There is always a flip side of the coin. The german in these days had their reason to paint their noses the way they did. Constantly flying in huge numbers a single plane become very ineffective (proportional to the number of friendlies around the single fighter becomes useless) because of various reasons. It is quite easy for a small group to achieve surprise against a huge formation and get aways with it. That called for easy IDing who is friend who is foe, and because the FC didn´t want to paint their planes yellow or red, the OKL had to.
This way the friendly fire victims reduced also, while the RAF kept loosing pilots due to blue on blue fire.
For the e-pilot flying in a group of friends the yellow nose is a great help. His friends can easy see where he is and if someone without the yellow nose appears it is quite clear, that the guy doesn´t belong to the group. At the same time the group is easier to spot than the single plane, whatever camo they would use, therefore they gain more with the yellow nose, then they actually loose in advantage.
10-31-2011, 05:01 PM
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