Visible Spectra of Standard Navy Colored Flares

The visible spectra, color data and output powers from standard U.S. Navy red, green and yellow signal flares are presented. The spectra were taken under essentially identical conditions on actual inservice U.S. Navy devices. The dominant emissions accounting for the output power in the flares are from the molecular bands of the alkaline earth oxides, hydroxides and chlorides in the red and green flares and from atomic sodium in the yellow flare.