Watched Red Arrows land here some years ago. They gave a puff of smoke as they each turned onto base leg. Smart idea! You can suddenly pick them out much more clearly.
On my (private) plane there is no facility for electrics (therefore no strobes, radio, Txpr or Mode S) but there is a nice hole in the silencer where a drop of diesel could be injected. I wonder if we'd be better off spending more time legislating towards improvements that help "mk1 eyeball" rather than fancy electronic kit that may work most of the time?
My day job involves flying 767s, so I'm familiar with the fantastic TCAS that would probably have saved these lives had they been able to carry the $1000,000 / 10kg of kit that they'd need to bring it up to 767 level.
If anyone has experience of using smoke generating kit (pref UK) then I'd be grateful for a pm so I can pose a couple of tech questions.
Also, whilst I'm thinking, has there ever been an in-depth study of colours/markings for best visibility? I know Hawks are Black these days and that D-Day stripes are quite effective but is it true that yellow is not a good colour for spotting?