为什么飞机是白色的

The main reason why aircraft are painted white or light colors is to reflect sunlight and minimize both the heating and any potential damage from the solar radiation. It’s basically the same as putting sunblock on. For example, on a sunny day if you’re wearing a dark-colored shirt, you’ll heat up more than if you will if you’re wearing a white-colored shirt.

飞机被涂成白色或者浅色的原因是为了反射阳光，或者将太阳辐射造成的危害降到最低，这就和涂防晒霜一个道理。举个例子，在晴天，如果你穿深色的衣服，你就会觉着很热，而穿白色衣服就会好点儿。

The most important parts to keep a light color and protected from the sunlight are the parts that are plastic or composite materials. Carbon fiber, fiberglass, et cetera. Those tend to be the nose cone, which needs to be transparent because there’s a radar behind it so that’s a plastic material.

最需要涂成浅颜色，阻挡太阳光的部分是塑料以及合成材料，碳纤维，玻璃纤维等等。这些一般都是头锥体，都需要是透明的，因为之后放有雷达，所以是塑料材料。

And also, often in modern airplanes the control surfaces are made out of composite materials. So, they’ll normally be painted either white, or sometimes they’ll be painted a light grey color.

同样，在现代飞机中，飞行操纵界面是由合成材料制成。所以一般情况下，他们通常被涂成白色或者浅灰色。

There’s nothing wrong necessarily with painting an airplane a color. Another thing that tends to happen with the paint is, over time it will oxidize. So, if you’re painting something red, after a while when it’s exposed both to the sun and also environmental conditions, it’ll tend to kind of whiten up a little bit anyway ’cause of oxidization.

不过，把飞机涂成彩色也没什么不对。如果把飞机涂成彩色，有一个问题是，过段时间它就会氧化。所以，如果你把飞机涂成红色，过段时间，它就会由于氧化，变得越来越白了。

Some airlines, historically, have tried to use no paint at all. So, for a long time American Airlines had their airplanes just as metal-colored so that they didn’t have any protection, and again, it’s not a big deal for the metal parts. Problem is that those airplanes would start to tarnish over time so they had to spend time and money to polish them frequently. So, most airlines now have gone to light-colored paint airplanes.

历史上，一些公司尝试把飞机完全不涂色。所以在很长时间，美国航空所有的飞机都是金属色，没有任何防护。问题是，时间一长这些飞机就会生锈，所以必须花费时间打磨他们，所以最后大家还是选择把飞机涂成浅色。