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When planes come off the assembly line at the factory, they're green:

So why are most painted white? Surely a darker colour would hide dirt better?

Is there a reason planes are traditionally white?


Here's a clip that shows a Boeing 747 being painted:

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    $\begingroup$ @oakad This is the reason for the word "generally" in the title :) $\endgroup$ Mar 17, 2014 at 3:58
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    $\begingroup$ It's not a primary reason, but hiding dirt is NOT what you want. 1. It increases drag. 2. It often indicates problems - leaking seals, internal pipe leaks, corrosion in exposed flap tracks etc. $\endgroup$
    – Simon
    Mar 17, 2014 at 19:49
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    $\begingroup$ Ok, I do not find references to underpin that statement, but a gifted car mechanic once told me, that white lacquer is harder than other colors. (Well, most craftsmen in Germany have white cars...). $\endgroup$
    – loveNoHate
    Mar 17, 2014 at 20:24
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    $\begingroup$ The Concorde was painted with a special type of white paint because any other color would cause the airframe to heat up way beyond its design limits at Mach 2 cruise. The Pepsi Concorde was painted blue, and was hence not allowed to fly at Mach 2 for more than 20 minutes at a time: concordesst.com/history/events/pictures/pepsi6.jpg $\endgroup$ Mar 19, 2014 at 10:53
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    $\begingroup$ I would be asking why Air France planes are so dirty based on your findings! $\endgroup$
    – Jamiec
    Aug 14, 2014 at 13:38

15 Answers 15

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White has some significant thermal advantages over color. In most cases, this is probably just a benefit in terms of keeping the cabin slightly cooler. In the case of 'plastic' airplanes (those built with composite construction), some airframes require the use of white paint on upper surfaces to keep some elements within limits. Early Diamond Aircraft designs had a 38° C outside air temperature limit, past which the main spar is not considered structurally sound.

As a result, Diamond would only manufacture aircraft with predominantly white upper surfaces, as darker surfaces could result in significant heat gain.

DA-20 55C overtemp indicator

Avweb has an article on the DA-20 that shows the bright red over-temp indicator that raises the maximum temperature to 55° C, added as a Service Bulletin.

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    $\begingroup$ I read some time ago that supersonic aircraft like Concorde also required almost all-white livery due to thermal issues $\endgroup$
    – orique
    Mar 18, 2014 at 7:13
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    $\begingroup$ It's worth noting that I doubt this is the definitive answer, even though it's been accepted. The structural temperature issues are only really relevant for the newest composite designs. There's no place on earth that's likely to be hot enough to cause issues with an aluminum airframe. $\endgroup$
    – egid
    Mar 18, 2014 at 23:43
  • $\begingroup$ ...except maybe a volcano. $\endgroup$
    – egid
    Mar 20, 2014 at 16:29
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    $\begingroup$ @egid: How about at 80,000 feet and Mach 3.2? The SR-71 Blackbird was built out of titanium because the high temp "enjoyed" at cruise speed would melt aluminum easily. $\endgroup$ Aug 14, 2014 at 13:42
  • $\begingroup$ Also, the SR-71 was black. It was heated by friction with the atmosphere, not by solar heating. Diamonds as noted above are white to avoid getting solar heat, the SR-71 was black to efficiently radiate the heat of friction away. $\endgroup$ Aug 14, 2014 at 13:51
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The green coating is a primer (historically zinc chromate, these days zinc phosphate is used as it's less of an environmental hazard) - While you could theoretically fly around like that it is a rather ugly shade of green, so most folks (and airlines) tend to paint their aircraft some other color.

So why white?
White has a few advantages, but the two biggest ones I can think of are these:

  • White is a nice, neutral base color.
    Artists typically start out with a white canvas, or white paper - it's a color associated with "blank" and "clean" (the latter moreso if you actually wash the aircraft, of course...). Starting with a white base coat allows the airline's marketing department to paint whatever livery they want on their flying billboards.

  • White doesn't fade.
    Or perhaps it's more accurate to say "you don't really notice when white fades.". An average airliner will have several paint jobs during its service life, but the longer you can go between having to reprint the plane the better, and if you don't have to worry about the paint fading and looking old for a good long while you cans stretch the time between paint jobs without having your passengers start making snide comments about your fleet of flying hoopties.
    All colored paints will eventually fade from exposure to sun and the elements, particularly exposure to the sun at 30,000 feet, where substantially more UV radiation is hitting the paint and accelerating the fading process.


Of course there's nothing that says the base coat HAS to be white: Southwest has a very attractive blue/red/orange livery, and American Airlines has traditionally incorporated polished aluminum in their livery (which also affords a substantial weight savings, by not priming & painting the entire body of the aircraft).

Current Southwest livery American Airlines old livery (MD-80)

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    $\begingroup$ You say "a substantial weight savings" - Do you have a reference for how much the paint weighs for a given plane? $\endgroup$ Mar 17, 2014 at 6:08
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    $\begingroup$ @RichardMiskin It obviously varies depending on how much surface needs to be covered, and to a lesser extent on the type of paint used (urethane paints are pretty much the standard in aviation these days). This Daily Apple article has a table from Boeing, which puts the weight of a full paint scheme on a 747 at 555lbs (versus 55lbs for polished skin & a logo). $\endgroup$
    – voretaq7
    Mar 17, 2014 at 6:25
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    $\begingroup$ @vortaq7 There was an article in the seat pocket magazine years ago on an American Airlines flight. Their former livery - polished aluminum accented by a stripe of multicolored paint - saved 200 pounds. that is from memory and applies to the MD-80 series. So they save the weight of one passenger on each flight. I wish I could remember the fuel savings they claimed, but it was substantial on an annual basis. $\endgroup$ Mar 17, 2014 at 13:09
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    $\begingroup$ "Ugly shade of green"... you do realize it's St Patricks Day, and you've just antagonized everyone of Irish descent? ;) I seem to remember a story about interned B-29s that landed in Russia during WWII due to battle damage over Japan, and the Russians copied them exactly, down to the exposed green primer in the aft portion (the factory had run out of interior white paint, or something). $\endgroup$
    – Phil Perry
    Mar 17, 2014 at 18:48
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    $\begingroup$ @RichardMiskin Check out this YouTube clip from Megafactories, with Boeing painting a new 747. This would concur with voretaq7. $\endgroup$ Mar 17, 2014 at 23:52
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Of course, in certain situations a plane has to be painted white...or another colour.

Concorde had to be finished in a special, highly reflective white paint to mitigate the extreme heating effects that friction caused at mach 2.

[It] reaches 127° C at the nose and trailing edge, but the special ‘high-reflectivity’ white paint helps reflect and radiate heat. Its reflectivity is 80 out of 100, compared to the rating of normal white paint of 45-50 out of 100, Concorde is re-painted every three years.

Conversely, the SR-71 Blackbird was painted matte black for almost exactly the same reason, plus some radar signature reduction.

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Two reasons for white I've been told many times are:

  • white paint is cheaper than other colours (either because it costs less and/or weighs less)
  • white makes it easier to apply names and logos of other companies when leasing your aircraft to someone else. Saves a trip to the paint shop, instead you just apply stickers.

Both make sense, but whether they're the main reason I don't know.

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    $\begingroup$ Do they really use stickers for names and logos? I would think it likely they would come off too easily. $\endgroup$
    – Phil Perry
    Mar 17, 2014 at 18:54
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    $\begingroup$ @PhilPerry yes, they do. And yes, they do sometimes come off when not properly applied. But it's quite possible to use stickers that require special chemicals to get off. $\endgroup$
    – jwenting
    Mar 18, 2014 at 7:43
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    $\begingroup$ Why couldn't you place a sticker on an airplane with some other color? $\endgroup$
    – Speldosa
    Apr 1, 2014 at 14:01
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    $\begingroup$ @Speldosa you can. White is however nicely neutral. If you put KLM stickers on a US Airways aircraft... Now put them on an Air France aircraft... In both cases after removing the original titles and logos of course. And that's how rental/short term lease companies work. $\endgroup$
    – jwenting
    Apr 2, 2014 at 7:03
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    $\begingroup$ @reirab of course, same thing effectively as a short lease or rental. You put the styling on for a very limited time only. $\endgroup$
    – jwenting
    Sep 24, 2014 at 2:57
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Contrary to voretaq7's highly upvoted answer, the green coating in your first image is NOT a primer. It's a spray-on plastic protective coating usually referred to as "Temporary Protective Coating (TPC)". This is used primarily as a barrier to oxidation, as there is a very thin layer of very pure aluminum on the exterior surface of the skin.

During some of the videos available of the painting process for a new aircraft, you will see them spray a chemical over the entire airplane as the first step. This chemical dissolves the TPC, and leaves a super-shiny aluminum surface for them to then proceed to paint.

The primer paint used on the exterior of the skin during the full paint process is usually a yellow color, not the traditional "Boeing green" seen on interior parts that don't get a final paint coat.

As for why white is the primary color of choice, I unfortunately do not know. However I would point out that Southwest Airlines does not use a white base-coat on their current livery (term for the paint scheme), American Airlines' new 787's are actually a very light blue, and there was the Air New Zealand black 787 shown in another answer...

Source/Disclaimer: I am employed by Boeing on the Commercial production lines. Information I have provided is, to the best of my knowledge, accurate and not considered proprietary.

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  • $\begingroup$ Where is the "there" that you work? $\endgroup$
    – FreeMan
    Mar 22, 2016 at 18:18
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    $\begingroup$ Boeing, commercial aircraft, structures assembly $\endgroup$
    – Rayanth
    Mar 24, 2016 at 22:51
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    $\begingroup$ Welcome to Aviation.SE. I hope you stick around, with that background, your knowledge will be highly prized around these parts!! $\endgroup$
    – FreeMan
    Mar 25, 2016 at 11:59
  • $\begingroup$ @Rayanth, that makes sense. I live very close to many boeing factories and I have noticed that the planes are yellowish-green. You are right, they do not look like boeing green, they instead look more of a yellowish green. $\endgroup$
    – J Lopez
    Apr 15, 2020 at 20:08
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White makes it easier to spot another plane in the air, since white shows up well against the ground. This is why many early planes were colored on the bottom half and white/silver for the rest.

Of course, this matters much less with modern IFR equipment and doesn't matter really at all with high-altitude jets, but old habits die hard, I guess.

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    $\begingroup$ is this also the reason why military planes are not white? $\endgroup$
    – user13107
    Mar 17, 2014 at 7:01
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    $\begingroup$ I'm not so sure about white being easy to spot - at least in my personal experience. The most visible plane I've ever seen was painted an utterly hideous shade of yellow-green (about the same color they paint the ARFF trucks) - I saw that thing buzzing away in the pattern when I was about 8 miles from the airport and never lost sight of it! $\endgroup$
    – voretaq7
    Mar 17, 2014 at 16:09
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    $\begingroup$ @user13107 White is actually pretty hard to spot when looking up at it, particularly if there are clouds. This is why some airplanes have white tops (easier to spot with the ground as a backdrop) and dark colored bottoms which stand out from the sky. $\endgroup$
    – Lnafziger
    Mar 17, 2014 at 18:39
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    $\begingroup$ And consider that a lot of birds and especially fish do it the other way around, lighter underneath ;-) $\endgroup$ Mar 17, 2014 at 19:24
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    $\begingroup$ @SteveJessop, yeah, countershading is very effective. That's partly why military aircraft are often camo on top, lighter solid underneath. $\endgroup$
    – egid
    Mar 17, 2014 at 23:31
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Another minor reason is that white color protects from adverse radiation better.

In regards to nuclear bombers this is called 'anti flash white', though regular planes flying at high altitudes supposedly benefit from this as well.

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I work for a printing company.

Think of this - why everything is printed mostly in black ink? why not navy blue, or dark hunter green?

Because black is a stock color.

The manufacturer stocks it, and uses it left and right. Most other colors have to be a special order - this comes with increased costs, lead times and paint expiration. If you did not use all of it, paint does expire.

To the printer-happy community let me remind you that painting a jet is not like printing a page where three base inks are used to create a perception of color. Paint of any color has to be manufactured separately.

So I think that from a manufacturing standpoint it is just so much cheaper to use stock white paint.

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Most of the above reasons are valid. I worked at Eastern airlines and we switched from the white/blue livery to polished aluminum because the weight/drag reduction vs. increased manpower cost still was overall cost effective. Remember a 747 uses around 90 gallons of paint weighing in the vicinity of 550 pounds.

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  • $\begingroup$ I worked at Eastern airlines, wow, that's something you just don't hear every day anymore! My uncle worked for them until they shut down. $\endgroup$
    – FreeMan
    Oct 2, 2015 at 18:42
  • $\begingroup$ of course now, with aircraft ever more made of plastics and other non-metalic components, having them in bare metal requires painting them that way, which is costing American Airlines a fair bit :) $\endgroup$
    – jwenting
    Oct 29, 2015 at 9:07
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You are all right to a point / close:

Here are the main factors in order of importance:

  1. White paint is both cheap and easy to apply.
  2. White paint on most of the aircraft allows for quick and easy resale (the new airline simply puts new tail art on it).
  3. White paint shows any anomalies quickly — hydraulic/fuel leaks, dirt, damage.
  4. White paint has the best thermal reflective properties for both radiation from the sun and reflected radiation from the tarmac (although in northern climates / winter this is reversed)!

People don't generally choose their airline because of it livery, they generally choose the cheapest fare. Therefore white paint is the colour of choice. It all boils down to money.

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    $\begingroup$ could you substantiate your claims? what makes white paint cheap/easier to apply (!) than a color paint? Also, please consider polishing language and spelling. $\endgroup$
    – Federico
    Aug 14, 2014 at 13:16
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Apart from technical reasons, I am not really aware of, let me put it this way: Would you fly in a black plane? Probably not.

You associate colours with objects, feelings, situations etc.

White can be trivially associated with sky, just like blue. I believe most airlines stick to these colours, since it helps associating the brand with sky. But the colours can have deeper meaning which is often used for marketing purposes. White is often associated with trust and perfection. Blue is associated with quality, security, trust or business. Notice many company logos are blue and white - Facebook, IBM, GE, Samsung, Hilton.

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    $\begingroup$ Actually this black plane looks pretty slick: i.stack.imgur.com/5oUfl.jpg $\endgroup$ Mar 17, 2014 at 23:36
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    $\begingroup$ I must say this really surprises me and I was not aware of that. $\endgroup$
    – Petr
    Mar 17, 2014 at 23:46
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    $\begingroup$ To be fair, this has special meaning in New Zealand. Their national rugby team is named the All-Blacks, and Air New Zealand as a part of their sponsorship of the team has adopted the black livery for a few of their planes. $\endgroup$
    – Xander
    Mar 19, 2014 at 0:02
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    $\begingroup$ Though personally, I'm quite a big fan of this black plane: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/… $\endgroup$
    – Xander
    Mar 19, 2014 at 0:04
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    $\begingroup$ The reasons for the colors to be used is just my opinion, however the color associations are not made by myself, you can see for instance joehallock.com/edu/COM498/associations.html. I just corrected few inaccuracies. $\endgroup$
    – Petr
    Mar 19, 2014 at 1:47
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It's quite simple actually: White paint is both cheaper and lighter than paint with colorant added to it. Both of these are important when trying to reduce cost at an airline!

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  • $\begingroup$ I'm led to believe cost isn't the only reason... Something about white reflecting heat? airliners.net answers.yahoo.com $\endgroup$ Mar 17, 2014 at 3:25
  • $\begingroup$ I'm not sure what the weight differential is - when I go in for my paint job I'll have to pick some brains on that. I imagine the difference isn't too substantial, but on the scale of an airliner an ounce or two per gallon would add up to quite a bit of weight :-) $\endgroup$
    – voretaq7
    Mar 17, 2014 at 3:29
  • $\begingroup$ @DannyBeckett, Surfaces that appear white appear so because they reflect all wavelengths of light. Surfaces that appear black appear so because they absorb all wavelengths of light. Other colors are in between. When a material absorbs light energy, it gets transferred into heat energy. I'm not sure that this is the primary reason it's commonly used on aircraft, but I'm sure it does help. $\endgroup$
    – reirab
    Mar 17, 2014 at 16:53
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    $\begingroup$ Are you sure white is lighter? Coloured paint is not white paint with a colour added: white paint is typically itself coloured with titanium dioxide. $\endgroup$ Mar 19, 2014 at 1:34
  • $\begingroup$ white paint, itself, has a colorant added to it. Most truly white paints use titanium dioxide as a colorant. $\endgroup$
    – Rayanth
    Jul 1, 2020 at 18:09
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White paint won't absorb as much heat as black or another color, imagine walking on bare blacktop vs. the white painted line. I found this article to save me the explanation. The black paint absorbs the entire spectrum of photons, whereas the white reflects most of the photons. When a photon is absorbed, its energy is absorbed (a photon is energy) and the heat of the plane increases.

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Rather than painted white, Boeing documents the option of keeping a fleet "polished" raw aluminium. Polished is more efficient to fly, but it requires more maintenance, buffing the entire plane multiple times a year, whereas painted aeroplanes require maintenance every 4 years... Here is an article with silver colored versus painted aeroplanes by Boeing:

Polished vs Painted by Boeing

here are pictures of polished aeroplanes

There are various fan pages that talk about polishing planes.

Military planes are often painted different from civilian ones and with regard to camouflage, grey, cammo, blue for sea, it's mostly fleet themes and standards.

jal cargo2

Paint on a large plane adds something like 230 kilos, 475 lbs for a B777-200 airliner. Amercian airlines was the last to have silver aeroplanes: http://www.airlinepilotchatter.com/2013/01/new-american-airlines-livery-to-paint.html

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  • $\begingroup$ Welcome. The question is: "Why are most painted white? Surely a darker colour would hide dirt better". Your post doesn't seem to address that. $\endgroup$
    – mins
    Jan 19, 2016 at 10:24
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    $\begingroup$ Please read the above answers and apply the same comment to those which you feel apply, it will be many of them, as none mentions cleanliness and some mention polished being the best color for an aeroplane rather than using paint. $\endgroup$ Jan 19, 2016 at 10:59
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As stated before, White is cheaper. There is no thermal benefit for subsonic planes at cruising altitudes. Windchill and ambient temperature at flight levels are below freezing.

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