[George83728]

There's an interesting question concerning why (most) US stealth aircraft are black. Black isn't the best color to make an aircraft invisible at night; a dark blueish gray is best for that. One possibility is that the radar absorbent material is inherently black so they don't have a choice, and indeed the U-2 was originally a dark blue color before it received a new black RAM paint. That is probably the real reason I think, but another possibility is that when missile and radar technology made visual intercepts less relevant, they were freed to paint these secretive aircraft a less optimal black, which everybody knows is the proper color for secretive aircraft.

Incidentally the new B-21 apparently won't be black. Maybe they have a new RAM paint formulation that doesn't force the choice of black.

[Tommstein]

Whatchu talkin' 'bout Willis? Neither the B-2, nor the F-22, nor the F-35 are black, they're all this bluish gray you mention, same as most non-stealth aircraft. The only stealth aircraft I can think of that was black was the F-117.

[George83728]

You're right that the F-22 and F-35 aren't black, but neither are they the blueish gray I'm talking about which is much darker: https://dragonladyhistory.com/2019/04/30/u-2-black-paint/ The B-2 also isn't very blueish, it's more on the dark gray end of the scale but I can see how that's subjective.

And you're forgetting the U-2 and SR-71, which lacked full blown RCS reduction geometry but were still fitted with the black RAM coating (the SR-71 also had some stealth geometry; that was the purpose of the chines.)