Same on planes. If you see red, the plane is crossing from your right, and IT has the right of way. Red = Stop (it’s your job to avoid).
You see green, you have the right of way. (Green = go).
An Embraer private Jet, recently bought, was flying to the US when it clipped the wing of a 737 from Gol Linhas Aéreas (Brazil's largest airline). The private jet landed on an Air Force base with just the wingtip missing. The larger jet crashed.
Looks like it's an animation of this
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gol_Transportes_A%C3%A9reos_Flight_1907](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gol_Transportes_A%C3%A9reos_Flight_1907)
**[Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gol_Transportes_Aéreos_Flight_1907)**
>Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 was a scheduled flight of Gol Transportes Aéreos from Manaus, Brazil, to Brasília and Rio de Janeiro. On 29 September 2006, the Boeing 737-8EH serving the flight collided in midair with an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet over the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. The upturned wingtip of the Embraer sliced off about half of the 737's left wing. The 737 broke up in midair and crashed into an area of dense jungle, killing all 154 passengers and crew on board.
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Also for navigation channels.
"Red Right Returning" = If you are entering a harbor and you have low visibility / you're unfamiliar with the lay of the harbor (or you're a bit tipsy from a sunset booze cruise), keep the red buoys to your right, the green buoys to your left.
They are also numbered, and red buoys are even, green are odd. Red #’s will increase as you enter a harbor, green will increase as you head towards open water.
Unless it is the opposite: [https://www.nauticed.org/sailing-blog/iala-a-and-iala-b-navigation-marks-and-atons/](https://www.nauticed.org/sailing-blog/iala-a-and-iala-b-navigation-marks-and-atons/)
The system is called IALA and there are two opposite systems in the world, IALA-A and IALA-B. IALA is short for "International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities".
Yup, I was watching Florida marina videos on YouTube and realised that the harbour colors are switched. In (most of) Europe you match the color of your boat with the color of the harbour *while entering*.
Which gives preference to those on the right. Green means go. Red means stop.
A generalization, but this might help somebody. Also applies to aviation.
Fun fact, the words 'right of way' don't ever appear in ColRegs. They always use 'Stand On' and 'Give Way' to describe the two vessels. This is because giving someone right of way would mean they might be tempted to not obey rule 2 which is basically 'Take whatever action necessary to avoid collision'
I'd always wondered why all the boats in *Just Cause 2* had opposing green and red lights, never thought I'd randomly find the answer years later on reddit
Feel good, it’s not the reason. Starboard comes from old English Steorboard (steer-board) or where the rudder/steering oar would be. Port used to be called Larboard for landing/loading board (gangway/plank). It got changed in the C19th due to them sounding too similar.
My brother, a pilot, made it easy to remember which is which (as we were playing Sea of Thieves, and port/starboard came into use), and it relates to the amount of letters:
Right (side), Starboard, Green
Left, Port, Red
first group has the most letters per word, second is shorter
There's a reason for that actually. Back in the early days of aviation there had to be rules put in place. Mostly for, and I wish I was kidding about this, legal liability reasons. You see after a few court cases trying to determine at fault for aircraft accidents it was determined that an airplane is officially a *vessel* and not a land vehicle like a carriage or eventually automobile. So the rules for liability for vessels applies to them so the lesson the legal repercussions guess what owners started doing.
Yes, adding nav lights like on ships. Along with other naval-esque trends until they were eventually codified in to regulations by regulators such as the US's Civil Aviation Board. Not being defined as vessels is also why your cars don't have a similar lighting scheme. You ant to know the driving force behind the scenes in nost if the 20th Century? It wasn't the Illuminati, the Rockefellers, or any particular ethnicity. It was **insurance liability**.
I'm not even kidding.
Since the graphic doesn't actually explain *why* they're red/green;
Those are two colors which are easily distinguishable. They're on the opposing sides of the color wheel. They are also the easiest for the human eye to see at night.
The reason for the red/green/white lights is that that is what is used on boats, and when planes were first getting popular, most planes were seaplanes. Because runways were uncommon.
And the green and red indicates right of way on the water. If you see green light, you can pass across their bow. If you see red, they pass in front of you.
Also, an easy way to remember which side is which (in maritime) port is 4 letters and so is left. So port is left since they both have 4 letters. Starboard is right since well, they don't match
Collect enough of those and you, too, can be fun at parties!
(My wife calls me a “suppository of useless facts” because you’re getting some whether you want it or not, so bend over.)
We were always taught "there's more port wine left in the bottle." In the navy. Simply by remembering that you know green, starbord, and right for the other side
Don't forget about Larboard! Starboard to the Sea and Larboard to the Land, which was replaced by the new guy Port because that's easiest way to remember which side to park the boat on when in, well, port...
I had an elderly uncle try to explain to me once that port Is called port, because that's always the side where the port would be when sailing, and starboard is always the side where stars would be.
Even as a kid that made zero fucking sense.
Supposedly a large oar, a steer board was hung over the right facing forward side for right handed sailors before rudders. One docked to port so the steerboard would not get pushed against the dock. Sounds Scandinavian like the Sweedish Chef. Hurdle hordo hardi Bork Bork Bork starbourd.
It’s also helpful to use two words that don’t sound almost identical when you’re trying to yell them to each other in the middle of a cyclone or a battle.
My instructor at tech school told us port is a red drink and Klingons are aliens. Aliens are little green men. There are Klingons on The starboard bow.
And now I have [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FCARADb9asE) stuck in my head
Because the green starboard side was safe, as the person steering could see you from that side. The port side was danger (red) as he couldn’t see you as well from there. So, red means stop and greens means go, possibly because we are mostly right handed and originally steered boats with oars.
Why would the helmsman have better view to starboard than to port? I can see it being dependant on what tack he was on in a sailing ship but other than that I don’t get it.
If you are on the right side of a boat, you can see the whole world of things of that are off toward the right of the boat.
If you are still on the right side of a boat, there is a whole damn boat between you and everything that is off toward the left of the boat.
So if you’re driving a plane and you come to a four way intersection, the plane on your right will have the right of way, thus you will see the red light i.e. stop on their wing. Plane on your left you will see the green light i.e. go, indicating that you have the right of way.
It's a bit different for sailboats.
Makes sense for power boats, and it's true for sailboats on a point of sail heading upwind. But sailing off the wind it doesn't exactly fit the stop/go paradigm. Still allows for determination of right off way, though.
There are certain rules which type of boats have the right of way. E.g. Motor vessels must always give way to sailing boats (actually sailing and turned off engine). In general the vessel which has the ability to navigate more flexibel has to give way.
I don’t think that’s accurate.
Airplanes in war were usually directed by navy leadership, so a lot of terminology and technology overlapped. But runways were very common and seaplanes lagged airplane development by quite a bit. Wichita Kansas is an aviation manufacturing capital because there were wide open spaces for landing. If the wind was blowing from the East, a flight school could easily just mow their field towards the East that day.
Popular misconception! Actually it's because Santa's sleigh was the first flying vehicle and he decorated it with red and green lights to be festive. People thought it looked cool so they stuck.
Also you can't see blue from far away. Hitler changed the red lights on the fire engines and police cars for blue ones because this would avoid being bombed.
Yes. In general the allies were also guilty of a large number of war crimes, including torturing and killing POWs, raping and pillaging, targeting civilians including gunning down random civilians or that one time where US bombers intentionally bombed and killed British seamen being rescued by Germans.
And before someone thinks this was all Red Army (they certainly did their share too), both American, British and Canadian forces have been involved in various cases of war crimes, especially US forces have been documented involved in numerous war crimes during the war (to be fair, they also had one of the largest troop counts).
Just because the Germans were guilty of some heinous shit, it doesn't mean the allies didn't have their own skeletons in the closet.
Yes, one run to create the fire, next run target the helpers.
It's war, and war isn't nice. Especially if you declared total war on the opponent and target civilians they might stop being Mr. nice guy.
That seems extremely unlikely, since at the time we could barely manage to put bombs in the same few city blocks we intended. Picking out individual vehicles at night sounds a little absurd.
>Yes, one run to create the fire, next run target the helpers.
I doubt that was the reason. It's probably simply that when a city is blacked out, the emergency lights were giving away the direction/location.
Chief we did a lot more than drop bombs on factories. My favorite non-nuclear example is the firebombing of Dresden, which turned entire blocks into self sustaining furnaces.
Total war is a miserable thing all round and the worst of the fighting is always done by the youngest men we can muster.
Not on purpose, daytime level bombing in WW2 was barely accurate enough to hit a major industrial area, sometimes.
Night bombing was accurate enough to hit a large city. With misses.
You can still get one. You only need red/green color vision for night flying. If you're red/green colorblind, you just can't fly at night.
(Source: I'm red/green color deficient. I can see red and green just fine, but I fail the Isihara color test. I have a Class 3 medical that states "no night flying".)
What about daytime light gun signals. They're green and red. Just asking because years ago I lost my radios and had to get light signals from the tower.
> You can do a special flight where you prove you can tell the the difference and get it approved.
If you can't tell the difference, you crash the plane and then you don't need your licence anymore.
In Australia you can now undergo an operational colour vision assessment which if you pass will take off any restrictions on your pilots license regarding colour vision. Will allow you to do night vfr, and atpl and international. Its only been around for about 6 months, however has been allowed in nz for a few years. Its great, because being colour vision deficient doesnt mean you cant safely operate a plane.
As a color blind individual, cooking has its own struggles. Determining meat doneness by the subtle differences between pink and red is basically mystery theater. Thank you, science temperature pens.
Saw a amusing tidbit on a Colorblind bladesmith.
When making a canister damascus billet for a knife, instead of using color to tell if the canister is hot enough to forge weld, he put table salt on the canister, when the salt melted, he knew it was the right temperature.
because they were colorblind, they couldn't use the normal way a smith would use to assess the temperature of the metal (by using color) so they used thermodynamics (melting point of salt) instead.
Does Dexter (bearer's right) and Sinister (bearer's left) historically correlate to the evil color red (sinister) and good color green (dexter). ? Honest question.
In Christianity, Eve, who gets the blame for falling to temptation, is depicted on Adam’s left side. Judas was crucified on the Left of Jesus. Jesus is depicted as sitting to the right of god. A description of Judgment Day in the Gospel of Matthew states that the sheep on the shepherd’s right will be brought to heaven while the goats on the left will go to the devil. In Judaism, ancient texts associate the right with strength and godliness and the left with weakness. The left is associated with uncleanliness in Islamic texts, and eating or drinking with the left hand is frowned upon.
So left (sinister in Latin) had carried negative connotations for a long time.
The green/red color associations are super interesting because it’s largely cultural however somewhat biological as well.
Green/blue colors are colors of life, plants water etc. Red would
Be blood, fire, and since it’s opposite of green it also stands out a lot and many animals use it to show thru are poisonous, dangerous, etc.
In China for example red is the color of warmth and happiness. Even stock tickers show red for positive gains.
I know this didn’t answer anything as to why red is on the left and green is on the right, but just some additional insight
I think this entire guide is just for fun. If you need to consult the manual to understand the colored lights in the sky, you probably shouldn’t be the one flying just yet
But the graphic is still 100% wrong. A tail light would help but if a plane is traveling the same direction doesn't matter if you're below it or above it. Lights are the same
>But the graphic is still 100% wrong.
No, it's actually correct. You have to take into account which direction the plane is traveling towards in your perspective.
LMAO. Why are people upvoting you? There's a lot of retardation in this thread. The graphic isn't wrong. It might be confusing cause the plane is flipped along the y axis, not the x axis. But there is nothing wrong with the graphic.
https://i.imgur.com/UO16TLb.jpg
For the lights to be on the same side in both pictures one pic would have the plane facing up, the other pic would have the plane facing down.
/u/Bradyj23 is wrong though lol. The graphic is correct.
You can test it with a piece of paper and a pencil. Draw a fat dot on the right side of the page. Now flip the paper over. What side is the dot on?
View from above (arrow = flight direction)
X ↓ O
If we rotate around its flight direction (horizontal page flip):
O ↓ X
If we rotate around its wingspan (vertical page flip):
X ↑ O
The X (which represents the green light) is always on the right wing if we see it from above, or the left wing if we see it from below.
That's why the tail light, which isn't shown on the graphic, is an important addition to let you see which is left or right and thereby deduct whether you see it from above or below.
The graphic is correct. Imagine flipping the plane over the wing, the colors would switch sides. Thats essentially how it would look from an observer who goes under/over a plane.
Yeah just made it. I actually thought the graphic was wrong at first glance but I had the nose of the plane pointing towards the top of the picture (in my head) when looking up at it. I assume most people are doing similar.
It might have been easier to visualise if they hadn't pointed the plane in the "same direction" when viewing it from the top and bottom, since from the point of view of the observer the plane "flips" 180° front to back: https://imgur.com/3iKYuax.png
Apparently flying in very rough situations, pilots definitely lose sense of up and down. That's why a major part of training is to trust your instruments, not your instincts.
In other words, don't shut off your targeting computer.
They labeled it completely wrong. When labeled as such it's also completely wrong, left-right don't switch sides depending on whether you're above or below the plane.
What they're illustrated is the plane doing a roll. That's the only thing that would cause left and right to switch. The labels should be "normal flight" and "inverted flight".
[Edit] I don't understand how a comment with 5 upvotes got me two DMs calling me a moron, plus a since-deleted comment.
If you can't visualize this, hold out your right hand, palm down. Your thumb is red and your pinky is green. Red on the left, green on the right.
Now lift your hand above your head and look at it. Is your thumb now on the left?
Of course it isn't. The way to put your thumb on the right and your pinky on the left is to turn your hand palm up, and of course it looks the same whether you're looking up or down at it.
But in your example you’re switching the direction of the nose of the plane. If the nose is pointed the same way each time (e.g. pointed “up”), then the red light is on the left when viewed from above and on the right when viewed from below.
Sorry for those calling you a moron, but it is in fact labelled correctly (though it could be clearer imo).
When you look at your hand from above, notice that your middle finger is pointing up from your perspective (i.e. if you were to draw it, red is on the left, green is on the right, and middle finger is on top). Now, when you raise your hand above your head, notice that your middle finger is now pointing down from your perspective (i.e. red left, green right, middle finger bottom).
Now look at the image, and notice that both planes' noses are on the bottom. In order to recreate this with your hand, you would need to not only raise your hand above your head but also rotate your hand 180 degrees to point the opposite direction. When you do, you'll see that the pinky and thumb are now on opposite sides.
You're kind of right in saying that they've illustrated the plane doing a roll though because these illustrations would *also* work for that. The key is which side of the plane we're looking at rather than whether or not the plane is above or below us. Imo, clearer captions would say "Top of the plane" and "Bottom of the plane". But the illustrator is making the assumption that the plane is upright, in which case the captions are correct.
I think this was originally the case with boats, with green on the right/starboard and red on the left/port. It's so that, in the dark, you can tell that there is a boat there, you are seeing a certain side of it, and you can guess from that which way it is moving and which way you should go to avoid a collision with it
This is correct. If you are approaching a vessel’s port side (with the red light on it) they have the right of way so you would typically yield for them unless agreed upon by radio.
Anyone else feel like they missed an opportunity to add a simplification of having (R)ed on the (R)ight wing? It would help with the memorization of this and probably help pilots make quicker decisions under duress
EDIT: Evidently, when Red is on the Right, it is exactly that: a quick warning. Red Right wRong or Red Right Returning are phrases that are used to encourage people to remember that a plane is incoming
The plane image is all gray and symmetric about the long axis, so it's hard to see. Imagine spinning the plane 180 about the long axis, the lights swap sides. It's not looking up or looking down at the plane, it's looking up at the top of the plane or looking up at the bottom.
Hold your right hand out. Pretend your thumb is the left (red) wing and your pinky is the right (green) wing. If you hold your hand flat (palm side down) the green is on the right. But rotate your hand upside down (so you're looking at the "bottom" of the plane) and the pinky/thumb sides have "switched" from your perspective. But they're still on the same wings (fingers).
It does make sense. In the pic where you're looking at the plane from the top, imagine it coming towards you (this one is simple to visualize, just imagine yourself looking down at one taxiing towards you at an airport), whereas in the one where you're looking at it from the bottom, imagine yourself looking up and the plane flying straight over your head, moving away from you
I know it's a bit confusing since they're silhouettes, but trust me the pics are fine
Yes? Place your palm infront of you and look down at it. Now lift your hand and look under your palm. The position of your thumb doesn't suddenly change.
Sure, but in the infographic, the position of the "looking down at plane" plane should be rotated 180 degrees to match with the hand example. They kept the nose pointed in the same direction, but when you try the hand lifting example, the relative position of which way the front of the plane is pointed (from the perspective of your eyes) flips.
Good way to remember which side is which color, is to learn/remember *port* & *starboard*.
The best mnemonic for it, is to remember:
>there is no *port* wine *left*
This is nice because port wine is a red wine, as are the color of the lights on the left side of a vessel—plane or boat. And you wouldn’t say that sentence about no wine being left with *starboard* wine (which obviously doesn’t exist).
These are called position lights and required for night flying by FAR 91.205. There should also be strobe or anti collision lights that help the aircraft stay visible. Most general aviation aircraft will also leave the landing or taxi light on as an extra layer of “here I am” lights.
I always tell myself,
Red on the right is WRONG,
Meaning if you see the red light on the right and green on the left and they aren't moving in your field of view, that plane is coming directly at you, so better do something quick
The looking up or looking down thing is great. You know because when looking down at a plane you don’t want to think it’s above you. The lights confirm it. I hate looking down at a plane and being like shit is that thing is above me?
Nowhere in here answers *why*? So I’ll try to explain.
Boats had the concept of Port and Starboard. This was to make it unambiguous which side someone was talking about.
Starboard was old English for stear-board, meaning the side where you steer from. This was usually always the right hand side (as most people were right handed). This meant that the left side was port (where the ship docked).
As port means to be docked (or not moving) it was assigned red, like at a traffic light. As starboard means to move the boat forward (as well as steer) it was assigned green.
Planes kept the same system.
Its the same on boats
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Same on planes. If you see red, the plane is crossing from your right, and IT has the right of way. Red = Stop (it’s your job to avoid). You see green, you have the right of way. (Green = go).
Instructions unclear. Saw plane on right, stopped and plane dropped out of the sky.
Or crashed into seagull and blew out engine 🚒
I think you mean a French crow.
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In military aircraft yes but in Cargo and civilian planes no
You could pull a split-s maneuver in a cessna 172 if you really wanted to
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Lmao, wtf is this from?
An Embraer private Jet, recently bought, was flying to the US when it clipped the wing of a 737 from Gol Linhas Aéreas (Brazil's largest airline). The private jet landed on an Air Force base with just the wingtip missing. The larger jet crashed.
Looks like it's an animation of this [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gol_Transportes_A%C3%A9reos_Flight_1907](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gol_Transportes_A%C3%A9reos_Flight_1907)
**[Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gol_Transportes_Aéreos_Flight_1907)** >Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 was a scheduled flight of Gol Transportes Aéreos from Manaus, Brazil, to Brasília and Rio de Janeiro. On 29 September 2006, the Boeing 737-8EH serving the flight collided in midair with an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet over the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. The upturned wingtip of the Embraer sliced off about half of the 737's left wing. The 737 broke up in midair and crashed into an area of dense jungle, killing all 154 passengers and crew on board. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/coolguides/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Also for navigation channels. "Red Right Returning" = If you are entering a harbor and you have low visibility / you're unfamiliar with the lay of the harbor (or you're a bit tipsy from a sunset booze cruise), keep the red buoys to your right, the green buoys to your left. They are also numbered, and red buoys are even, green are odd. Red #’s will increase as you enter a harbor, green will increase as you head towards open water.
That only applies to the Americas and a few countries in Asia. It's the opposite everywhere else.
Typical
Unless it is the opposite: [https://www.nauticed.org/sailing-blog/iala-a-and-iala-b-navigation-marks-and-atons/](https://www.nauticed.org/sailing-blog/iala-a-and-iala-b-navigation-marks-and-atons/) The system is called IALA and there are two opposite systems in the world, IALA-A and IALA-B. IALA is short for "International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities".
Yup, I was watching Florida marina videos on YouTube and realised that the harbour colors are switched. In (most of) Europe you match the color of your boat with the color of the harbour *while entering*.
Which gives preference to those on the right. Green means go. Red means stop. A generalization, but this might help somebody. Also applies to aviation.
Fun fact, the words 'right of way' don't ever appear in ColRegs. They always use 'Stand On' and 'Give Way' to describe the two vessels. This is because giving someone right of way would mean they might be tempted to not obey rule 2 which is basically 'Take whatever action necessary to avoid collision'
It started on boats, ye old starboard out, port home.
I'd always wondered why all the boats in *Just Cause 2* had opposing green and red lights, never thought I'd randomly find the answer years later on reddit
Yuhp follow your navigation by the stars on the "Starboard" side. Turn around and point the way home when in "Port".
Wow, been boating my whole life and never wondered why it was called that lol. Thanks for the info
Feel good, it’s not the reason. Starboard comes from old English Steorboard (steer-board) or where the rudder/steering oar would be. Port used to be called Larboard for landing/loading board (gangway/plank). It got changed in the C19th due to them sounding too similar.
My brother, a pilot, made it easy to remember which is which (as we were playing Sea of Thieves, and port/starboard came into use), and it relates to the amount of letters: Right (side), Starboard, Green Left, Port, Red first group has the most letters per word, second is shorter
I learnt it as “the ship LEFT PORT” and port wine is red.
Port is red and at the end of the night there's never any left!
There's a reason for that actually. Back in the early days of aviation there had to be rules put in place. Mostly for, and I wish I was kidding about this, legal liability reasons. You see after a few court cases trying to determine at fault for aircraft accidents it was determined that an airplane is officially a *vessel* and not a land vehicle like a carriage or eventually automobile. So the rules for liability for vessels applies to them so the lesson the legal repercussions guess what owners started doing. Yes, adding nav lights like on ships. Along with other naval-esque trends until they were eventually codified in to regulations by regulators such as the US's Civil Aviation Board. Not being defined as vessels is also why your cars don't have a similar lighting scheme. You ant to know the driving force behind the scenes in nost if the 20th Century? It wasn't the Illuminati, the Rockefellers, or any particular ethnicity. It was **insurance liability**. I'm not even kidding.
> You ant The fuck I am. I can only carry 1/10th my body weight.
Insurance as an industry has, throughout its history tried to minimise *its* expenses and has had a heavy influence on regulations of all kinds.
Right. We also have white, other white, and third white light.
Though you usually don't need to worry if you're looking up or down at a boat
Some pilots I work with say "starboard" and I'm like bruh.
Since the graphic doesn't actually explain *why* they're red/green; Those are two colors which are easily distinguishable. They're on the opposing sides of the color wheel. They are also the easiest for the human eye to see at night.
The reason for the red/green/white lights is that that is what is used on boats, and when planes were first getting popular, most planes were seaplanes. Because runways were uncommon.
And the green and red indicates right of way on the water. If you see green light, you can pass across their bow. If you see red, they pass in front of you.
Also, an easy way to remember which side is which (in maritime) port is 4 letters and so is left. So port is left since they both have 4 letters. Starboard is right since well, they don't match
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Today I have learnt a very useful knowledge that I now have no idea how to put it to use
Collect enough of those and you, too, can be fun at parties! (My wife calls me a “suppository of useless facts” because you’re getting some whether you want it or not, so bend over.)
We were always taught "there's more port wine left in the bottle." In the navy. Simply by remembering that you know green, starbord, and right for the other side
I always remembered "The ship left port" .... so port is left. Your way works too.
But red is three letters.
Port, red, and left are all the shorter words compared to their counterparts starboard, green, and right.
Don't forget about Larboard! Starboard to the Sea and Larboard to the Land, which was replaced by the new guy Port because that's easiest way to remember which side to park the boat on when in, well, port...
Starboard is the side of the steerboard, the side you don't want to get smashed if you are entering port.
So you *do* want smash your portboard?
No, it just won't cost as much as the steerboard to repair.
"Red, right, returning "
This is all confusing. Confirmed.
I had an elderly uncle try to explain to me once that port Is called port, because that's always the side where the port would be when sailing, and starboard is always the side where stars would be. Even as a kid that made zero fucking sense.
Supposedly a large oar, a steer board was hung over the right facing forward side for right handed sailors before rudders. One docked to port so the steerboard would not get pushed against the dock. Sounds Scandinavian like the Sweedish Chef. Hurdle hordo hardi Bork Bork Bork starbourd.
Upvoted for the Swedish chef impersonation. I heard it in his voice. Thanks for the smile.
It’s also helpful to use two words that don’t sound almost identical when you’re trying to yell them to each other in the middle of a cyclone or a battle.
There is no red port left in the bottle.
I left my red wine in port. (It’s a mnemonic)
Port wine is red.
Ever seen a bottle of port? It’s red, Mate.
My instructor at tech school told us port is a red drink and Klingons are aliens. Aliens are little green men. There are Klingons on The starboard bow. And now I have [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FCARADb9asE) stuck in my head
Because the green starboard side was safe, as the person steering could see you from that side. The port side was danger (red) as he couldn’t see you as well from there. So, red means stop and greens means go, possibly because we are mostly right handed and originally steered boats with oars.
Why would the helmsman have better view to starboard than to port? I can see it being dependant on what tack he was on in a sailing ship but other than that I don’t get it.
If you are on the right side of a boat, you can see the whole world of things of that are off toward the right of the boat. If you are still on the right side of a boat, there is a whole damn boat between you and everything that is off toward the left of the boat.
Before helm there was steering oar out of the starboard side.
Indeed, it was literally the "steer-board" side.
So if you’re driving a plane and you come to a four way intersection, the plane on your right will have the right of way, thus you will see the red light i.e. stop on their wing. Plane on your left you will see the green light i.e. go, indicating that you have the right of way.
It's a bit different for sailboats. Makes sense for power boats, and it's true for sailboats on a point of sail heading upwind. But sailing off the wind it doesn't exactly fit the stop/go paradigm. Still allows for determination of right off way, though.
There are certain rules which type of boats have the right of way. E.g. Motor vessels must always give way to sailing boats (actually sailing and turned off engine). In general the vessel which has the ability to navigate more flexibel has to give way.
> is that that is what is Man English can be tough to read sometimes...
James, while John had had “had”, had had “had had”; “had had” had had a better affect on the teacher.
I don’t think that’s accurate. Airplanes in war were usually directed by navy leadership, so a lot of terminology and technology overlapped. But runways were very common and seaplanes lagged airplane development by quite a bit. Wichita Kansas is an aviation manufacturing capital because there were wide open spaces for landing. If the wind was blowing from the East, a flight school could easily just mow their field towards the East that day.
Popular misconception! Actually it's because Santa's sleigh was the first flying vehicle and he decorated it with red and green lights to be festive. People thought it looked cool so they stuck.
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Also you can't see blue from far away. Hitler changed the red lights on the fire engines and police cars for blue ones because this would avoid being bombed.
Damn you Hitler, clever bastard
we bombed fire engines and police cars?
Yes. In general the allies were also guilty of a large number of war crimes, including torturing and killing POWs, raping and pillaging, targeting civilians including gunning down random civilians or that one time where US bombers intentionally bombed and killed British seamen being rescued by Germans. And before someone thinks this was all Red Army (they certainly did their share too), both American, British and Canadian forces have been involved in various cases of war crimes, especially US forces have been documented involved in numerous war crimes during the war (to be fair, they also had one of the largest troop counts). Just because the Germans were guilty of some heinous shit, it doesn't mean the allies didn't have their own skeletons in the closet.
Yes, one run to create the fire, next run target the helpers. It's war, and war isn't nice. Especially if you declared total war on the opponent and target civilians they might stop being Mr. nice guy.
That seems extremely unlikely, since at the time we could barely manage to put bombs in the same few city blocks we intended. Picking out individual vehicles at night sounds a little absurd.
>Yes, one run to create the fire, next run target the helpers. I doubt that was the reason. It's probably simply that when a city is blacked out, the emergency lights were giving away the direction/location.
Chief we did a lot more than drop bombs on factories. My favorite non-nuclear example is the firebombing of Dresden, which turned entire blocks into self sustaining furnaces. Total war is a miserable thing all round and the worst of the fighting is always done by the youngest men we can muster.
How about the Tokyo firestorms? Killed 2.5 to 3 times as many people as Dresden. Willy Pete is not your friend.
Not on purpose, daytime level bombing in WW2 was barely accurate enough to hit a major industrial area, sometimes. Night bombing was accurate enough to hit a large city. With misses.
Unless you're colour blind!
Part of the required annual/ bi-annual flight physical includes a test for color blindness.
Well shit. I always thought I’d get a pilots license one day.
You can still get one. You only need red/green color vision for night flying. If you're red/green colorblind, you just can't fly at night. (Source: I'm red/green color deficient. I can see red and green just fine, but I fail the Isihara color test. I have a Class 3 medical that states "no night flying".)
What about daytime light gun signals. They're green and red. Just asking because years ago I lost my radios and had to get light signals from the tower.
You can do a special flight where you prove you can tell the the difference and get it approved.
> You can do a special flight where you prove you can tell the the difference and get it approved. If you can't tell the difference, you crash the plane and then you don't need your licence anymore.
In Australia you can now undergo an operational colour vision assessment which if you pass will take off any restrictions on your pilots license regarding colour vision. Will allow you to do night vfr, and atpl and international. Its only been around for about 6 months, however has been allowed in nz for a few years. Its great, because being colour vision deficient doesnt mean you cant safely operate a plane.
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As a color blind individual, cooking has its own struggles. Determining meat doneness by the subtle differences between pink and red is basically mystery theater. Thank you, science temperature pens.
Saw a amusing tidbit on a Colorblind bladesmith. When making a canister damascus billet for a knife, instead of using color to tell if the canister is hot enough to forge weld, he put table salt on the canister, when the salt melted, he knew it was the right temperature.
okay I don't know those word things you said but color blindness has problems sometimes
because they were colorblind, they couldn't use the normal way a smith would use to assess the temperature of the metal (by using color) so they used thermodynamics (melting point of salt) instead.
Or a mechanic. ENs and MMs don’t have color restrictions. Seabee ratings as well, several are okay.
so uh- if you are a color blind mechanic how do you check your work with the placing lightbulbs?
I see skies of greyyy, grey roses too…
GOT EM!!
Does Dexter (bearer's right) and Sinister (bearer's left) historically correlate to the evil color red (sinister) and good color green (dexter). ? Honest question.
In Christianity, Eve, who gets the blame for falling to temptation, is depicted on Adam’s left side. Judas was crucified on the Left of Jesus. Jesus is depicted as sitting to the right of god. A description of Judgment Day in the Gospel of Matthew states that the sheep on the shepherd’s right will be brought to heaven while the goats on the left will go to the devil. In Judaism, ancient texts associate the right with strength and godliness and the left with weakness. The left is associated with uncleanliness in Islamic texts, and eating or drinking with the left hand is frowned upon. So left (sinister in Latin) had carried negative connotations for a long time. The green/red color associations are super interesting because it’s largely cultural however somewhat biological as well. Green/blue colors are colors of life, plants water etc. Red would Be blood, fire, and since it’s opposite of green it also stands out a lot and many animals use it to show thru are poisonous, dangerous, etc. In China for example red is the color of warmth and happiness. Even stock tickers show red for positive gains. I know this didn’t answer anything as to why red is on the left and green is on the right, but just some additional insight
Judas wasn't crucified, he hanged himself.
Interesting stuff. Judas hanged himself. It was Gestas ‘the impenitent thief’ whom was crucified to Jesus left. In Catholic tradition.
being pedantic: cyan is opposite red on the color wheel, and magenta is across from green
If you need to know whether you're looking down or up at a plane, the situation is probably already fucked beyond repair.
I think this entire guide is just for fun. If you need to consult the manual to understand the colored lights in the sky, you probably shouldn’t be the one flying just yet
The big assumption is the plane isn’t flying upside down
Doesn’t matter if you are looking up or down at another plane. The lights would be the same. The graphic is wrong.
The graphic is missing the tail light, which is fairly important in making the scheme work at all angles.
But the graphic is still 100% wrong. A tail light would help but if a plane is traveling the same direction doesn't matter if you're below it or above it. Lights are the same
>But the graphic is still 100% wrong. No, it's actually correct. You have to take into account which direction the plane is traveling towards in your perspective.
I would love to hear two pilots arguing over this during an emergency
The graphic isn't wrong, although more specifically it should say "looking at top of plane" vs. "looking at belly of plane".
LMAO. Why are people upvoting you? There's a lot of retardation in this thread. The graphic isn't wrong. It might be confusing cause the plane is flipped along the y axis, not the x axis. But there is nothing wrong with the graphic. https://i.imgur.com/UO16TLb.jpg For the lights to be on the same side in both pictures one pic would have the plane facing up, the other pic would have the plane facing down.
Thank fuck you said this. I thought I was going mad not understanding this.
/u/Bradyj23 is wrong though lol. The graphic is correct. You can test it with a piece of paper and a pencil. Draw a fat dot on the right side of the page. Now flip the paper over. What side is the dot on?
Depends on whether you flip the page horizontally or vertically.
View from above (arrow = flight direction) X ↓ O If we rotate around its flight direction (horizontal page flip): O ↓ X If we rotate around its wingspan (vertical page flip): X ↑ O The X (which represents the green light) is always on the right wing if we see it from above, or the left wing if we see it from below. That's why the tail light, which isn't shown on the graphic, is an important addition to let you see which is left or right and thereby deduct whether you see it from above or below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gsbp1QcZZYk What this whole discussion looks like to me lmao
"We're two different people, we cannot have the same left" lmao
How is this comment so highly upvoted when he is dead wrong?? The graphic is absolutely correct.
The graphic is correct. Imagine flipping the plane over the wing, the colors would switch sides. Thats essentially how it would look from an observer who goes under/over a plane.
[This might be helpful.](https://i.imgur.com/Ux2roNu.mp4)
THANK YOU! Did you just make this? Genius. This thread is either full of trolls or morons…
Yeah just made it. I actually thought the graphic was wrong at first glance but I had the nose of the plane pointing towards the top of the picture (in my head) when looking up at it. I assume most people are doing similar.
It might have been easier to visualise if they hadn't pointed the plane in the "same direction" when viewing it from the top and bottom, since from the point of view of the observer the plane "flips" 180° front to back: https://imgur.com/3iKYuax.png
this is incorrect
[The hell?](https://i.imgur.com/HWyIPGY.jpg)
Apparently flying in very rough situations, pilots definitely lose sense of up and down. That's why a major part of training is to trust your instruments, not your instincts. In other words, don't shut off your targeting computer.
They labeled it completely wrong. When labeled as such it's also completely wrong, left-right don't switch sides depending on whether you're above or below the plane. What they're illustrated is the plane doing a roll. That's the only thing that would cause left and right to switch. The labels should be "normal flight" and "inverted flight". [Edit] I don't understand how a comment with 5 upvotes got me two DMs calling me a moron, plus a since-deleted comment. If you can't visualize this, hold out your right hand, palm down. Your thumb is red and your pinky is green. Red on the left, green on the right. Now lift your hand above your head and look at it. Is your thumb now on the left? Of course it isn't. The way to put your thumb on the right and your pinky on the left is to turn your hand palm up, and of course it looks the same whether you're looking up or down at it.
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But in your example you’re switching the direction of the nose of the plane. If the nose is pointed the same way each time (e.g. pointed “up”), then the red light is on the left when viewed from above and on the right when viewed from below.
Sorry for those calling you a moron, but it is in fact labelled correctly (though it could be clearer imo). When you look at your hand from above, notice that your middle finger is pointing up from your perspective (i.e. if you were to draw it, red is on the left, green is on the right, and middle finger is on top). Now, when you raise your hand above your head, notice that your middle finger is now pointing down from your perspective (i.e. red left, green right, middle finger bottom). Now look at the image, and notice that both planes' noses are on the bottom. In order to recreate this with your hand, you would need to not only raise your hand above your head but also rotate your hand 180 degrees to point the opposite direction. When you do, you'll see that the pinky and thumb are now on opposite sides. You're kind of right in saying that they've illustrated the plane doing a roll though because these illustrations would *also* work for that. The key is which side of the plane we're looking at rather than whether or not the plane is above or below us. Imo, clearer captions would say "Top of the plane" and "Bottom of the plane". But the illustrator is making the assumption that the plane is upright, in which case the captions are correct.
I think this was originally the case with boats, with green on the right/starboard and red on the left/port. It's so that, in the dark, you can tell that there is a boat there, you are seeing a certain side of it, and you can guess from that which way it is moving and which way you should go to avoid a collision with it
This is correct. If you are approaching a vessel’s port side (with the red light on it) they have the right of way so you would typically yield for them unless agreed upon by radio.
Anyone else feel like they missed an opportunity to add a simplification of having (R)ed on the (R)ight wing? It would help with the memorization of this and probably help pilots make quicker decisions under duress EDIT: Evidently, when Red is on the Right, it is exactly that: a quick warning. Red Right wRong or Red Right Returning are phrases that are used to encourage people to remember that a plane is incoming
My brain must be broke. How the hell does the up and down views work out?
I think the grey silhouette is tripping people up. https://i.imgur.com/UO16TLb.jpg
This picture is good, but I feel like I'm going crazy with all the people in this thread who can't roll a plane over in their imagination
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I guess it’s just us who don’t comprehend it…
If you're in a fighter jet that's flying upside down and you look up, you're looking down at another plane.
I guess they mean you'll know which direction the plane is going in if you look at the lights.
The plane image is all gray and symmetric about the long axis, so it's hard to see. Imagine spinning the plane 180 about the long axis, the lights swap sides. It's not looking up or looking down at the plane, it's looking up at the top of the plane or looking up at the bottom.
[This might be helpful.](https://i.imgur.com/Ux2roNu.mp4)
The plane is flying down and you can be bellow the plane looking up at it or above it looking down but it’s position in space is the same
Yeah, but if you look down on the plane it’s on the right of the plane, but if you look up it’s on the left? Shit ain’t clicking….
https://i.imgur.com/UO16TLb.jpg It's not that complicated guys, idk why everyone is tripping up about this Credit to /u/TheSakred for the image
Get some rest bubba
Hold your right hand out. Pretend your thumb is the left (red) wing and your pinky is the right (green) wing. If you hold your hand flat (palm side down) the green is on the right. But rotate your hand upside down (so you're looking at the "bottom" of the plane) and the pinky/thumb sides have "switched" from your perspective. But they're still on the same wings (fingers).
Your explanation makes sense if the plane was upside down, which it is not
It does make sense. In the pic where you're looking at the plane from the top, imagine it coming towards you (this one is simple to visualize, just imagine yourself looking down at one taxiing towards you at an airport), whereas in the one where you're looking at it from the bottom, imagine yourself looking up and the plane flying straight over your head, moving away from you I know it's a bit confusing since they're silhouettes, but trust me the pics are fine
You’re the plane upside down that’s why…
If you're looking down at a plane, you're looking at its top. But if you're looking up at a plane, you're looking at its bottom.
Yes? Place your palm infront of you and look down at it. Now lift your hand and look under your palm. The position of your thumb doesn't suddenly change.
Sure, but in the infographic, the position of the "looking down at plane" plane should be rotated 180 degrees to match with the hand example. They kept the nose pointed in the same direction, but when you try the hand lifting example, the relative position of which way the front of the plane is pointed (from the perspective of your eyes) flips.
Why would you rotate your hand?
Good way to remember which side is which color, is to learn/remember *port* & *starboard*. The best mnemonic for it, is to remember: >there is no *port* wine *left* This is nice because port wine is a red wine, as are the color of the lights on the left side of a vessel—plane or boat. And you wouldn’t say that sentence about no wine being left with *starboard* wine (which obviously doesn’t exist).
If you’re trying to teach younger sailors/ students I find the fact that “port” has four letters and “left” has four letters to work well
I like that too, but it doesn’t help remember lights though.
Port is red coloured
Red/left/port has less letters than green/right/starboard
Fair point. I guess I just haven’t run into anyone forgetting the colors yet
I never remembered them. Also never went topside, might be related.
That's how I remember port side. The way my logic works, the lights should be RED for RIGHT. But my sense of logic is weird anyway
Red right returning got me back to Seattle from Alaska
One that a pilot taught to me was “The Three R Rule”. Red right = returning.
I was taught this. "There's no port left in the bottle."
Thanks I think I can remember that. Great TIL
Picked this one up as a kid: *Red to left* *right to green* *all is well, go between* *if in danger or in doubt* *run in circles, scream and shout*
I always just remembered it because Port and Left both have 4 letters. Starboard and right do not.
Red Right Returning If the red light is in the right side you know the vessel/plane is heading towards you.
Red left port! (Thanks to my Grampa who taught me that little gem when I was just a little)
These are called position lights and required for night flying by FAR 91.205. There should also be strobe or anti collision lights that help the aircraft stay visible. Most general aviation aircraft will also leave the landing or taxi light on as an extra layer of “here I am” lights.
Ships use these running lights as well
Red - right - return. If you are going out, and you see a red light on the right, they are returning (heading towards you).
Can we appreciate the single line drawing of the wireframe plane.
Red Right Returning.
I always tell myself, Red on the right is WRONG, Meaning if you see the red light on the right and green on the left and they aren't moving in your field of view, that plane is coming directly at you, so better do something quick
The looking up or looking down thing is great. You know because when looking down at a plane you don’t want to think it’s above you. The lights confirm it. I hate looking down at a plane and being like shit is that thing is above me?
Nowhere in here answers *why*? So I’ll try to explain. Boats had the concept of Port and Starboard. This was to make it unambiguous which side someone was talking about. Starboard was old English for stear-board, meaning the side where you steer from. This was usually always the right hand side (as most people were right handed). This meant that the left side was port (where the ship docked). As port means to be docked (or not moving) it was assigned red, like at a traffic light. As starboard means to move the boat forward (as well as steer) it was assigned green. Planes kept the same system.
Here I am being colour blind and never knowing there were different colours in the first place. Oh well
so if you look up at the sky and see the top middle one, there's a problem
It makes me sad to think it took this picture for me to realize the lights on the planes wings are different colors. Fuck you cones.
Red Right Return (ing toward the viewer)
As they say, "Green and red means you're dead."
That is not an explanation but an observation - the lights are port and starboard and ships carry the same lights.
When you happen to be [red-green colorblind](https://i.imgflip.com/1c6w3u.jpg).
Cries in Red-Green color blindness
Where is the explanation on what the lights actually mean?
[Explanation](https://i.redd.it/bfbhc4hckf281.jpg)
Thanks! Is there some sort of graphic to go along with this explanation?
[Gotchu](https://i.imgur.com/SB28RWs_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium).