less dependence on 110% visual dependence. This is an important skill when flying the first round at 10:00am in a contest (with the Sun in your eyes) and also is useful on flat light days.</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif"> I'm no where near Paul's level on this, but flying without total visual dependence is a good thing. High visibility color schemes are fine, but you might want to try to fly a poorly colored plane on a bad day just to exercise your mind.</font>
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<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Recently (at last year's Jetero contest) Paul was still flying practice rounds when all of us had packed up because it was too dark. I couldn't believe he was still flying when the last of us left him for the local beer hall. As we were leaving I noticed him taking off again. simply amazing.</font>
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<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">--Lance</font>
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