I am getting ready to do some fiberglass work on my cowling and I want to change up the paint theme on it at the same time. For those of you who have flown lots of different planes have you ever noticed a difference in glare or vis on planes with a dark colored cowl vs. white? Colors will be Navy Blue and White just trying to decide how I want to lay it out.

You see a fair number of airplanes with flat black on the top of the cowling, that's probably best re glare. My 180 has a blue cowl, the C150TD had a red one, and the C170 a (dirty) white one- never seemed to have a glare issue with any of them.

I think it depends on how the cowl drops away from your line of sight. In many airplanes, very little of the cowl is visible to a pilot, even one who sits pretty tall in the seat. I hardly see my airplane's cowl at all (it's red). Others, such as PA32s, have a long snout that if painted a light color can be annoying. To me, the panel cover is much more important, because light colors will reflect off the windshield. It should be a dull black.

Cary

Bi-colors

Black: pilot's field of view (or similar dark color), cuts glare

White: for non-pilot viewed area (or similar light color), allows easier inspection (cracks, oil, etc)

Ive had several people tell me that I should paint the top cowl of my husky matte black. Honestly I have never noticed a glare off of it even though it is shiny white. Might be interesting to experiment with some sort of removable coating.

I had white on my S7, never noticed any glare, but as others have said, I do see black a fair amount

Doesn't make much difference to me whether it's light or dark, but I really prefer it to be a flat or matte finish, as opposed to glossy. It'd be easy enough in your case to use a matte blue on the top cowl....

And, most of the time, even glossy is fine, except when it isn't. My Cub has glossy black on the top of the boot cowl inside the windshield, and that is brutal when facing into the sun at all.

MTV

I agree with MTV. If the finish is matt, a bright colour isn't a problem.
Glossy finishes - including black - cause more glare.

Joey, I just finshed mine a few weeks ago. I used spray-on black PlastiDip. It's perfect because you can always just peel it off if you don't like it and it doesn't affect your paint underneath! It helps with the glare I was getting off the top of the cowl too.